Child killer goes back to prison

Sara Olkon:

At one point, Lionel Tate had the whole world nudging at Gov. Jeb Bush to give the young killer a break.

But on Wednesday, seven years after Tate pummeled his 6-year-old playmate to death, the 19-year-old stood up and faced his first day of adult reckoning.

No longer a pudgy, tearful child, the one-time aspiring chef stood up and admitted to a Broward judge that he held up a Domino's pizza delivery man, violated the terms of his probation and broke his jail-cell door.

The plea deal will send him back to prison for 10 to 30 years. His sentencing is set for April 3. Had his robbery case gone to trial, Tate could have faced two life terms.

"The proof was overwhelming," said Ellis Rubin, Tate's attorney. "This was the only professional and ethical thing to do."

Tate grew up Broward's most infamous teenager after he was sentenced to life without parole at 14 for the killing of Tiffany Eunick two years earlier. An appeals court overturned the conviction and a plea agreement led to his release in January 2004.

Numerous additional scrapes with the law wore at the patience of his once-impassioned supporters.

In September 2004, Tate admitted to Acting Circuit Judge Joel Lazarus that he violated the terms of probation by leaving his home in the middle of the night -- he was under house arrest -- with a pocketknife. The judge gave him another chance, but tacked on five years to Tate's 10-year probation and issued a clear warning that he would have "zero tolerance" for future violations.

Jaws dropped in late May after the Pembroke Park teen was arrested on charges that he robbed a pizza delivery man at gunpoint. The loot: Four pizzas (pepperoni, ham, sausage and plain).

Then last fall, BSO jail officials said Tate broke his jail-cell door.

And in December, Tate wrote the judge saying he was hearing voices and wanted to kill himself. He later admitted that he had made that up.

Wearing a brown string bracelet for luck on Wednesday, Tate remained stoic throughout the proceeding. "Yes, sir," Tate said to Lazarus when asked if he understood his guilty plea.

Outside the courtroom, Assistant State Attorney Chuck Morton said Tiffany Eunick's mother agreed to the deal. Morton called it "an opportunity to avoid spending the rest of his life in jail."

But Tate's mother, Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Kathleen Grossett-Tate, was less than satisfied. Standing teary-eyed before a row of television cameras, she shook her head when Rubin told reporters that the teenager's admission of guilt had been truthful.

Shortly after, Grossett-Tate sparred with Bobbie Duncan, a religious mother of five from Lauderhill who has become a benefactor of sorts for the troubled teen. Formerly a friend of Tate's mother, Duncan paid Rubin $1,000 to take the case and recently purchased street clothes so that Tate would not be stuck wearing jail garb in court.

Duncan blamed Grossett-Tate for all of the teenager's troubles, going as far as to call her "the devil." Grossett-Tate, in turn, said Duncan was playing to the cameras for attention.

For his part, the robbery victim, delivery man Walter Ernesto Gallardo, said he felt sorry for Tate and didn't want to see him shuttered off in prison.

"The boy has a future," Gallardo said in a phone interview. "He needs rehabilitation; he needs help."

But Howard Greitzer, a former advocate for Tate, said the teenager was well aware when he got sprung in 2004 that he had better behave.

"There was never a time he didn't understand that he had been given his life back," Greitzer said. "At what point do we make Lionel Tate responsible for his own actions?"

Clueless Tate finally makes a smart decision

Florida Man Who Killed at 12 Takes Deal in Holdup

Teen using wrestling defense found guilty of murder

The Inversion of Compassion

The bullying boy and his mindless mommy