Lionel Tate Video

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2 seconds[Music]

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9 secondsthis has to be one of the most heartbreaking stories that we’ve ever seen can you imagine going to jail at only 14 years old wouldn’t that be so

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17 secondsscary most of us would probably freak out first you get to miss out on a lot of life you don’t get to hang out with

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24 secondsyour friends you’ll probably miss out on prom and worst of all you’re separated from the family that you love so much but a crime is a crime and when you

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33 secondscommit a crime below the age of 16 years old in most states you end up in a juvenile detention center and lionel tate’s case was no different only this

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42 secondstime his crime cost him his childhood and his freedom at only 14 years of age lionel was sentenced to life in prison

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51 secondsin 2001. it was the first time such a sentencing was carried out on a child so young yet despite his age the judge gave

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59 secondslionel life in prison without the possibility of parole but what did he do to deserve such a harsh sentencing

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1 minute, 6 seconds[Music]

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1 minute, 11 secondslionel tate committed his horrific crime in pembroke park florida on july 28 1999.

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1 minute, 18 secondsat the time lionel’s mother kathleen grossett tate was in the kitchen whipping up a hot plate for the kids who were in the living room she was asked by

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1 minute, 26 secondsone of her close friends dewice eunich to watch her daughter tiffany unic for the evening the two ladies were childhood friends and had grown up in jamaica together before moving to the

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1 minute, 34 secondsunited states so duise had no concerns at all about leaving her daughter to one of her closest friends while kathleen cooked dinner her son

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1 minute, 42 secondslionel was in the living room with tiffany once kathleen finished dinner she served the kids something to eat and then sat down with them to watch

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1 minute, 49 secondstelevision but kathleen got tired so she decided to head upstairs to her bedroom to have a little rest meanwhile lionel and tiffany were left downstairs

1:57

1 minute, 57 secondswatching television or so it seemed at about 10 pm kathleen heard scuffles coming from downstairs she thought the

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2 minutes, 5 secondskids were probably playing and running around so she yelled from upstairs for them to quiet down but here’s the biggest mistake that kathleen tate

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2 minutes, 12 secondsregrets to this day she didn’t go downstairs to check on them 40 minutes later at around 10 40 p.m

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2 minutes, 19 secondslionel goes up the stairs he goes into his mother’s room and tells her that tiffany is completely still and not breathing at all kathleen is

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2 minutes, 27 secondsshell-shocked according to lionel’s version of the story he and tiffany were copying a couple of wrestling moves that they had seen on tv from a popular

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2 minutes, 35 secondswrestling promotion company lionel at the time was 170 pounds and was wrestling a 48 pound tiffany before she

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2 minutes, 43 secondsstopped breathing the poor girl had no chance lionel told his mother that he had put tiffany in a headlock before she accidentally bumped her head on the edge

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2 minutes, 51 secondsof the table sadly he describes what could have been poor tiffany eunuch’s final moments before she died according to lionel she

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2 minutes, 59 secondswas rolling all over the floor and sobbing lionel was not amused so he decided to ignore her and watch another television program and by this time he

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3 minutes, 8 secondsdecided to go up the stairs and tell his mother that tiffany was not breathing the girl’s body was cold as ice being

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3 minutes, 15 secondsonly 48 pounds tiffany was a third of the size of lionel tate she would have been a sitting duck for him regardless of whether they were only playing or

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3 minutes, 23 secondsfighting for real but the question on everyone’s mind at the time was this had lionel intentionally attacked a vulnerable girl or was he just an

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3 minutes, 32 secondsinnocent kid that was trying to copy some of the wrestling moves he had seen on tv not aware of how dangerous those moves were but most experts that

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3 minutes, 40 secondsinvestigated this case strongly believed that lionel had evil intentions there is simply no way a kid that young copying

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3 minutes, 48 secondswrestling moves would have been this aggressive according to medical examinations carried out on tiffany’s body the poor girl got a serious

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3 minutes, 57 secondsand suffered a lot before she died lionel had beaten her so bad that she had a broken rib her head had been

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4 minutes, 5 secondsand tossed around so that she had a cracked skull and was in the brain tiffany had also been hit

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4 minutes, 12 secondsso many times on her body that she had damaged kidneys a deeply cut liver and multiple bruises all over her body

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4 minutes, 20 secondsaccording to medical reports this beating would have lasted for about five minutes and was carried out with a lot of rage one expert in court would even

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4 minutes, 29 secondstestify that the force of the beating was the same as someone falling from a three-story building but this was not the first time that lionel was having

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4 minutes, 38 secondsissues with aggression were there warning signs early on some experts believe so in fact this was not the first time that lionel had shown he had

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4 minutes, 46 secondsserious issue with being violent before tiffany lionel had been suspended from school 15 times for being rowdy and a

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4 minutes, 54 secondsbully to others he had also shown other problems that had not been addressed for example he liked to steal and lie he didn’t play well with others and would

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5 minutes, 2 secondsoccasionally fight with kids from school in the neighborhood now knowing all this does some of the blame fall on kathleen for seeing her son’s previous history of

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5 minutes, 11 secondsviolence and still leaving him with a vulnerable girl you be the judge of that and let us know in the comment section below

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5 minutes, 17 seconds[Music]

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5 minutes, 22 secondsin 2001 lionel went on trial for murdering tiffany while the trial was no doubt depressing because a young

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5 minutes, 29 secondsdefenseless girl had died it became a landmark ruling in the united states this would be the first time that a

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5 minutes, 36 secondschild would be sentenced to life in prison without the option of parole but the most heartbreaking moment of the

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5 minutes, 43 secondstrial had to be when a taped video of lionel reenacting the incident was shown in court in the video lionel shows a defense psychiatrist what he was doing

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5 minutes, 52 secondsto tiffany minutes before she died the mother of the victim dewis couldn’t help but shed tears as she watched the video

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5 minutes, 59 secondshowever the prosecution led by ken padowitz claimed that the video was played out thanks to assistance from

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6 minutes, 6 secondsjoel class the defense psychiatrist he had coached lionel on what to say and act before they recorded the

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6 minutes, 13 secondsdemonstration the video was brought to court by the defense in order to argue the point that lionel was suffering from a wrestling addiction but the

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6 minutes, 22 secondsprosecution wasn’t amused with this angle that the defense was taking especially padowitz i’m concerned that

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6 minutes, 28 secondsif the wrestling defense is allowed this trial won’t be about defendant lionel tate’s actions during the trial padowitz

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6 minutes, 36 secondsalso claimed that lionel’s defense was trying to show that lionel had a serious mental issue known as diminished capacity to reduce the seriousness of

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6 minutes, 45 secondshis actions while the prosecution believed that lionel did not intentionally kill tiffany he severely beat her and it’s this beating that led

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6 minutes, 53 secondsto the girl’s final moments on this earth however the defense that was led by attorney jim lewis claimed that the

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7 minutesfatal incident was purely accidental lewis argued this was an accident it was not something that had a motive to it

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7 minutes, 8 secondslike many teens in america lionel was obsessed with wrestling from the late 90s and early 2000s era which had some

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7 minutes, 15 secondsof its highest viewership at the time wrestlers were seen in the same limelight as hollywood celebrities according to lewis lionel must surely

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7 minutes, 23 secondshave developed an obsession without knowing it why because he was too immature to realize this and so he had no idea that practicing life-threatening

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7 minutes, 32 secondswrestling moves on a defenseless 48 pound girl could cost her her life lionel weighed about 170 pounds at the time over three times her body weight

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7 minutes, 41 secondsthe defense psychiatrist joel class truly believed that lionel had no idea how powerful and impactful his punches

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7 minutes, 49 secondswere the force of his punches were so destructive that the autopsy revealed that a part of her liver was detached

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7 minutes, 56 secondsand according to a forensic pathologist that was called to the stand by the prosecution this injury could not have been caused by the demonstration that

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8 minutes, 5 secondslionel and the defense had recorded in lionel’s defense class claimed that at the time lionel was not as emotionally

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8 minutes, 11 secondsmature as most boys his age and so he might not have known that he was hurting tiffany at least not as badly as he was

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8 minutes, 19 secondshowever the prosecution presented psychological tests that showed that lionel had an average iq at worst despite scoring seriously low on the end

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8 minutes, 28 secondsof average now back to the video which was recorded in kathleen’s living room where tiffany died in the video lionel

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8 minutes, 35 secondswent on to show how he wrestled with tiffany pushing her hard she lost her balance stumbled and hit her back badly on the couch which made her start crying

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8 minutes, 44 secondslionel then demonstrated that he went on to hit her about 40 times after he was done hitting her lionel asked her if she

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8 minutes, 51 secondswanted to play ropes where one wrestler throws another wrestler towards the ropes where they bounce back according to lionel’s claim in the video tiffany

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8 minutes, 59 secondsagreed so he grabbed her by the arm and swung her with all his strength she went body first into the metal banister on the staircase in the video lionel claims

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9 minutes, 8 secondsthat after seeing she was hurt he went to the kitchen to get some ice for her injured head but suddenly tiffany stood up and went up the stairs to the toilet

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9 minutes, 16 secondswhere she started throwing up this is usually a pretty clear sign of a concussion an injury that would have been super serious for a girl tiffany’s

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9 minutes, 25 secondsage according to lionel when tiffany returned downstairs from the bathroom she decided to lie on a pillow that was on the ground she then started crying

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9 minutes, 34 secondsand making noises like she was in pain but at this point lionel claims that he thought she was only sleeping because she had closed her eyes she threw up one

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9 minutes, 42 secondsfinal time before going quiet and that’s when lionel went up the stairs to tell his mom something was wrong who then came down and tried to give the girl cpr

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9 minutes, 50 secondsunfortunately tiffany was pronounced at the hospital in a truly heartbreaking moment in the video for both mothers

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9 minutes, 57 secondslionel claimed that he and tiffany both liked each other and got along pretty well and according to defense psychiatrist joel class lionel was

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10 minutes, 6 secondstelling the truth i have not in two dozen sessions with tate seen one iota of malice toward tiffany however the

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10 minutes, 15 secondsprosecution didn’t buy it they told the court that lionel had a long history of being aggressive with others significantly smaller than him going

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10 minutes, 23 secondsback to when he was in kindergarten what’s even more interesting during the trial is that lionel’s story kept on changing at first he had said that

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10 minutes, 31 secondstiffany might have from a bear hug that he gave her however he later changed his story to say that he wrestled her before

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10 minutes, 38 secondsher four times and in the video lionel gave yet another version of what took place that evening but one thing didn’t seem to add up according to the

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10 minutes, 47 secondsprosecution why didn’t the video explain some of the serious 30-plus injuries that tiffany suffered that contributed

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10 minutes, 54 secondsto her passing why were there so many plot holes in lionel’s version of the story it just didn’t add up in his defense joel class told the court that

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11 minutes, 3 secondslionel had confessed to him that he had at first lied to the police about what had taken place because he was scared to go to jail yeah after seeing all the

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11 minutes, 12 secondssupposed evidence the judge and jury were annoyed about one thing why didn’t this reenacted video show that tiffany

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11 minutes, 18 secondshad asked or even begged lionel to stop hitting her she surely must have felt the pain right during the trial the

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11 minutes, 26 secondsprosecution first offered lionel to take a plea deal for a lesser charge of second-degree homicide this means he knew what he was doing could kill

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11 minutes, 34 secondstiffany but he didn’t plan to end her life before the incident but in this deal he would serve a three-year prison term but the defense and lionel’s mom

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11 minutes, 42 secondswere not having it they rejected the plea deal and instead chose the option to plead lionel’s innocence to first degree homicide with the hopes that

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11 minutes, 50 secondslionel would be acquitted according to kathleen and the defense they argued that the incident was completely accidental and that he was simply

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11 minutes, 58 secondsimitating the moves of one of his favorite wrestling shows at the time lionel’s trial had made national news and the whole of america was watching

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12 minutes, 6 secondskeenly what judgment would be given it’s safe to say that there and then lionel’s life was in the jury’s hands after two weeks of deliberating the jury finally

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12 minutes, 15 secondscame back with their verdict lionel was guilty of first degree homicide and he would be sentenced to life in prison

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12 minutes, 22 secondswithout the option of parole the news entirely broke kathleen’s heart lionel was also scared and he cried as the

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12 minutes, 30 secondsauthorities handcuffed him and whisked him away from the courtroom to start his new life in prison as soon as his conviction was handed several people

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12 minutes, 38 secondsfollowing the trial felt that this sentence was unfairly given how can you sentence a teenage boy to life in prison

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12 minutes, 45 secondsthey came out in great numbers to plead for the courts to be more lenient on lionel in a shocking turn of events even the lawyers that led the prosecution

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12 minutes, 54 secondsfelt the sentence was harsh the judge in charge of the case responded to the prosecution with this if they felt the sentence was too harsh why did they

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13 minutes, 2 secondscharge him with first-degree homicide in the first place

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13 minutes, 6 seconds[Music]

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13 minutes, 9 secondsbut this wasn’t the end of the road for lionel tate he would go on to get a second chance in life after serving roughly three years in prison an appeals

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13 minutes, 17 secondscourt decided to revisit his conviction and change his sentencing in 2003 because they felt that the boy had not been given a mental competency hearing

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13 minutes, 26 secondsbefore being tried and sentenced during the appeal hearing lionel’s defense decided to have lionel plead guilty to second-degree homicide and the state

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13 minutes, 34 secondsdecided not to retry him instead they gave him the same deal that his mother and his defense had turned down roughly two and a half years ago fortunately the

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13 minutes, 43 secondsappeals court ruled that because he had already served nearly two years of the sentence in a juvenile facility his new sentencing would allow him a full year

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13 minutes, 52 secondsof house arrest counseling that he couldn’t miss 1 000 hours of community service and 10 years on probation after

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14 minuteslionel’s defense agreed to the new sentencing lionel tate was allowed to walk free in january of 2004 yet despite

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14 minutes, 8 secondstasting freedom he had to live with a monitoring ankle bracelet for the next 10 years sadly lionel tate’s second

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14 minutes, 15 secondschance in life only would lead to another downward spiral perhaps lionel was too far gone to be rehabilitated who

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14 minutes, 22 secondsknows whatever the case may be the teen seemed to find himself in trouble once more and facing the law head on in september of 2004 lionel was found by

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14 minutes, 31 secondsauthorities outside his home in the possession of a large blade which was against one of the violations of his parole when he was brought to the

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14 minutes, 39 secondscourtroom once more the judge had no option but to extend his probation by an additional five years bringing it to 15.

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14 minutes, 47 secondshe also told him that if he was ever found in violation of his parole once more he would find himself locked up in

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14 minutes, 54 secondsprison for about eight months lionel managed to stay away from trouble and avoid any confrontations with the law

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15 minutesbut in may 2005 lionel’s run of good luck and fortune finally ran out after the police rounded up a few suspects

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15 minutes, 8 secondsincluding lionel the teen was found guilty of violating his parole by participating in an armed burglary

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15 minutes, 15 secondsaccording to reports the pizza man that had been robbed identified lionel as the one holding the weapon lionel was also

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15 minutes, 22 secondscharged with armed burglary with battery certain that the court wouldn’t take it easy on him this time around lionel told the judge that someone had been

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15 minutes, 30 secondswhispering in his head and telling him to end his life the judge therefore ordered a psyche vow to be carried out on lionel the evaluation found lionel to

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15 minutes, 40 secondsbe capable of critical thinking and therefore he had no option but to stand trial unfortunately for lionel the prosecution had overwhelming evidence

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15 minutes, 49 secondsagainst him and so lionel pleaded guilty to being in the possession of a firearm which was a major violation of his

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15 minutes, 56 secondsparole in a stern voice the judge clearly said before giving out his verdict lionel tate you have run out of

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16 minutes, 4 secondssecond chances in 2008 lionel’s defense decided to plead no contest to the charges linked to the robbery in turn

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16 minutes, 12 secondsthe court sentenced him to 10 years in prison which was to be served together with the 30 year sentence he had been

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16 minutes, 19 secondsgiven for violating his parole lionel tate is currently in prison serving his time and he’s not happy about it to this day he claims that he was innocent and

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16 minutes, 27 secondsnot involved in the pizza robbery case at all lionel argues that it was another man who looked exactly like him that had committed the robbery could it be a case

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16 minutes, 36 secondsof mistaken identity perhaps however one of lionel’s close friends who was interviewed by the police made a

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16 minutes, 43 secondsstatement that he clearly saw lionel commit the robbery moral of the story don’t pass up on second chances in fact

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16 minutes, 51 secondsdon’t take them for granted at all perhaps lionel tate could have turned his life around and become an important contributor to society however some

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16 minutes, 59 secondspeople have come to lionel’s defense claiming that his mother didn’t raise him right and that’s why he was so rowdy from such a young age could this be true

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17 minutes, 7 secondsor maybe lionel was just a bad apple that couldn’t play well with others we’ll never know one thing we’re pretty sure of is that he’s now serving prison

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17 minutes, 16 secondstime perhaps he might decide to reform and come out in 15 years a changed man we’ll have to wait and see so with that

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17 minutes, 23 secondsbeing said we’ve come to the end of this video let us know whether you think it was fair for lionel tate to get a life sentence at such a young age plus if

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