Foster family requests Tate move, citing health concerns
By Associated Press
Published November 26, 2004
FORT LAUDERDALE - The family that agreed to take in Lionel Tate last month has requested he live with someone else.
Tate, the youngest person in modern U.S. history to be sentenced to life in prison, was accused of violating his probation by being out of his home overnight in early September.
Last month, a judge added five more years to the 10 years Tate had left on the original probation and warned him any other problems would land him back in jail.
The judge also allowed Tate, 17, to move in with an unidentified Broward County couple.
Tate was back in court Wednesday seeking permission to move to a third home. Judge Joel Lazarus will hear the issue Monday. At that hearing, Tate's attorney said an argument with his mother and a rejection from a culinary school sent him out of the home in frustration.
The members of the family with whom Tate is currently living have health problems and have said that the frequent visits by probation officers are too stressful.
Tate's guardian ad litem says he will recommend that Tate move back to his mother's Pembroke Park town house.
"She wants him home desperately," Howard Greitzer said. "'Only recently has he said to us, "I want to go back home."'
Tate was convicted of killing his 6-year-old playmate when he was 12. He was released from prison in January. The terms of his probation call for him to remain at home except for school, work or church, unless his probation officer gives permission.
