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Lionel Tate kept in jail

FORT LAUDERDALE - A Broward circuit judge refused to release Lionel Tate on bail Thursday after hearing new evidence linking the 18-year-old convicted murderer to the armed robbery of a pizza delivery man.

Judge Joel Lazarus appeared unswayed by a new statement from a 13-year-old witness recanting his earlier identification of Tate as the perpetrator.

Under Lazarus' order issued after a five-hour hearing, Tate, who had been on probation as a result of a plea agreement in the slaying of a 6-year-old girl, will be held without bail until an Aug. 8 probation revocation hearing.

The new evidence was introduced by Broward County sheriff's Detective Anthony Delpozzo. It included a series of cell phone text messages between Tate and a 16-year-old boy in which they appear to be plotting a robbery. But the boy, Willie Corothers, denies involvement in the May 23 robbery, Delpozzo said.

One text message from Tate to Corothers said, "You still want to bust that lick after school?" Delpozzo said "lick" is a street term for an armed robbery.

Delpozzo interviewed Corothers late Wednesday after Tate's attorney, James Lewis, released a transcript of a statement by Taquincy Tomkins, 13, contradicting his earlier statement to police blaming Tate. In the new statement given to a private investigator, Tomkins said it was Corothers who robbed the pizza delivery man at gunpoint, that Tate only placed the telephone order for pizzas.

Delpozzo testified that Corothers admitted to being at the Pembroke Park apartment complex where the robbery occurred and to eating some of the pizza. But Corothers said he did not take part in the crime and only engaged in the text message exchange with Tate "because he wanted to fit in," Delpozzo said.

Tate faces a return to prison for a possible life sentence if his probation is revoked. He was put on probation last year as part of an agreement to plead guilty to second-degree murder after an appeals court overturned his first-degree murder conviction and life sentence in the 1999 killing of family friend Tiffany Eunick, 6.

[Last modified June 24, 2005, 00:46:17]