Prosecutors offer plea deal to teen already convicted in wrestl

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Prosecutors said Friday they would reoffer a 2001 plea deal, for three years in prison, to the teen convicted in the wrestling death of a playmate. The mother of Lionel Tate had rejected the original, resulting in a trial that led to the teen's life imprisonment.

The deal would let Tate, now 16, plead guilty to second-degree murder and accept a sentence of three years in prison, of which he has already served all but three months, State Attorney Michael J. Satz said in a statement.

The three-year sentence would be followed by a year of house arrest and 10 years' probation. Tate would also have to undergo psychological treatment.

Ron Ishoy, a Satz spokesman, said no agreement had been yet reached with the family.

"This plea was the right thing to do before the trial and it's the right thing to do now," Ishoy said.

Richard Rosenbaum, Tate's appellate attorney, said he expects his client to make a decision "in the next couple of weeks."

"I believe this is the best offer and the only way to get something better would be to go to trial and to win," Rosenbaum said.

Rosenbaum said the offer would mean Tate could be released from prison on approximately Jan. 25, 2004. But he stressed that it would be his client's choice to accept or reject the offer.

"My client is Lionel and while Lionel listens to his mom, it's his decision, not hers," Rosenbaum said.

Tate's mother, Kathleen Grossett-Tate, has "a few problems" with the offer, her attorney, Henry Hunter, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for its Saturday editions. Hunter said Tate's mother would prefer her son be allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter instead of second-degree murder, but did not cite any other specific issues to the newspaper.

Tate entered a maximum-security juvenile prison in January 2001, two years after he killed 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick when he was 12.

Satz said the offer was made after consulting with Deweese Eunick-Paul, Tiffany's mother, and the state's attorney general.

Glenn Roderman, an attorney who represents Tiffany's father, Mark James, said late Friday that the offered deal is "more than fair."

"I think he's a hell of a lucky kid," Roderman said in a telephone interview while vacationing in western Canada. "He should have taken it to begin with."

Attorney General Charlie Crist's office will ask for a rehearing Monday which would keep the case alive if Tate and his mother reject the latest plea offer, said spokeswoman Joann Carrin.

An appellate court in West Palm Beach threw out Lionel Tate's murder conviction and life sentence two weeks ago, saying his competency should have been evaluated. It ordered a new trial.

The appellate judges expressed concern about Tate's apparent immaturity and possible misunderstanding of a plea bargain that would have let him leave a juvenile facility as early as 10 months ago had he took the original deal.

Tate's attorneys said at trial that the boy accidentally killed Tiffany while mimicking wrestling moves he had seen on television.

"Lionel was 12 years old then and he was a child. He's now 16 years old and he's still a child, and he was treated more harshly as a child than some adults," his mother, a state trooper, said after lawyers made their appeal arguments last month. "It was clearly an accident then and it is still an accident."

Prosecutors said the 48-pound girl was punched, kicked and stomped by Tate, who weighed 170 pounds. The child was battered to the point that her liver was split, the jury was told.

Tate's sentence in January 2001 drew international criticism of Florida law that lets child murderers be tried as adults and locked away with no hope of parole. His mother and supporters brought the case to a United Nations human rights meeting in Geneva and took it to Pope John Paul II in Rome. His lawyers have requested clemency from the governor and the state's elected Cabinet, who make up the clemency board.

Though other states have similar laws, Florida prosecutes more children as adults than anywhere else.