The son of reality star Robbie Montgomery, who owns Sweetie Pie’s restaurant, has been found guilty of commissioning a murder-for-hire plot that resulted in the death of his teenage nephew back in 2016.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Missouri confirmed that this week 41-year-old James Timothy Norman was found guilty on charges including conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and murder-for-hire resulting in death.
It took the jury 17 hours to arrive at the decision, and the criminal complaint made against Norman accused him of conspiring with an exotic dancer living in Tennessee alongside others to ‘use a facility of interstate commerce, namely, a cellular telephone, to commit a murder-for-hire in exchange for United States currency’.
However, Norman insisted to jurors that he was ‘supporting his nephew financially’ and had moved the relative to a new home 18 months before he was killed because he was ‘trying to watch out for him’.
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Norman told the jury: “This is my brother’s kid, so I tried my best to step in and be a father figure. I tried my best to show him right from wrong and tried to be a friend at the same time.”
Reporting on the verdict, CNN published a statement from US Attorney Sayler Fleming issued after the jury’s decision was announced.
Fleming said: “Mr. Norman’s crimes were motivated by greed and while the evidence was voluminous and overwhelming, Mr. Norman’s plan was relatively straightforward.
“He fraudulently obtained life insurance in the amount of $450,000 on his nephew, Andre Montgomery, without Mr. Montgomery’s knowledge, he then used a paramour to locate Mr. Montgomery and a co-defendant to fatally shoot and kill him.”
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Fleming added: “Within days of his nephew’s murder, Mr. Norman started the process of getting the insurance company to pay the claim.”
Of Norman’s sentencing, set for 15 December, Fleming noted: “He is looking at a statutory penalty range of up to life imprisonment.”
Norman’s defence attorney Mike Leonard said he was ‘surprised and disappointed’ by the outcome.
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“[Norman] is an amazingly optimistic and strong guy. So he’s been in custody for quite a long time already. He had to sit through the deliberations by himself, and he's [a] very strong person,” Leonard said.
Montgomery starred in Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s, a reality show that followed her family’s running of the business. Norman appeared often on the show, which ran between 2011 and 2018.
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Topics: Crime, US News, Celebrity, Film and TV