Former ‘Sweetie Pie’ star Tim Norman gets life in nephew’s murder
ST. LOUIS — The former star of the St. Louis-based reality show “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s” was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for arranging the shooting death of his nephew in order to collect life insurance. life.
James “Tim” Norman did not speak for himself during the sentencing hearing in the March 2016 murder of his 21-year-old nephew, Andre Montgomery Jr. Both men had starred on the long-running show reality show OWN about the soul of the family. food company in the Saint-Louis area.
Norman’s lawyers submitted several letters from family and friends asking for clemency, including from Norman’s mother and founder of Sweetie Pie restaurants, Robbie Montgomery.
“I don’t know if Tim did what he was charged and convicted of,” wrote Robbie Montgomery, who is also the victim’s grandmother. “He is still the baby I carried and I love him like all the mothers involved love their child.”
Prosecutors say Norman took out a $450,000 life insurance policy on Montgomery and arranged to have him lured to a street in St. Louis, where another man shot him .
Several members of Andre Montgomery’s family, including his mother, Michell Griggs, have called for Norman to be given a life sentence, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. U.S. District Judge John A. Ross handed him two life sentences, calling it “the cold-blooded, incredibly premeditated, planned execution of your nephew.”
Norman was convicted in September of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, murder for hire and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Travell Anthony Hill admitted shooting Montgomery in exchange for $5,000. Hill, 31, of St. Louis, was sentenced in October to 32 years in prison. Terica Taneisha Ellis, now 39, of Memphis, Tennessee, was sentenced to three years in prison after admitting Norman paid her $10,000 to find Montgomery and tell Hill where he was.
A fourth person, insurance agent Waiel “Wally” Rebhi Yaghnam, was sentenced to three years in prison for helping Norman fraudulently take out multiple insurance policies and file a claim on the life insurance policy of Montgomery.