12-07-2010, 07:32 PM
Boston Herald
A 21-year-old woman — marked for death before her key testimony led to the murder convictions of two South End gangbangers — was sentenced today to two to three years behind bars herself for perjury in a previous mistrial of the thrill-kill case.
Her prison plight sparked outrage in one Hub street preacher and sympathy from the slain college student’s mother.
The Rev. Eugene Rivers, co-founder of Boston’s TenPoint Coalition, said a harsh sentence for Latoya Thomas-Dickson will send the wrong message to would-be witnesses. Thomas-Dickson broke down in tears today when the sentence was announced. She was quickly taken away to MCI-Framingham.
“That is a moral, legal and political disgrace. She’s facing life for simply being scared in a high-profile murder case? That’s called justice?” he said. “For someone to cooperate (now), they’d have to be completely irrational.”
As she stood before Suffolk Superior Court Judge Carol S. Ball without a plea deal, Thomas-Dickson had an unlikely supporter in her corner: Natasha Steele, the Roxbury mother of slain 18-year-old Bunker Hill Community College student Cedirick Steele.
“I’m not angry with her. I’m grateful. I’m just sorry it took so long for her to get it right,” Steele said. “I just want her to know I’m here . . . It is only right that some time is served . . . My heart goes out to her and her mom, but I still don’t have my son.”
After two mistrials, Thomas-Dickson took the witness stand last month and told jurors she’d previously lied because associates of the accused men had threatened to kill her mother. That death threat came months after prosecutors said one of the jailed gangsters had said of Thomas-Dickson, “If she’s not history, I’m history.”
But that didn’t stop Thomas-Dickson from testifying that her ex-boyfriend, Daniel “Trap’’ Pinckney Jr. and fellow Mass Avenue Hornets gangster Antwan “Twizz” Carter, both 22, randomly executed Steele on a street corner in March 2007.
Thomas-Dickson, a former prostitute, was in the getaway car with the deadly duo and said she refused their attempts to get her to hide the murder weapon.
“Perjury is perjury, but she did a courageous thing for me, stepping up,” Natasha Steele said. “I could see the fear in her eyes and see she wanted to do the right thing.”
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley’s spokesman Jake Wark declined to say how much prison time prosecutors will push for. (They pushed for three to four years.)
“The truthful testimony she gave in the third trial mitigated some of the harm that was done,” Wark said, “but we have to send a message that lying to a jury is a serious offense and there will be consequences.”
Thomas-Dickson has been in 23-hour lockdown in a house of correction since her guilty plea last month, her attorney said.
Andrew Stockwell-Alpert would like her on probation “just long enough for her to get the hell out of here . . . I’m genuinely scared for her.”
Still, he said, Thomas-Dickson has “no regrets. None. She would do it again. I told her, ‘In the public’s eye, you’re a hero.’’’
A 21-year-old woman — marked for death before her key testimony led to the murder convictions of two South End gangbangers — was sentenced today to two to three years behind bars herself for perjury in a previous mistrial of the thrill-kill case.
Her prison plight sparked outrage in one Hub street preacher and sympathy from the slain college student’s mother.
The Rev. Eugene Rivers, co-founder of Boston’s TenPoint Coalition, said a harsh sentence for Latoya Thomas-Dickson will send the wrong message to would-be witnesses. Thomas-Dickson broke down in tears today when the sentence was announced. She was quickly taken away to MCI-Framingham.
“That is a moral, legal and political disgrace. She’s facing life for simply being scared in a high-profile murder case? That’s called justice?” he said. “For someone to cooperate (now), they’d have to be completely irrational.”
As she stood before Suffolk Superior Court Judge Carol S. Ball without a plea deal, Thomas-Dickson had an unlikely supporter in her corner: Natasha Steele, the Roxbury mother of slain 18-year-old Bunker Hill Community College student Cedirick Steele.
“I’m not angry with her. I’m grateful. I’m just sorry it took so long for her to get it right,” Steele said. “I just want her to know I’m here . . . It is only right that some time is served . . . My heart goes out to her and her mom, but I still don’t have my son.”
After two mistrials, Thomas-Dickson took the witness stand last month and told jurors she’d previously lied because associates of the accused men had threatened to kill her mother. That death threat came months after prosecutors said one of the jailed gangsters had said of Thomas-Dickson, “If she’s not history, I’m history.”
But that didn’t stop Thomas-Dickson from testifying that her ex-boyfriend, Daniel “Trap’’ Pinckney Jr. and fellow Mass Avenue Hornets gangster Antwan “Twizz” Carter, both 22, randomly executed Steele on a street corner in March 2007.
Thomas-Dickson, a former prostitute, was in the getaway car with the deadly duo and said she refused their attempts to get her to hide the murder weapon.
“Perjury is perjury, but she did a courageous thing for me, stepping up,” Natasha Steele said. “I could see the fear in her eyes and see she wanted to do the right thing.”
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley’s spokesman Jake Wark declined to say how much prison time prosecutors will push for. (They pushed for three to four years.)
“The truthful testimony she gave in the third trial mitigated some of the harm that was done,” Wark said, “but we have to send a message that lying to a jury is a serious offense and there will be consequences.”
Thomas-Dickson has been in 23-hour lockdown in a house of correction since her guilty plea last month, her attorney said.
Andrew Stockwell-Alpert would like her on probation “just long enough for her to get the hell out of here . . . I’m genuinely scared for her.”
Still, he said, Thomas-Dickson has “no regrets. None. She would do it again. I told her, ‘In the public’s eye, you’re a hero.’’’