By Kevin Deutsch
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A killer who declared himself a “sovereign citizen” immune from the state court’s authority was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison Monday for murdering a Bronx father of three outside a local school.
Dwayne Reid, 48, of Larchmont, carried out the execution-style shooting of Lamont Smith, 45, on the morning of May 21, 2014 in front of of P.S. 112 in Baychester, prosecutors said.
A day before the incident, Reid, who was acquainted with Smith, helped the victim move equipment for his business using a U-Haul van, authorities said.
The next morning, he shot Smith three times with a .38-caliber revolver outside the school on East 229th Street, fleeing in the same U-Haul van.
He was arrested later that morning at his mother’s nearby home, where police also found the murder weapon, prosecutors said.
“First the defendant shot the victim, a father of three children, in the back and then stood over the victim and shot him two more times in the head,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said after Reid’s sentencing. “This atrocious violence happened on the street in front of a school at 9 a.m. I hope the victim’s family will have a measure of justice with this prison sentence.”
Reid never offered a motive for the slaying, after which he pleaded not guilty. Following his arrest, he declared himself a sovereign citizen and rejected the court’s authority to conduct his trial.
He was assigned five different lawyers, causing the trial to be delayed numerous times, authorities said. He was finally convicteed last month after a jury trial, leading to Monday’s sentencing.
Bronx Supreme Court Justice Steven Barrett also sentenced Reid to ten years in prison and five years post-release supervision for weapon possession, to run concurrently with his second-degree murder sentence.