Former ‘Sweetie Pie’s’ TV Star Tim Norman Gets Two Life Sentences in Nephew’s Death
Former St. Louis reality TV star James “Tim” Norman was sentenced to two life sentences Thursday for orchestrating a plot to kill his nephew that featured fraudulent life insurance policies, cash payouts and years of coverups.
U.S. District Judge John A. Ross sentenced Norman to life sentences on two murder-for-hire counts Thursday morning, calling the evidence at trial “overwhelming” proof that Norman masterminded the March 2014 St. Louis killing of his 21-year-old nephew Andre Montgomery.
“It was a cold-blooded, incredibly premeditated, planned execution of your nephew,” Ross said before sentencing.
A jury found Norman guilty in a September trial that captured national attention. Both Norman and his nephew starred in “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s,” a long-running OWN reality show about the popular soul-food business founded by Robbie Montgomery — Norman’s mother and Andre’s grandmother — in the St. Louis area.
Several of Montgomery’s family members, including his mother Michell Griggs, asked in court Thursday that Norman be sentenced to life.
“His greed has hurt so many people,” Griggs said. “Not just my family.”
Witnesses during the trial testified Norman hired his nephew’s shooter, Travell Anthony Hill, for $5,000 and paid $10,000 to an exotic dancer, Terica Ellis, to lure Montgomery to his death in north St. Louis.
Prosecutors presented evidence that Norman then attempted to cash out up to $450,000 in a fraudulent life insurance policy he took out on Montgomery and told Ellis to stay quiet.
Norman declined to speak on his own behalf in court Thursday, but he claimed his innocence in a recent social media post. His attorneys submitted several letters from family and friends asking for leniency on his behalf before sentencing, including from Norman’s mother and founder of the Sweetie Pie’s restaurants Robbie Montgomery.
“I am writing to you to ask for mercy for my son. As a mother, I am devastated that my son has been accused and convicted of the crimes,” Robbie Montgomery wrote the judge.
She added that her older son was killed when Norman was 15 years old. Norman’s father was also killed when he was a child.
“I don’t know whether Tim did what he was accused and convicted of,” she wrote. “He is still the baby that I bore, and I love him as every mother involved loves their child.”
Norman broke into tears several times during four hours of trial testimony, telling the jury he enlisted Ellis and Hill to find his nephew, but not kill him. He said he wanted to confront Montgomery about a recent burglary at his mother’s home.
Ellis was sentenced to three years in prison last month after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder for hire in the case. Hill pleaded guilty to two murder-for-hire counts and was sentenced to 32 years in prison in October.
Norman’s defense attorney Mike Leonard argued in court Thursday that a life sentence for Norman would be disproportionate.
He will serve “double or more the time of the individual who said he shot Andre of his own accord,” Leonard said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Angie Danis responded that Hill would not have killed Montgomery if it wasn’t for Norman.
Norman presented a successful face to the public, Danis told the judge, but was “far more sinister underneath.”
The post Former ‘Sweetie Pie’s’ TV Star Tim Norman Gets Two Life Sentences in Nephew’s Death was originally published by Erin Heffernan on St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
