Man sentenced in scheme
He gets 20 years for plot to kill witness
The planned trigger man in an elaborate plot to kill a homicide witness was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison, plus 15 years of supervision.
Lorenzo Beaton, 37, was one of four people charged in November with conspiring to kill John Spivey, who saw the July 2015 murder of Eddie Powe in the 2600 block of W. Port Sunlight Way.
The co-conspirators went as far as posting Spivey’s $7,500 bail to get him out of jail where he could be shot, after he rebuffed attempts to buy his silence in jail.
Spivey, still jailed on an unrelated case, spoke at Friday’s hearing. He said he assumed his bail had been posted by family down South until he saw the papers and didn’t recognize Beaton’s name. His family didn’t either.
“Thank God those investigators were there to save me and my family,” he said.
Beaton, Antonio “Tone” Smith, Shantrell “Peanut” Lyons and Shaheem M. Smith were all charged in November with conspiracy to commit first-degree intentional homicide.
Antonio Smith also is charged with killing Powe, 35, and then killing Powe’s girlfriend Breanna Eskridge, 17, who also witnessed Powe’s homicide.
Investigators learned of the plot to kill Spivey from Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office jail guards who detected suspicious chatter on inmate calls and intervened to move Spivey as the conspirators waited outside the jail for him to come out.
Circuit Judge J.D. Watts told Beaton his record — several prior convictions, prison terms and revoked probation terms — was poor, and especially noted that he had two prior convictions for having a gun, yet had one again in the Spivey case.
Watts said the gravity of the offense was aggravated because it was an attempt to subvert the justice system, not just kill someone.
He gave Beaton credit for accepting responsibility and cooperating once he was arrested. Beaton pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to commit first-degree intentional homicide and being a felon in possession of a firearm. According to court records: Under direction from Antonio Smith, who was in jail, Beaton posted Spivey’s bail Nov. 2 under a cover story that Spivey’s parents were ill. He and Lyons were waiting outside the jail to get Spivey. When Spivey didn’t appear, they walked around the Safety Building asking about him.
After his arrest, Beaton told authorities that he, Lyons and Smith were armed and ready to shoot Spivey when they found him. Beaton told police his plan was to shoot him “on sight,” that he was the “trigger man” and he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison. But Beaton also told authorities he intended to back out of the plan and not actually kill Spivey.
On Friday, after hearing Spivey say the stress of the incident led to a seizure, and scared his mother so much she died from stress, Beaton apologized.
“I never even thought about it from his side, the turmoil, the hardship,” Beaton said. “I am truly apologetic about your moms.”