Two men convicted for their respective parts in a deadly month-long Atlanta crime spree were sentenced Wednesday, with one getting multiple life sentences.
Tamario Wise, considered the leader of the “Jack Boys ” gang, was found guilty of murder, rape and dozens of counts of armed robbery for a string of crimes in 2010, including the murder of Charles Boyer in Virginia-Highland and the rape of a Grant Park woman.
A Fulton County Superior Court judge sentenced Wise, 19, to life without the possibility of parole, plus 14 additional life sentences and 290 years in prison, Channel 2 Action News reported.
Wise and co-defendant Robert Veal were found guilty Oct. 11 of a multitude offenses in a 90-count indictment that included charges of murder, rape, sodomy, aggravated assault and false imprisonment.
Veal was not in court Wednesday because his attorney wasn’t there, Channel 2 said. He is expected to be in court Monday and could get up to eight life sentences and 140 years.
Wise and Veal participated in a violent string of robberies that began in mid-October 2010, prosecutors said. Their crime spree peaked the night of Nov. 22, 2010, prosecutors said, when Wise and Veal, along with a third man, prosecutorial witness Raphael Cross, robbed Boyer and his girlfriend outside a Virginia-Highland apartment, fatally shooting Boyer.
Hours later, they tied up two men at a Grant Park apartment while they robbed them and raped a woman who lived there, a jury found.
A third co-defendant, 22-year-old Fernandez Whatley, was convicted of armed robbery, hijacking a vehicle, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and cruelty to children for a home invasion and robbery he helped Wise with on Nov. 27 in Atlanta’s Benteen Park neighborhood.
Whatley was sentenced to 30 years in prison followed by 40 years of probation.
All three men were convicted of participating in criminal gang activity – a charge against someone who overtly claims membership in a gang or associates with one while committing a crime.
Cross will be tried at a later time, authorities said.
About the Author
