Boyd to Request Sentence Leniency

A serial robber convicted as an accessory to a carjacking-turned-torture slaying wants a sentencing break for leading authorities to the alleged killer he helped hide from police.

In a motion filed by attorney Phil Lomonaco in the run-up to a sentencing hearing next week, Eric Dewayne “E” Boyd is hoping U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan will accept the defense a jury earlier this year rejected and show him leniency as a result.

“Eric Boyd assisted in the apprehension of Lemaricus Davidson, the very person he was accused of aiding and abetting,” Lomonaco wrote in the motion. “Without Eric Boyd’s help, the apprehension of Lemaricus Davidson would not have occurred in anywhere near a timely fashion.”

Lomonaco made a similar argument at Boyd’s April trial on charges he helped Davidson hide from police in the days following the January 2007 slayings of University of Tennessee student Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, 23. Federal prosecutors David Jennings and Tracy Stone countered that Boyd only led authorities to Davidson after Boyd himself was nabbed as an accessory.

The pair made an even bolder claim about Boyd at trial — he may well have been involved in the carjacking and resulting killings. State prosecutors so far, however, have not added Boyd’s name to the list of four slaying suspects, including Davidson, who face separate capital murder trials beginning in January.

Christian’s mother, Deena Christian, on Tuesday scoffed at Boyd’s bid for a break.

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On paper, Boyd faces a maximum 15-year prison term for harboring a fugitive and another three years for keeping quiet about a felony. However, his actual penalty range will be determined based on the results of a sealed pre-sentence report and a complicated mathematical grid that takes into account his prior history as a robber. Thanks to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that no longer limits judges to those sentencing guidelines, Varlan could go higher or lower.

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[Editor’s Note: Nicholas Stix’s Special to American Renaissance, “The Knoxville Horror: The Crime and the Cover-Up,” can be read here.]