James ‘Tim’ Norman, one of the stars of the OWN reality series Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s, has been sentenced to life in prison for arranging the hitman murder of his co-star and nephew Andrew Montgomery.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, last September, Norman was convicted on three counts related to the death of his nephew, including two federal murder-for-hire charges and one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud.
Norman and Montgomery starred alongside one another on Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s, the reality series set around their family’s soul food business in St Louis. The show aired for nine seasons between 2011 and 2018.
Prosecutors found that Norman arranged his nephew’s murder through intermediaries. Montgomery was shot on March 14, 2016; he was 21 years old. The panel concluded that Norman plotted the murder in an attempt to cash out on a $450,000 fraudulent life insurance policy that he had taken out on Montgomery months earlier.
It was alleged that the reality star paid an exotic dancer $10,000 to lure Montgomery to the murder site, and a shooter was paid $5,000 to carry out the murder. The dancer and the alleged shooter both testified against Norman.
“Tim Norman portrayed one image to the public, but there were more sinister intentions lurking underneath,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Angie Danis during Thursday’s sentencing hearing.
“And the measure of someone’s character is what they do when they think no one is watching,” she added. “When he thought no one was watching, he planned the execution of his nephew and carried it out.”
Last week, Norman took to Instagram to deny the allegations, writing, “I’m still in disbelief. The feds knew 100% I did not do those insurance policies. But the jury didn’t get to hear that. And not one person got on the stand and said that I told them to hurt my nephew. They destroyed my name and image so you guys wouldn’t search for the truth.”
