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Freeport Man Gets 47 Years for Gang Slay

Ramiek Smalls
Ramiek Smalls

A Freeport man was sentenced Tuesday to47 years to life in prison for gunning down a rival gang member outside of a Hempstead bar in 2011.

Ramiek Smalls was convicted last month at Nassau County court of second-degree murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

Prosecutors said that the 24-year-old man and two others confronted rival Lawrence Hartman, 28, of Freeport, at the Rumba Sky nightclub over a year-long feud on May 31, 2011.

Hartman, who was set to perform in a hip hop show at the bar, got into a fight with the trio in the parking lot when Smalls shot Hartman in the abdomen and left thigh. Hartman died two hours later at Nassau University Medical Center.

Smalls fled with his co-defendants but Nassau County and Freeport village police apprehended them the following month.

The other men, 33-year-old Michael Toney of Uniondale and 24-year-old Richard Paul of Floral Park pleaded guilty to gang assault and manslaughter, respectively.

Toney was sentenced to a year in jail. Paul is awaiting sentencing.