Nathaniel Abraham, killer at 11, sentenced in unrelated drug case

 

Nathaniel Abraham, 22, appears in 50th District Court in Pontiac on June 10.

PONTIAC — A man who spent his adolescent years in state custody for a rifle-slaying he committed at age 11 received a four-to-20-year prison sentence Monday on a drug conviction.
Nearly two years to the day that he walked out of juvenile detention as a free man, Nathaniel Abraham was ordered back behind bars for trying to sell Ecstasy out of the trunk of his car.
The 22-year-old from Pontiac was charged last year with dealing drugs after undercover officers in his hometown said they caught him selling at a gas station.
"I'm not saying I'll never make a mistake again, given the opportunity. I know I can be a success to the community," Abraham told Oakland County Circuit Judge Daniel O'Brien during Monday morning's sentencing hearing.
"A mistake is not noticing this step and tripping," O'Brien replied. "That's a mistake."
"You have the ability to say `I'm never going to commit a crime again,' because crimes require an intent," O'Brien said.
Abraham lawyer Byron Pitts said his client is sorry for what he's done.
"He's going to have a long time to think about it," Pitts said.
Abraham, who pleaded guilty in November to possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, made national headlines when he fatally shot Ronnie Greene, 18, of Pontiac on Oct. 29, 1997. The then-11-year-old was arrested two days later and convicted in November 1999 of second-degree murder.
Abraham was sentenced to juvenile detention until his 21st birthday and was released in January 2007.
At that court hearing, Abraham caused a stir by donning a flamboyant suit that some viewed as inappropriate.
"Show us all that you have become a caring, productive member of society," Oakland County Probate Judge Eugene Moore, who has been stern yet supportive of Abraham over the years, said at the time of his release.
"I know you can do it. Do it."
Sixteen months later, Abraham again was in police custody, arrested at the Pontiac gas station with 254 Ecstasy pills in a bag in his trunk.
After the arrest, Moore said in a statement that he was "very disappointed and particularly sad for the hundreds of people who worked hard to rehabilitate him for the nine years he was in the state training school and the wonderful mentors and volunteers and churches that stood by him."