Man Gets 47 Years in Prison for Using Machine Gun in Drug Crime

A Sepulveda man was sentenced to more than 47 years in prison under a recently enacted federal law that imposes stiff penalties for carrying a machine gun while committing drug-related crimes, the U.S. attorney’s office reported Friday.

U.S. Dist. Judge John G. Davies imposed the 47-year, six-month sentence Thursday on Lawrence Warren Smith, 44, said Assistant U.S. Atty. John F. Walsh. A federal court jury convicted Smith in October on 14 drug and firearms charges, he said.

The bulk of the sentence--30 years--stems from a charge that Smith attempted to fire a MAC-10 submachine gun when he barricaded himself inside his residence last February after police ordered him to surrender, Walsh said. Smith yelled at officers that he wanted to “shoot it out” with them, and investigators discovered that a cartridge had become jammed in the chamber, indicating that Smith attempted to fire the illegal weapon, Walsh said.

Smith, who was arrested after a Los Angeles Police Department SWAT team fired tear-gas into the house, had been a fugitive since posting bail on state drug charges after his initial arrest in April, 1988, Walsh said. After the first arrest, authorities found three pounds of methamphetamine, 20 pounds of ephedrine--the main ingredient in the drug--and 15 firearms, including two machine guns, Walsh said.

Davies also sentenced Smith’s girlfriend, Laurie Ann Tillman, who lived with him, to 12 years and seven months in prison on five drug trafficking and weapons charges, Walsh said.