A man convicted in 2006 of voluntary manslaughter for a 70-year-old pastor’s shooting death outside his Inglewood church pleaded not guilty Thursday to a series of armed robberies of gardeners in South Los Angeles and Inglewood.
Aaron Deon Seymour, 34, of Los Angeles is facing four counts of second- degree robbery with a gun use allegation, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said Seymour pulled a gun on four residential gardeners between May 12 and May 18 and robbed them collectively of more than $800 in cash.
Seymour was found guilty in August 2006 for voluntary manslaughter for the April 27, 2005, death of Charlie Williams, who was shot once in the upper right thigh in an alley outside Christian Unity Missionary Baptist Church.
Jurors acquitted Seymour of the more serious charges of first-degree murder and second-degree murder, and he was sentenced in October 2006 to 10 years in state prison.
At his sentencing in 2006, Seymour maintained the shooting was an accident, with the weapon firing inadvertently while the two men struggled outside the church.
“I just want them to know that I am really sorry,” he said then.
The pastor’s widow, Lois, questioned why Seymour shot her husband.
“I have wondered for quite some time now, why? Why did you need to take the life of an innocent man, an honest man, one who was really a man who took care of his household, who took care of me,” she said then. “The question goes over and over in my heart, Mr. Seymour, with so much pain, day in and day out. Why?”
Seymour is being held on $325,000 bail and is due back in court June 27, when a date is expected to be set for a preliminary hearing to determine if there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial on the alleged robberies.
If convicted as charged, Seymour faces up to 41 years prison.
— Wire reports