LITTLE ROCK — One of three suspects accused of robbing a Sunday School class last month testified on Monday that he gave $10,000 to his own church last year.
Larry Anthony Storay, 21, is free on a $35,000 bond on aggravated robbery charges over accusations that he and two teenagers, at least one of whom is a cousin, held up the pastor and members of the Third Baptist Missionary Church on West 17th Street in Little Rock in September.
Storay testified Monday at an inquiry by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray into what happened to a trust fund established for his benefit from the proceeds of a 1998 settlement from a Garland County car crash that left him brain damaged and killed his mother and a brother.
Storay’s attorneys called for an accounting in June after learning Storay’s guardian, his aunt, hadn’t submitted a courtordered annual accounting for five years. Glass’ attorney, Dana Reece, submitted those reports at Monday’s hearing. There have been no allegations of criminal wrongdoing.
The fund, which held about $210,000 in January 2010, was depleted in June 2010 when it held about $130,000, the guardian, 37-year-old Lawshanna Rochelle Glass, told the judge. Glass said she liquidated the account at Storay’s request, giving him $100,000. With Storay’s permission, Glass and her mother, Storay’s grandmother, Mary Plummer, split the remaining $30,000 as a gift, Glass testified. She said she hadn’t wanted to empty the account, but Storay kept badgering her for the money.
Of the original $210,000, Glass said she spent about $70,000 to buy Storay a home on Arapaho Trail, but Storay has never lived there. The property is in Plummer’s name and another relative lives there. The $10,000 difference was used for a variety of expenses, Glass told the judge, including buying furniture for the Arapaho home, paying living expenses of Storay and his wife and to bail him out of jail on a commercial burglary charge, Glass said.
The judge questioned the propriety of purchasing the home since Glass didn’t get court approval, a requirement under the guardianship. And Gray questioned whether Storay understood a statement he signed approving the withdrawal of the $130,000 and giving $30,000 to his aunt and grandmother. Storay struggled to read the handwritten statement aloud at the judge’s request.
Questioned by the judge, Storay testified he’d spent all of the $100,000. He said he “loaned” the $10,000 to his church, Ward Chapel A.M.E. on Hanger Street, but his wife, 35-year-old Catundra Storay, told the judge the money was a donation. He also had legal expenses from his criminal charges, Storay told the judge. In May, Storay was fined $1,000, ordered to spend four months in jail and placed on six years probation for convictions for felony residential burglary, theft and misdemeanor terroristic threatening.
The judge said she was concerned that Storay’s name is not on the deed to the Arapaho home and issued an order barring anyone from borrowing money against the home until a final hearing can be held to resolve the accounting question. Since Storay has split from his original lawyer, Gray told him he needed to see if he qualified for free legal representation.
According to police reports, one of Storay’s co-defendants in the church robbery, 15-yearold Torrez Smith, is Glass’ son. It’s not clear whether the two are related to the third co-defendant, 14-year-old Derrick McIntire, but arrest reports show that McIntire lives at the Arapaho Trail home.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 10/25/2011