Post By Big Yogi

Tuesday, March 4, 2008 2:55 AM
By Josh Jarman

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Deliveryman Robert “Tony” Swick, 41, was gunned down in a botched robbery attempt.
NEWARK, Ohio — The convicted killer of a Newark pizza-delivery driver might not have seen the last of the man’s family.

Kim Perry, the sister of 41-year-old Robert “Tony” Swick, who was gunned down in a botched robbery attempt in July, vowed in court yesterday that she would be at every one of Matthew Quintana’s parole hearings to plead for his continued imprisonment.

“I hate you. I hate that my brother had to look at you with his last breath,” she said. “You can’t play this ‘little kid’ stuff with me — you’re a monster.”

Quintana and Kali Armstrong, both 17, pleaded guilty and were sentenced to life in prison yesterday for Swick’s murder. Neither offered apologies to Swick’s family at the hearing.

Armstrong called in a false pizza order on July 10 that lured Swick to the Jefferson Street address where her then-boyfriend, Quintana, confronted and ultimately shot him.

Armstrong was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 18 years on one count of murder and a firearm specification in that case. She also was sentenced for complicity to commit armed robbery and complicity to commit grand theft of a firearm. Those sentences will run concurrently with the murder sentence.

Armstrong helped Quintana steal the .45-caliber handgun he used in the murder.

Quintana was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 26 years on one count of aggravated murder and two separate firearms specifications. In addition to Swick’s murder and attempted robbery, Quintana robbed another pizza-delivery driver using the same gun and scheme 19 hours before Swick was shot.

The sentences from that robbery will run concurrently with the aggravated-murder sentence.

David Barth, Quintana’s court-appointed attorney, said his client had no intention of going to trial.

“He confessed to a whole slew of people,” Barth said, adding that he was happy with the minimum sentence. Quintana could have faced a longer wait for parole, or no chance of parole at all. Barth called the death senseless and said he all but begged his client to offer some apology to Swick’s family in court.

jjarman@dispatch.com

SOURCE: Columbus Dispatch