Mt. Washington man convicted of killing witness against him gets life plus 80 years in prison

A Mt. Washington man convicted of killing a woman when he learned she was going to cooperate with federal investigators was sentenced Thursday to serve the rest of his life plus 80 years in prison.

Price Montgomery, 42, proclaimed his innocence throughout the three-hour hearing before U.S. District Judge Mark Hornak, accusing investigators of lying on the stand and manufacturing evidence against him.

Montgomery was first arrested on June 8, 2014, when he and co-defendant James Perrin were caught by agents with the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office with 1,500 bricks of heroin, more than $100,000 in cash and 16 guns.

Then, two months later, Tina Crawford, a woman who had worked as a courier in the drug operation, was killed at the Hill District home she shared with her mother in an afternoon ambush.

Crawford was scheduled to meet at 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 22, 2014, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Instead, an hour before that, she was shot eight times and killed. Her mother, Patsy Crawford, who was going to give her a ride Downtown that afternoon, was also shot.

Two dozen shell casings were found at the scene.

Attorneys during Thursday’s sentencing said Montgomery considered Crawford to be like a sister.

After DNA consistent with Montgomery was found on a cell phone left at the Crawfords’ home during the attack, he was indicted for killing a federal witness.

A jury found him guilty in November 2018 of drug charges; firearms counts; money laundering; tampering with a witness by killing a person and other counts.

On Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Heidi M. Grogan read Patsy Crawford’s victim impact statement to the court.

Not only was she shot multiple times, Crawford wrote, but she watched her own daughter be executed in front of her. And then, because of her own injuries, Patsy Crawford spent six weeks in the hospital and missed her daughter’s funeral.

She was forced to move away from her Sugar Top home in the Hill District where she’d lived her whole life to go into witness protection. Crawford said she has now lived in seven different places in seven years, and she has been unable to properly grieve her daughter’s death.

“I have no roots or stability,” Patsy Crawford wrote in her victim impact statement. “I feel like a nomad.”

She described her daughter as sweet, friendly and trusting.

“Looking back now, I blame myself that I didn’t know what she was doing and that she was afraid,” Patsy Crawford wrote. “I feel guilty Tina felt she had to keep her secrets and live in fear with nobody to talk to.”

When she finished reading Crawford’s letter, Grogan requested a mandatory life sentence.

She told the court that Montgomery’s crimes were heinous and showed an utter disregard for the law.

“He’s callous. He’s selfish,” Grogan said. “He’s willing to take a life to protect his own.

“The murder of a federal witness is the most extreme form of obstruction.”

Defense attorney Douglas Sughrue told the court that his client’s incarceration since his arrest has been especially harsh, including extensive amounts of time in solitary confinement.

He asked the judge to impose a period of years in prison instead of life.

“Extremely long terms of incarceration don’t do anything to make us safer,” Sughrue said. “Extremely long terms of incarceration don’t do anything to deter other people.”

In his own statement, Montgomery, who has previous convictions for drugs and guns, told the judge that a sentence that is either too short or too long would promote disrespect for the law.

“I’m asking the court to find that medium point as to the sentence,” he said. “I’ve never disrespected the law ever in my life.”

Montgomery also said he was sorry.

“I want to apologize to Ms. Crawford for what happened,” he said. “But I had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t there.”

In handing down the sentence, Hornak told Montgomery that the drug evidence against him was overwhelming, citing his luxury home and vehicles and the way he and those around him lived.

“Those crimes worked their own sort of violence on the community,” Hornak said. “It was fueled by your greed.”

But, the judge continued, killing a witness is an attack on our system of laws.

“When violence is interposed against the law, when violence is interposed with the search for justice, it’s not just the system of justice that suffers,” Hornak said. “It’s an impact on the safety and security and confidence that everybody has in our community.”

At the end of the hearing, Montgomery asked that a notice of appeal be immediately filed with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He also asked to have a new attorney appointed for him.