Man Pleads Guilty to 2014 Manslaughter

A Roosevelt man that fired a gun into a crowded Freeport house party in December 2014 and killed his friend pleaded guilty to manslaughter Monday.

According to Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas, Autrey Smith, 23, pleaded guilty before Acting Supreme Court Justice William O’Brien to manslaughter in the first degree (a B violent felony). The defendant is due back in court on Oct. 27 for sentencing. Smith is expected to be sentenced to 25 years in prison.

“Autrey Smith pulled out a semi-automatic handgun, fired indiscriminately into a crowd of two dozen people at a party and fled after he had shot and killed his close friend,” Singas said. “This defendant will now spend the next 25 years of his life behind bars for murdering an innocent young man. I hope that this plea will help Lyreek Crawley’s loved ones heal from this horrible loss.”

Singas said that Smith and his friend, Lyreek Crawley, attended a house party on Colonial Avenue in Freeport on Dec. 28, 2014. At approximately 1:05 a.m., Smith suddenly took out a gun and began firing indiscriminately at the 20 to 25 people attending the party. The defendant stopped firing when he struck Crawley in the head. Crawley was pronounced dead at the scene a few minutes later when ambulances arrived.

Smith, who had recently moved from Roosevelt to Kentucky, fled the scene and went to Cincinnati for three days. He returned to New York and surrendered to the Nassau County Police Department on Jan. 1, 2015.

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