Larry Harris sentenced to 79 years to life for death of Jerome Smith, rape against girl

A three-year criminal case against a Binghamton man convicted of killing an 11-year-old boy and raping a young girl was brought to a close Friday as he was sentenced to 79 years to life in prison in Broome County Court.

Larry Harris, 46, was sentenced to three consecutive 25-year prison terms for one count of first-degree manslaughter and two counts of predatory sexual assault, and a four-year term for a felony drug possession charge, by Judge Joseph Cawley.

“You have now forfeited the right to walk the streets of this or any other community,” Cawley said after outlining Harris’ life of crime, which includes 12 arrests and nine convictions.

In May, a jury found Harris guilty of first-degree manslaughter in the February 2019 death of 11-year-old Jerome Smith Jr., a Johnson City student and son of Harris’ then-girlfriend.

The same jury returned a verdict of not guilty on charges of second-degree murder, meaning there wasn’t proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Harris intended to kill Jerome, only that he intended to cause the boy the serious injuries that resulted in his death.

Subscriber exclusive: An 11-year-old boy died. Jurors returned a verdict. Was justice served?

A forensic pathologist testified that an autopsy found that Jerome died of asphyxiation, though Broome County Assistant District Attorney Anthony Frank said the cause of the asphyxiation — possibly by smothering, suffocation or drowning — could not be determined.

Dr. Robert Stoppacher said at trial that he was able to determine Jerome died in the span of four minutes.

“You had to tell yourself you weren’t going to figure out how,” Frank said during a media conference after the sentencing. “I still think about ‘how.’ I’ll never stop asking myself that question.”

Addressing the court before Cawley issued his sentence Friday, Harris maintained his innocence in the boy’s death.

“I’m not a murderer of little kids. I don’t hurt little kids,” Harris said. “I loved Jerome as my own son.”

Harris claimed only he and the boy’s mother and sister, who were seen on security footage shopping at a neighborhood store during the two-hour window when Harris was home alone with Jerome, knew what “really happened.”

“I’m OK with myself, with the understanding that we’ll always know the truth,” Harris said.

Similarly, Harris said only he and his underage victim of rape, her mother and aunt knew the truth about the period from October 2013 to November 2018, in which Harris was found guilty of repeatedly raping the girl from the time she was 11 years old.

“I’m not a raper of (any) child. I never raped (the victim). I never forced myself on (the victim) in any way,” Harris said, before turning to look at the victim and wishing her a happy birthday.

“You destroyed my childhood,” the victim, now 20 years old, said in her impact statement. “You’re a very evil person. I’ll forever have to live with what you did to me.”

“I’m the most strongest person I know,” she continued, not looking up from her notes. “Everything in my past has opened my eyes to what sick-minded people do and how good it feels to finally get justice.”

At the media conference following the sentencing hearing, Frank said he and former prosecutor Christopher Ganz combed “every piece of paper, every video, every piece of evidence.”

“I can say with absolute certainty that Mr. Harris today in court was absolutely pontificating for himself in an effort to sway the judge to impose maybe a more lenient sentence,” Frank said.

“Criminal investigations take time,” Broome County District Attorney Michael Korchak said, addressing Harris’ courtroom claims that “there were things not introduced at trial that would exonerate me” and defense attorney Christopher Grace’s claim that Harris was only indicted when he refused to cooperate in the investigation into another possible suspect in Jerome Smith’s murder.

“Just by the fact that Mr. Harris was not arrested on Day One — that never happens, unless someone is caught at the scene of a crime,” he said.

In February and March 2019, Harris was indicted on charges of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance after investigators found 14.4 grams of crack cocaine packaged for sale in Harris’ residence and vehicle, along with more than $700 in counterfeit cash.

In a pre-sentence interview, Cawley said, Harris acknowledged dealing and “exploiting the addictions of others for years” and “bragged” about the $17,000 vehicle he purchased with the proceeds from his criminal activities.

“I wonder how many lives you adversely impacted by the garbage you were selling on the streets of this community to those who are addicted to illegal substances,” Cawley said.

“This sentence was appropriate for this crime. It will never bring Jerome back," Korchak said in closing at the press conference. "It will never allow that little girl who was raped repeatedly to heal.

"However, justice was served in this case. We only wish that it could have been served earlier in some other case so we could have avoided having these two victims in Broome County.”

In March of 1989, when he was living in the Bronx, Harris was convicted of first-degree rape. Three years later, he was arrested again for a pair of violent robberies, also in the Bronx.

By the time he “turned the ripe old age of 19,” Cawley said, Harris had been sentenced to a consecutive term of 10½ to 21 years in state prison.

Harris had been out on parole for four months the first time he raped the 11-year-old daughter of his girlfriend.

Before the sentence was issued, Harris’ defense attorney asked Cawley to consider that his client was the product of a single-parent household, living with a mother who was “battling her own addictions.”

“As a result, he was forced into what many uneducated teens in New York City are forced to do — that means turning to the streets and living a life and forming a life that many of us don’t wish on our worst enemy,” Grace said.

“I am not the person that I was depicted to be throughout the last three years,” Harris said. “I try to help people. I gave more of myself than I was supposed to, and the end result, this is what I get.”

This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Jerome Smith's killer Larry Harris sentenced to prison