Bouncer guilty of lesser charge in strip club killing by car

BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - A former East St. Louis strip club bouncer charged with killing a customer with his pickup truck more than six years ago has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge connected to the parking lot dispute that preceded the fatal encounter.

Reginald Allen, 33, of Dupo pleaded guilty Monday to mob action in Anthony Rice's 2009 death. Allen, who was initially charged with reckless homicide, faces up to six years in prison at a Jan. 15 sentencing hearing.

Authorities say Allen, who is white, taunted Rice, a 23-year-old black man, and his brother with racial comments and threw a brick through their friend's car window at the now-shuttered City Nights bar. It was that "melee" that "lit a fuse" leading to Rice's death, assistant St. Clair County prosecutor Steve Sallerson said.

Allen wasn't charged with a hate crime. Defense attorney Tom Daley said his client feared for his life after the brothers' friend grabbed a gun from his car and fired several warning shots once Allen had thrown the brick.

The confrontation began when Rice, his brother - who was celebrating his 21st birthday - and their two friends were denied entry into the club near closing time.

Surveillance camera footage shows Rice trying to enter the club after being denied entry but running away as a stun gun-wielding co-worker of Allen's pushed against the door from inside. Another camera shows Allen leave through the club's back door, enter his white Ford F-150 pickup truck and swerve through the front parking lot.

The killing inflamed racial tensions in East St. Louis, where 98 percent of residents are black. Rice's family and supporters protested weekly outside City Hall until criminal charges were filed nearly two years later.

"There's a sense of relief," said Justin Meehan, Rice's great-uncle and an attorney in St. Louis, Missouri. "It was like climbing up a mountain of broken glass in the middle of winter."

Court hearings in the case were postponed 17 times. And the judge who presided over Monday's hearing was the sixth to consider the case since its start.

Charges against Allen in an alleged 2012 attack of a dancer and two others at another topless club owned by his mother were dropped as part of the plea deal. He was also allowed to remain free on bond pending his sentencing, a decision that angered Aubrey Rice, the victim's younger brother.

Allen's lengthy criminal record includes a guilty plea to unlawful possession and transporting anhydrous ammonia, an ingredient in methamphetamine, for which he served less than a year on a three-year sentence. He was also convicted in 2004 of aggravated battery for using his car to knock down a motorcyclist during an argument.

"I'm not satisfied," Aubrey Rice said. "If I had the record he has, they'd have put me in jail as a menace to society."

Daley said his client was wrongly labeled as racist by Rice's family members, noting that Allen has a biracial toddler daughter, who attended the hearing.

Rice's family had previously settled a wrongful death suit against the Allen family and their businesses for $1 million.

___

Follow Alan Scher Zagier on Twitter at http://twitter.com/azagier