BRENTWOOD, N.H. (AP) – Pamela Smart’s father-in-law told the getaway driver in his son’s murder that he doesn’t support cutting his sentence now, but is willing to discuss it one-on-one.

Bill Smart spoke directly to Vance Lattime Jr. across a crowded courtroom Friday, the latest development in the infamous case in which his daughter-in-law convinced a teenager to kill her husband, Gregory Smart, in 1990.

“Talk to me, one to one,” Smart said to Lattime, who is seeking to have three years cut from his 18-year-to-life prison sentence. “I’d be glad to listen.”

Smart said he wants to know what Lattime, who supplied the gun that was fired directly into his son’s head, plans to do with his life after he is paroled. Lattime didn’t speak.

“I would try to give him some decent fatherly advice,” Smart said.

Victims and offenders don’t meet in sentence-reduction situations, said Sandra Matheson, director of the state office of victim witness assistance.

Nearly a dozen of Lattime’s relatives declined to comment after the hearing in Rockingham County Superior Court.

But in a telephone interview earlier this week, Diane Lattime told The Associated Press she was not preparing for her son’s homecoming, noting a similar request in 1999 was denied.

“There’s nothing specific planned until we know what the court is going to do,” she said. “He just wants to come home. He’s got a huge family, they’re all very supportive.”

Judge Kenneth McHugh hopes to rule within a week. He could make Lattime, 32, eligible for parole as early as this year.

Lawyer Mark Stevens said Lattime would live with his family in Seabrook and has offers to work with his father in a landscaping business or with his mother at a car dealership.

Stevens cited evidence of Lattime’s participation in training programs and good behavior at the Maine State Prison in Warren.

“The defendant accepted responsibility for his role in this crime very early,” Stevens said.

But prosecutor Will Delker said Lattime’s sentence already represented a big reduction from his original 30-year-to-life deal.

“The state doesn’t take issue with the fact that the defendant may well be a model prisoner,” Delker said. “But that behavior is no more than required of him.”

“The defendant knew full well when he was recruited into the plot what was entailed – the murder of Gregory Smart,” Delker added.

Pamela Smart, then 22, was a media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School when she seduced William Flynn, a 15-year-old student who was a virgin. Smart confided that she wanted out of her marriage, and before long, told Flynn he would have to kill her husband if he wanted to keep seeing her, Flynn later testified.

Flynn and friends bungled two attempts before surprising Gregory Smart, 24, at his Derry town house the night of May 1, 1990.

Lattime drove his grandmother’s borrowed car and provided his father’s .38-caliber handgun.

As Lattime and friend Raymond Fowler waited in the car outside, Flynn and another friend, Patrick Randall, surprised Smart as he arrived home from work. As Randall held Smart down, Flynn muttered “Forgive me God,” and shot him in the back of the head.

Lattime’s father gave investigators a major break when he turned the gun over to the police.

“The only hero in this whole tragedy is your father,” Bill Smart told Lattime on Friday.

Lattime, Flynn and Randall received reduced sentences in exchange for testifying against Smart, who was convicted of masterminding the plot. Prosecutors said she wanted her husband killed because she feared losing too much in a divorce.

Smart, now 37, is serving life without parole in a New York State prison after exhausting her appeals. She has asked for a pardon, but Gov. John Lynch hasn’t rushed to review the request.

In an interview this week with CNN, Smart said she would prefer a death sentence to life in prison. Bill Smart said Friday her death would not bring him closure, nor does he believe the public is ready for her to be freed.

“They won’t accept her because they know what she did,” he said.

AP-ES-05-20-05 1631EDT

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