Glen Head Mechanic Gets 25 To Life In Prison For 2018 Murder

GLEN COVE, NY — A Glen Cove man was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison Thursday for the 2018 shooting death of his co-worker at an auto repair shop.

The sentencing came nearly four months after a Nassau County jury convicted Lawrence Grammer, 74, of second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

Authorities said Grammer, a longtime employee at Glen Head's D&R Auto Body Services, got into an argument with a separate co-worker over gas station receipts on Aug. 3, 2018 — a day before the deadly shooting. The fight escalated after their colleague, 35-year-old Bashir "Bobby" Ward, intervened and pushed Grammer onto the ground.

The following day, Ward was working on a customer's Jeep, while Grammer was working on his own vehicle. According to the indictment, Grammer retrieved a gun from his car, walked up to Ward, and shot him once in the back of the head before fleeing the scene.

That's when Grammer called 911.

"I just killed a guy," Grammer told the dispatcher, adding that the gun was in the seat of a Toyota.

Prosecutors said he returned to the shop a few minutes later and was placed under arrest. The gun was recovered in a Toyota Rav4, which was parked down the street and registered to Grammer's son, according to authorities.

"Bashir 'Bobby' Ward was effectively executed when this defendant approached him from behind and mercilessly shot him once in the back of the head at close range, killing him," said Acting Nassau County District Attorney Joyce A. Smith. "Grammer took a man's life after a petty argument and will now spend decades in prison paying for his crime."

This isn't Ward's first run-in with the law. More than two decades earlier, Grammer was convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl. According to the New York State Sex Offender Registry, he was sentenced to five years of probation.