Man sentenced to 18 years in fatal shooting outside Hempstead bar

A Hempstead man was sentenced Wednesday to 18 years in prison for the 2014 shooting death of a man outside a local bar, authorities said.

Charles Smith, 38, pleaded guilty Jan. 25 before Supreme Court Justice Robert McDonald to first-degree manslaughter in the death of Andre Graydon, 26, outside Seduccion Bar in Hempstead Village on New Year’s Day three years ago, Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a news release after his sentencing Wednesday.

Officials said Graydon was shot while fleeing an argument “over women.”

At about 3 a.m. Jan. 1, 2014, officials said, Smith and a friend got into a physical altercation — “the result of a dispute over women” — with a group of men inside the bar that “spilled out onto the street.” Once outside, Smith pulled out a .40-caliber gun and shot at Graydon 11 times as he was running away, according to the release. Graydon died later, officials said.

Smith, who was on probation for a federal drug charge at the time of the shooting, fled to Virginia after the fatal shooting, but was apprehended by federal officials on Jan. 30, 2014, officials said.

“A petty disagreement led to this senseless loss of a young life, and I am grateful to our law enforcement partners for ensuring that justice was done,” Singas said in a statement.

Two weeks after the shooting, Newsday reported that the Main Street bar, which police had described as having “a long history of violence,” was closed and that its liquor license had been canceled.