If only Bennie Gray Jr. could have walked the walk.

Incarcerated as a teenager for the 1997 shooting death of DeJohn Strong in New London, Gray served 18 years in prison for manslaughter and said prior to his release on parole last year that he wanted to be a lawyer by age 45.

Instead, the one-time standout athlete immediately went back to selling drugs, telling a police officer after his arrest in May 2018 that it was all he knew.

Gray, now 40, was sentenced to 12 more years in prison Monday for selling an eighth of a gram of crack cocaine to a man on May 9, 2018 in New London. He received an enhanced sentence due to his prior criminal record.

"I certainly hope this is not all you know," Superior Court Judge Hunchu Kwak told Gray. "You certainly have the intellectual capacity to be more than just a drug dealer."

Gray plans to appeal his latest conviction, and Kwak granted his request to set an appeal bond that would enable Gray to be freed while his appeal is pending. The judge set a bond of $500,000 and said Gray could only post it in court and would be placed on electronic monitoring if that occurs. 

Gray is being held at the Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Institution in Montville.

Gray had represented himself at his trial in April, with attorney William T. Koch Jr. serving as standby counsel. Kwak said Gray had done a better job than some attorneys.

Kwak handed down the sentence of 20 years in prison, suspended after 12 years served, followed by five years probation after listening to more than an hour of legal argument from Gray. A few supporters of Gray and other observers were in the gallery, including New London Police Investigator Todd Lynch, who had worked the case. Lynch had testified that Gray told him, from a holding cell at police quarters after his arrest, that drug dealing was all he knows.

It was clear, though, that Gray knew how to talk the talk inside a courtroom. Citing case law, the Connecticut Practice Book of judicial conduct and reading from a transcript of his trial and a stack of other legal documents, Gray argued that he had been denied due process.

One of his arguments centered on the judge himself, who Gray pointed out had neglected, during the trial, to rule on a motion Gray made for a judgment of acquittal after the state had presented its case. Kwak admitted he had not explicitly denied the motion, but would have denied it, and was going to deny it, since the jury had enough evidence at that point to render a decision.

Gray also argued that an expert from the state crime laboratory had mistakenly testified the crack cocaine was in a knotted plastic bag when a blow up of a photo put into evidence late in the trial showed it was not.

"The state by their own photos disproved their own expert," Gray said.

He made other claims, including one that prosecutor Sarah W. Bowman had told the jury in her closing argument that Gray had a previous felony conviction for sale of cocaine. Bowman said that by agreement she had only stated Gray had a felony conviction, but admitted she had gone on to talk the about sale of cocaine, and that without a properly placed comma the meaning could have been misunderstood in writing.

"Mr. Gray has done a very good job representing himself, filing motions and arguing, and I mean that with all due respect," Bowman said.

But she said he doesn't understand some of the nuances of the law. She said he chose to represent himself and obviously was not happy with the outcome.

k.florin@theday.com