Essex County, New Jersey, Man Sentenced to more than 10 Years in Prison for Union County Carjacking

U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of New Jersey
26 February 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEWARK, N.J. – An Essex County, New Jersey, man was sentenced today to 121 months in prison for a carjacking that occurred in December 2012 in Union County, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Larry Brown, 24, of Newark, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge William J. Martini to an information charging him with one count of theft of a motor vehicle by force, violence, and intimidation, and one count of use of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Judge Martini imposed the sentence today in Newark federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

During the morning of Dec. 26, 2012, Brown approached an individual who was sitting in a parked 2012 BMW X5 in Hillside. Brown pointed a firearm at the victim, tapped on the vehicle’s window with the gun, and ordered the victim to get out of the car. After the victim exited the vehicle, the victim was robbed of personal items by a second individual. Brown and the other individual then entered the victim’s vehicle and fled the area.

The vehicle was located in East Orange later that day and law enforcement officers observed two individuals, one of whom was Brown, walking away from the carjacked vehicle. Brown later admitted that he carjacked the vehicle in Hillside earlier that day. Brown also told law enforcement officers where he put the keys to the carjacked vehicle and the gun he used during the carjacking, both of which were recovered by law enforcement officers.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Martini sentenced Brown to five years of supervised release and ordered him to pay $1,850 in restitution.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, under the direction of John P. Woods in Newark; the N.J. State Police, under the direction of Col. Rick Fuentes, Superintendent; special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Richard M. Frankelin Newark; the Hillside Police Department, under the leadership of Chief Louis Panarese; the East Orange Police Department, under the leadership of Chief William C. Robinson; and the Union County Prosecutor’s Office, under the direction of Acting Prosecutor Grace H. Park; as well as criminal investigators from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark with the investigation leading to today’s sentencing.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lucy Muzzy of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Newark.

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Defense counsel: Carol Gillen Esq., Assistant Federal Public Defender, Newark