A judge who was “flying blind” in a conspiracy-murder trial crashed the plane, a defense attorney said.

And a Trenton man’s right to a fair trial perished when a jury, confused about how to reconcile competing legal issues, “compromised” by reaching “inconsistent” verdicts in August, according to court papers.

Raheem Currie

On the one hand, the jury convicted Raheem Currie of aggravated manslaughter and a gun conspiracy while acquitting him of murder and a gun conspiracy in the shooting death of James Austin, a father to twin daughters and the son of a retired city cop.

“This is legally impossible,” Furlong & Krasny associate Andrew Ferencevych wrote in court papers. “The jury concluded [Robert] Bartley and Currie did not conspire together to use the weapon for an unlawful purpose. If, according to the jury, Bartley and Currie did not share a purpose to use the weapon unlawfully against a person or property, how could Currie be guilty of aggravated manslaughter?”

Ferencevych asked a judge to set aside the guilty verdicts and give Currie a new trial, hitting on a number of points in a 30-page brief that rehashed testimony and delved into nuanced legal issues that arose at trial.

Currie’s attorneys faulted Judge Pedro Jimenez for not providing an “accurate or understandable jury charge” on accomplice liability and not controlling spectators inside his courtroom who wore “inflammatory” memorial buttons they say undermined the fairness of the trial.

About the charge, defense attorney Jack Furlong had said Jimenez was “flying blind” because of a state Supreme Court decision in State v. Bridges.

The case effectively moved the goalposts for when someone is responsible for murder when co-conspirators haven’t agreed to commit murder.

Currie and his cousin, Bartley, are awaiting sentencing for the fatal shooting death of Austin.

Robert Bartley

Austin, the son of a retired sergeant Luddie Austin, was killed Feb. 26, 2013, following an argument about who was going to pay for the bashed-out window on Currie’s car.

In admitting he shot James Austin, Bartley reached a plea deal with prosecutors to admit to aggravated manslaughter for 25 years and testify against his cousin at trial.

Currie was convicted in August, during a doozy of a trial that left almost everyone in the courtroom scratching their heads when the jury delivered its confusing verdict.

The trial itself was tantamount to a legal lecture on conspiracy and accomplice liability.

Further complicating the case, Jimenez tossed out a conspiracy to commit murder charge prior to the jury’s deliberations when prosecutors agreed there was not enough evidence to sustain it.

His decision was based on Bartley’s testimony.

Bartley said he did not intend to kill James Austin when he went, armed,  to his home.

Currie and two others picked up Bartley after Currie scuffled with James Austin. They broke each other’s windows.

Bartley testified that Currie asked him on the phone if he had his gun, which he flashed at Currie and his girlfriend when he got in the car as they rode back toward the home of James Austin’s girlfriend.

Bartley kept the gun in his pocket while he confronted Austin, to try to get him to pay for the broken windshield.

Currie, his girlfriend and another man waited in the car.

Despite the testimony, Jimenez decided the jury could consider whether Currie encouraged the murder by asking about the gun, as well as other conspiracy charges.

“Why else bring a gun to a fist fight?” Jimenez said.

James Austin with his twin daughters

In the end, Currie was convicted of a lesser charge of aggravated manslaughter, conspiracy to commit unlawful possession of a weapon and unlawful possession of a weapon.

Ferencevych said the judge wrongly included lesser manslaughter charges against Currie even after he dismissed the conspiracy to commit murder charge.

Ferencevych said it was clear Currie did not conspire with Bartley to kill James Austin.

He didn’t provide the gun or plan the shooting.

Even Bartley said he didn’t intend to shoot and kill James Austin and stressed as much to detectives when he confessed to the slaying.

He contended he shot James Austin because he couldn’t see what was in his right hand.

“Our Supreme Court held it was legally impossible for a defendant to intend an unintended result,” Ferencevych wrote.

Also, Currie 's jury was not allowed to decide for itself whether James Austin's death was justifiable homicide.

“The jury should have been permitted to decide whether there was an honest and reasonable belief that deadly force was necessary for Bartley to protect himself,” Ferencevych wrote.

James Austin's relatives have worn memorial buttons like these at the murder conspiracy trial of Raheem Currie.

Ferencevych also made an issue about memorial buttons worn by James Austin’s relatives, in front of jurors.

The buttons had photos of James’ twin daughters, along with a message decrying gun violence: “Our daddy missed out first steps because of guns.”

Jimenez denied a defense’s request for a mistrial based on the button issue.

Ferencevych asked the judge to reconsider.

“It was impossible for a jury to calmly weigh the evidence without considering the implicit biases that were present in the courtroom on a daily basis during the trial,” he wrote.

Admitted killer Curtis Grier told a judge Wednesday he will not take back his guilty plea in the slaying of a city man after a “misunderstanding” between the judge and his defense attorney held up sentencing earlier this month.

Free on $300,000 bail, Grier pleaded guilty this year to a lesser count of reckless manslaughter, for fatally shooting 24-year-old Jahmir Hall, under a plea deal that exposed him to a maximum of 10 years in prison.

Curtis Grier

Hall was gunned down in Trenton in April 2014.

Grier’s codefendant, Daniel McCargo, pleaded guilty to a gun charge and was sentenced last month to seven years in prison.

Charged with murder as an accomplice, McCargo admitted being armed with a handgun the night Hall was shot to death, but ballistics revealed it wasn’t the handgun used in the shooting death.

Grier had been charged with murder in Hall’s slaying but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge and was supposed to be sentenced earlier this month. But it was pushed back because of apparent confusion about the terms of Grier’s plea deal.

Defense attorney Robin Lord said at Wednesday’s hearing she was left with the impression there was a “strong likelihood” Judge Peter Warshaw would send her client to prison for seven years.

Prosecutors are capped at arguing for 10 years for Grier under the deal.

Lord said the judge could also consider as few as five years, after weighing a mix of factors such as the circumstances of the slaying and Grier’s lack of a criminal record.

After meeting privately in chambers with the attorneys twice for about an hour, Warshaw explained from the bench he is not beholden to seven years and has not decided what sentence he will hand out at the rescheduled Nov. 10 sentencing.

While the defense will ask for less time, the judge told Grier he could just as easily hand down the decadelong prison term and not violate the negotiated plea deal.

Grier said he understood the terms of the deal and wanted to go forward.

The judge said he wasn’t sure why Lord believed he was going to hand down the seven-year sentence but chalked it up to an honest “miscommunication.”

Warshaw told the admitted triggerman there was “no promise of anything other than a fair sentencing hearing.”

In the coming weeks, court officials will cobble together a pre-sentencing report on Grier.

Grier plans to have a pastor and a retired police officer speak on his behalf at sentencing, Lord said.

Omar Kennedy (Mugshots.com)

A third man has been arrested for his alleged role in the death of a city teen who was shot and stomped in Trenton last month.

Omar Kennedy, 34, is charged with murder and related weapons offenses in connection with the shooting death of 19-year-old Lance Beckett. Kennedy was arrested Wednesday morning at a home in Richmond, Virginia.

Officials say the U.S. Marshals NY/NJ Regional Fugitive Task Force developed leads on Kennedy’s whereabouts and sent that information to its counterpart in Virginia. Kennedy is being held at the Richmond Justice Center pending extradition to New Jersey. His bail was set at $1 million.

Beckett was gunned down shortly before 3 p.m. on September 18. Police found him lying in the grass along East Stuyvesant Avenue suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Citizens told The Trentonian they heard five gunshots, one of which sounded different than the other four, and that one of the shooters stomped on Beckett’s head after he dropped to the ground.

Lance Beckett (Facebook photo)

Beckett was pronounced dead at the scene.

Quashawn Emanuel, 18, and a 17-year-old male were arrested in connection with Beckett’s death a few days after the shooting, and charged with murder and weapons offenses.

At a bail hearing, prosecutors said Emanuel denied shooting Beckett, but admitted he knew he was “sleepwalking” him to his death.

Prosecutors believe Emanuel lured Beckett into the alley, but officials have not said whether the juvenile, Kennedy or both fired the fatal gunshots.

Emanuel is being held on $1 million bail; the 17-year-old boy is being housed in the Middlesex County Juvenile Detention Center. Charges against the unidentified teen are being heard, at the moment, in juvenile court. But there’s a possibility he’ll face charges as an adult.

Just do it – for sport.

A Nike sweater-clad city teenager shot a man to death during a “robbery gone bad,” prosecutors said Thursday.

Ricardo Montalvan Jr.

The teenager’s co-defendant, also charged with murder after allegedly acting as a lookout, told police they robbed the city man over a cell phone because “it was something to do,” Assistant Prosecutor Tim Ward said.

The victim was 23-year-old Ricardo Montalvan Jr., who a defense attorney referred to as a “street thug” with a long rap sheet – which led the prosecutor to ask the defense attorney to make his case without using “pejoratives.”

The suspects are 16-year-old Divon Ray, charged as an accomplice to murder, and suspected killer, 17-year-old Zakeem Brown.

Ray was discovered by the authorities hiding under a car almost immediately after the slaying. Brown was arrested days later, at his mother’s home on Walnut Avenue, Ward said.

The teenage suspects’ names were made public for the first time Thursday after prosecutors waived them up as adults to face charges of murder, felony murder, robbery and weapons offenses for the May 11 killing.

Ray told detectives he didn’t help Brown rob Montalvan because it was “a one-man job,” Ward said.

Brown, who was found guilty as a minor of disorderly conduct and a 2015 burglary charge, was on probation when he picked up the murder charge.

He allegedly couldn’t keep his stories straight because he’s not that smart, his attorney said. And he’s not guilty of murder because he was just trying to stay alive on the violent streets of Trenton, following a near-deadly tiff with Montalvan’s nephew earlier in the day.

Prosecutors dismissed those claims and laid out the case against the teens at Thursday's hearing.

They believe they have a bulletproof case against the teens: high-quality surveillance showing both in the area prior to the murder; a murder weapon, supposedly recovered from the home of Brown’s mother and ballistically matched to shells from the scene; a black hooded Nike sweatshirt Brown allegedly wore the night of the murder; a backpack used to stow the handgun used in the crime; and the suspects’ admissions they were in the area.

Ward said they each pointed themselves out in surveillance stills.

“He put himself right there,” Ward said of Brown.

Each is being held at a Middlesex juvenile detention center on $500,000, after a judge increased bail from $250,000.

The teens allegedly stopped and talked near Whittaker Avenue, plotting what they were about to do, Ward said.

Prosecutors contend Brown changed his story numerous times about what happened next, when he allegedly shot Montalvan, as he sat inside his silver Toyota Camry parked on the 200 block of Whittaker Avenue.

Brown claimed, at one point, that Montalvan handed him a 9 millimeter semiautomatic handgun and he accidentally fired twice when he got startled after Ray shouted his name.

Ward couldn’t contain himself when he read that from an affidavit, letting out a dismissive chuckle.

Initially, Brown denied being with Ray that night, until he was shown surveillance clips and gave up the charade, admitting he was the one in the Nike hoodie, Ward said.

Brown also pinned the shooting on Ray, claiming he gave him the gun.

While driving with detectives to the juvenile detention center, he took that back and claimed he bought the handgun from someone on the streets but was still paying it off.

He didn’t say from whom he got the gun, which he claimed to have tossed into a canal. But that wasn’t true, either, Ward said.

Brown’s story got better.

Hartmann said he has “powerful evidence” that will vindicate Brown.

The defense attorney contended Brown was defending himself after Montalvan and his nephew, a man known only by the street name “Stacks Wopo,” rode around Trenton trying to “hunt” him down earlier in the day.

The resulting carnage was “inadvertent,” Hartmann said.

“Unfortunately, some shots rang out,” he said. “It wasn’t [Brown’s] intent to kill anyone. He’s trying to protect himself, protect his family.”

Brown – “a nice kid” who was not the “sharpest tool in the shed” – claims Stacks Wopo (Hartmann didn’t know his “Christian name”) instigated the murder.

They came to blows earlier over a girl, Hartmann said. Brown won, which didn’t sit well with Stacks. He wanted revenge, Hartmann said, and set out with Montalvan to find Brown.

As they drove in Montalvan’s vehicle, they spotted Brown walking with his younger nephew across the “Trenton Makes” bridge, Hartmann said.

Stacks Wopo allegedly pulled out a gun and pointed it at Brown, who took off running.

Hartmann called Montalvan a criminal reprobate, referring to his arrest last April, when authorities found him in his car smoking a joint. He also had prescription pills, ecstasy and two guns, a .38 caliber revolver and a .380 semi-automatic pistol, with him.

“These were two street thugs going around threatening a bunch of 17-year-old kids,” Hartmann said.

Later, Stacks sent text and video messages to Brown, Hartmann said.

One showed him holding a .38-caliber handgun with an ominous message: “My sh— don’t jam. You lucky you ran. I was gonna nail your stupid a--.”

Brown texted back: “I guess.”

Stacks, claiming he packs heat like the oven door, wrote back: “You a b----. I got six for you. My n----- got the drop on you. Be safe.”

He allegedly tacked on smiley-face emoticons to the end of the message.

Ward said Brown never named-dropped the infamous Stacks Wopo when he was interrogated by police over two hours.

He shrugged off Hartmann’s so-called powerful evidence as speculation that doesn’t “prove a whole lot,” while adding his office will investigate the allegations.

Even accepting Brown’s claims, Ward said, it doesn’t get him out of a murder rap.

“Then we have two individuals who trekked halfway across Trenton with a gun, with the express purpose to confront somebody … who was unarmed, sitting in his own car, not doing anything to anyone,” the prosecutor said.

Jamie Hubert, Ray’s attorney, downplayed her client’s alleged involvement in the murder and pointed out he is trying to better himself while his case progresses.

Ray, who has been raised by his grandmother, is working toward his high school diploma, interested in culinary arts and cosmetology.

Ray was found delinquent in the past of robbery and eluding, for leading cops on a chase car chase before crashing.

His sentence was suspended and he had just left a juvenile residential home but was still being supervised by probation officials when the murder occurred, Ward said.

Prior to being accused of murder, he applied to summer jobs at fast-food joints and Six Flags.

But there is nothing amusing about the charges.

The teens face life sentences if they’re convicted.

Hartmann acknowledged the case is a “ very sad story. What you have here is a young man who was trying to act in self-defense. Unfortunately, an individual [died.] That individual certainly placed himself in the position that happened.”

Unfurling their blame-shifting strategy, attorneys for two city men accused of killing another man during a Route 29 drive-by shooting four years ago asked a retired Trenton Police detective about boundless possibilities, suggesting cops overlooked other more likely suspects.

In his classic cynical style, patented and perfected over his more than two decades in law enforcement, a nonplussed Gary Britton conceded little when he testified Thursday, sometimes belittling attorneys with remarks as condescending as the questions they asked.

For example, he quipped he couldn’t answer an inquiry from the attorney for suspected killer Andre Romero because he wasn’t a smoker.

The retired Trenton Police detective, who spent 24 years on the force and loosely dubbed parts of his job as “victimology,” wasn’t buying the smoke-and-mirrors tactics employed by attorneys for Romero and William “Bill Bill” Mitchell, who is being tried alongside his co-defendant, as they looked to pin the crime on someone else.

The pair is accused of opening fire on a white Ford Taurus driven by 23-year-old Daquan Dowling, as he and another man, Morris Satchel, rode leisurely in the slow lane of Route 29 around dusk of Jan. 30, 2012.

After pulling up in a stolen Chrysler Sebring and allegedly riddling the car with bullets – apparently intended for Satchel – and striking Dowling in the head, killing him instantly, Romero, Mitchell and two others abandoned the crashed car on the highway and fled toward the William Trent House, leaving a trail of evidence in their wake, prosecutors said.

The evidence included guns, a fake Jamaican wig and cell phones, said Britton, who was assigned to the county’s homicide task force at the time and testified about how his investigation led him all the way to Virginia.

Prosecutors played clips capturing the two vehicles near the Market Street exit, as Britton pointed out for jurors specks of light he said were muzzle flashes from the gunshots. Four people were also captured bailing out of the stolen car, as the retired detective used a laser to point them out for the jury.

Britton also testified how he was familiar with Mitchell and had learned his nickname, “Bill Bill,” while investigating the unrelated 2007 murder of Bloods gang member Arnold Poole, a popular figure who was gunned down after a fashion show.

Mitchell was apparently friends with Poole, Britton said.

Britton said that it had been a particularly gory week in Trenton prior to the sensational Route 29 murder, apparently targeting Satchel, who later died in an ATV accident.

“Every single night we tried to sit down and have a meal we were interrupted by someone being shot,” Britton said.

The highway carnage forced authorities to close the highway overnight, outraging commuters driving home during rush-hour traffic and even leading to a phone call from an upset Gov. Chris Christie, Britton said.

Britton said as he and other detectives looked for leads on the murder, they received information from State Police’s Regional Operations Intelligence Center, known to detectives as Rock, about where to get surveillance that might help them identify suspects.

They obtained some footage from a bridge commission surveillance system, which captured parts of the incident, and helped authorities identify the suspects’ vehicle.

The Sebring had been reported stolen by a city woman. Louis Alvarado, a man who defense attorneys pointed to as a possible murder suspect, pleaded guilty in 2014 to lifting the vehicle from outside La Guira Bar.

He was never charged for having any role in Dowling’s murder, but defense attorneys focused on him nonetheless while cross examining Britton.

Patrick O’Hara, Romero’s attorney, noted Alvarado was uncooperative during the investigation, because his fingerprints were all over the stolen vehicle and he had been implicated in the murder.

Authorities also found cigarette butts on scene with Alvarado’s DNA.

No matter how detectives pressed, Alvarado seemed to “care less” about whether he was charged with murder, O’Hara said.

“There was a lot of things you could say about Alvarado,” Britton said. “That’s probably one of them.”

O’Hara also pointed to a Chicago Bulls cap recovered on scene that came back with DNA belonging to Anthony Marks, one of the four men in the stolen Sebring.

Marks, the driver, pleaded guilty to lesser gun charges as part of a 10-year plea deal with prosecutors.

A Mercer County Grand Jury has returned indictments against two men in the murder of 19-year-old Elvin Kimble.
The 19-year-old was gunned down on a city street in November 2015.

Elvin Kimble

According to the prosecutor’s office that on November 24, 2015 around 12:39 a.m., police officers were dispatched to the area of Chestnut Avenue and Rusling Street on a report of shots fired. Officers arrived and found evidence of a shootout between at least two people on either side of Rusling Street, but did not locate a victim.

Later, at 6:18 a.m. police were called to 112 Rusling Street after receiving a report that a resident’s vehicle was struck by gunfire. When police responded, a Division Street resident approached the officers to report a man lying dead between a parked car and a fence in his driveway. That man was later identified as Elvin Kimble; he suffered a gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Jermaine Johnson

Following an investigation by Detective Nancy Diaz and the Mercer County Homicide Task Force, complaints were signed on January 14, 2014 charging Gary Spears and Jermaine Johnson with Kimble’s murder. The pair remain in jail on $1 million bail.

Prosecutors said that Spears, 34, of Trenton, and Johnson, 40, of Ewing, were each charged on one count of first degree murder, one count of possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and one count of second degree unlawful possession of a handgun. Spears was also indicted on one count of second degree certain person not to possess a firearm.

The case was presented to the grand jury by Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Ward.

In January 2015, Ward said that an hour before Kimble was shot he was seen breaking into Johnson’s vehicle. Ward said in January that according to an unnamed witness Johnson gave chase and Kimble allegedly fired in his direction.

It is alleged that Johnson recruited the help of Gary Spears to retaliate against Kimble. At a January 2015 bail hearing prosecutors believed that Spears fired the shot that ended Kimble’s life.

A reputed Bloods gangster who is already serving an 18-year sentence for executing an ex-con who was ready to testify against another gangster could spent another quarter century behind bars if he accepts the rap killing another city man.

Mayleek McInnis

Mayleek McInnis is imprisoned for the aggravated manslaughter of fellow gangster Shawn Travis, who was shot in the head on April Fools' Day in 2008.

Now prosecutors want him to spend 25 years in prison for the 2005 shooting death of Omar Murphy, who was gunned down near the intersection of Stuyvesant and Ellsworth avenues

Two years ago, prosecutors said witnesses had stepped forward and pegged McInnis as the killer.

McInnis has been incarcerated Northern State Prison in Newark since 2010 after he admitting to killing Travis.

His attorney, public defender Jessica Lyons, said Monday at a status hearing, she may extend a counter offer to prosecutors at their next court appearance in November.

That is the accept-or-reject date for McInnis to let prosecutors know whether he plans to take the proposed plea deal for Murphy's killing.

The 25-year offer would run likely supersede the 18-year prison term he is already serving.

According to Trentonian archives, McInnis had only been out of prison for 20 days when he killed Travis, 34, a convicted robber and drug dealer who had been released from prison himself only 18 months before he was gunned down.

Witnesses told detectives they saw McInnis shoot the unarmed Travis in the head and back as he stood at the outside his apartment on Coolidge Avenue.

McInnis claimed he shot Travis because he feared he was about to be robbed. Prosecutors said the real motive was to silence a possible witness to another gangland slaying in 2007.

Authorities said Travis was killed because rival Blood gangsters thought he was ready to testify against suspected Sex Money Murder hit man Willie Yeager, in the killing of Naquan Archie, 18.

Shortly before Travis' murder, Mercer County Corrections officials intercepted a letter from Yeager in jail that some interpreted as an order to have Travis killed.

Hours before a city man was gunned down in a cold blood as he drove unsuspectingly along a busy Trenton highway, Jamar Square was putting on a little reggae show for “some females” outside of a bodega.

Murder victim Daquan Dowling

He did the whole Damian Marley-like song and dance, even donning a stitch cap with long, fake dreadlocks.

“You know how to put on a show and make sure people are paying attention and you’re playing what they want to hear?” defense attorney Christopher Campbell asked Square on Tuesday, at the murder trial of two city men.

“I try,” he said.

After the self-proclaimed rapper and entertainer was finished, he handed the fake dreads back to the women and went inside to pick up his chicken cheesesteak, French fries and drink.

When he came back out, he spotted family friend Anthony Marks, behind the wheel of a black Chrysler Sebring. He asked for a ride, offering to give Marks gas money.

Square’s car “caught a flat” earlier the day of Jan. 30, 2012, on North Clinton and Olden avenues, right as he headed back into the capital city after his sociology class at Mercer County Community College let out sometime after 3 p.m. He then visited a female classmate for about an hour prior to making a pit stop at the bodega.

Square, a 23-year-old man from Lawrence, said Marks agreed to give him a hitch and told him since they were cool he didn’t need to pay him.

But as the men set off through the city streets, hot-boxing what turned out to be a stolen Sebring as they took turns hitting a marijuana joint, something horrible happened, Square said.

Suspected killers Andre Romero and William “Bill Bill” Mitchell opened fire on a vehicle as they motored down Route 29, Square said.

He said Mitchell announced to the car he recognized one of the occupants, through dark tinted windows, as “Old Boy from South Trenton.”

Romero agreed.

Then, Square said, the men said, “I’m about to blast him.”

“They’re firing shots while I’m ducking for cover in my seat,” he said. “The car spins in a 360. Once the car stops, I took off running for my life.”

In the hail of gunfire, a bullet struck 23-year-old Daquan Dowling in the head, killing him instantly, as passenger Morris Satchel struggled to regain control of the careening car.

Yeah, sure, defense attorneys said about Square’s allegations.

They shrugged it off his claims as lies from an admitted “mediocre musician” and gifted former point guard who dished it on others when he found himself trapped by prosecutors’ mounting full-court press.

“Are you putting on a show today for us?” Campbell charged.

“No,” Square responded.

“’Cause you retired?” Campbell said. “You’re not doing it anymore.”

Defense attorney Patrick O’Hara, Romero’s attorney, referred to Square during cross examination as a “one-man crime wave.”

Square was initially charged with murder along with Romero, Mitchell and Marks.

A grand jury ended up only indicting him on gun charges.

Square had also caught charges in three other cases. He faced counts of robbery, terroristic threats, burglary and theft in those cases – for allegedly holding up residents in his hometown of Lawrence and also targeting College of New Jersey students.

O’Hara scrawled the word “murder,” along with other charges, in big bold letters on an oversized notepad inside the courtroom, stacking up the combined potential century he faced behind bars on those charges, if they ran consecutively, and if he didn’t help prosecutors by cooperating against Romero and Mitchell.

Square, who struck a deal that could land up with him getting little as five years in prison, referred to his baggage as “stuff in the past,” promising he’s changed.

Square admitted he hopes by him telling the “truth,” he can avoid prison altogether.

O’Hara charged that Square did “whatever he needed” to do to get out from underneath a murder rap, even if it meant fitting his Square peg testimony into the round hole in prosecutors’ case.

Square let as much slip out in November 2012, when he sat down to give a statement to prosecutors.

Square was asked during the proffer session whether Marks, known as “Ant,” had a gun the day of the murder. He responded that Marks wasn’t armed, but added “but the prosecutor said,” before a detective cut him off.

O’Hara suggested Square is prosecutors’ pet, a parrot who would repeat whatever he was told to say.

“You were going to tell Detective [Gary] Britton that the prosecutor told [you] he had a gun,” O’Hara said.

The defense attorney pointed out he didn’t know his client by name, only his nickname, finding out Romero’s government name from detectives.

Assistant Prosecutor James Scott tried to humanize Square during direct examination earlier in the day, hoping the jury will believe his testimony if they know more about past and future.

Square said he has moved on from his checkered past. He resumed business classes and works a hotel desk job to put himself through college.

He is working toward an associate’s degree and hopes to get his master’s one day.

Square told jurors he saw Mitchell around Trenton prior to the murder, though they weren’t close.

Recapping his day in 2012, he explained that after getting a flat tire he called up his cousin for a ride.

His cousin worked late but would connect with him later to help him fix the tire.

Looking to kill time, Square walked to a bodega and ordered food. He chatted up a group of women outside, putting on a performance to woo one of them.

One woman handed him a fake Jamaican wig – one eerily similar to an abandoned dreadlock wig found near the William Trent house, where the four men fled toward after the murder.

Square claimed he gave the wig back.

“Never seen where that wig went,” he said.

Square said he sat with Romero in the back seat, directly behind Marks, on the driver’s side, gobbling down his cheesesteak and stashing a gray hat in the seatback pocket as they drove up St. Joes Avenue.

He retraced the car’s path for jurors, as they passed the train station on South Clinton Avenue.

While heading toward Route 29, a car with dark tinted windows cut them off, Square said.

Mitchell and Romero recognized the driver as “Old Boy.”

“They were talking in codes,” Square said.

The alleged shooters riddled the car with bullets, crashed and all four men abandoned the car.

Square insisted he never handled any of the guns, though he pleaded guilty to a weapon charge under the state’s constructive possession laws, which meant he had access to and could have used one of the weapons.

Afterward, Square said, Mitchell and Romero threatened him.

“If you tell, we gonna kill you,” he said.

Square said he gave a woman he knew gas money to give him a ride home, later skipping town for Virginia.

“I was scared for my life,” he said.

Getaway driver Anthony Marks said Thursday at the murder trial of two friends that he warned one of the suspected killers not to pull the trigger as they drove down the highway in the capital city four years ago.

Murder victim Daquan Dowling

Marks said that when best friend William “Bill Bill” Mitchell announced to the car he planned to light up a white Ford Taurus carrying a rival along Route 29, Marks responded: “No don’t do it. Not right here.”

Mitchell did it anyway, Marks said, after his co-defendant, Andre Romero, opened fire first that fateful day in January 2012.

Twenty-three-year-old Daquan Dowling was struck in the head in a hail of bullets, while the suspected killers gunned for his passenger, Morris Satchel.

Wearing a black shirt, his head shaven and a long, scruffy beard hanging off his face, the illiterate Marks, 28, who admitted he can’t read, at times sounded like he was on auto-pilot when he testified against his friends, who are being tried together.

Security was tight inside the packed courtroom, which was tense throughout Marks’ day on the stand. His testimony was interrupted when a woman in the gallery called another spectator a “b----.”

Anthony Marks

Sheriffs escorted five people out of the courtroom, and warned others additional outbursts would result in people being taken out in handcuffs.

Initially charged with murder along with the men he now pointed the finger at, Marks pleaded guilty to a pair of handgun charges under a plea deal with prosecutors.

He agreed to testify “truthfully” against Mitchell and Romero, whom he knew by the street name “Ceto,” in exchange for a sentence of 10 years in prison. He has to do six years before he’s up for parole.

For some time, Marks tried insulating Mitchell from the murder charge.

Marks, Mitchell and Romero were friends, after all.

Marks told jurors he knew Mitchell since they were teenagers growing up in East Trenton.

He had also been over to the home of Romero’s mother, befriending him around 2011.

Assistant Prosecutor James Scott showed pictures of the three men together, taken with Mitchell’s cell phone, which was discovered inside the stolen and crashed Chrysler Sebring used in the January 2012 murder.

The photos showed the men in happier times, partying with drinks in their hands. They were also shown shooting pool and hoops together at Dave & Busters.

Andre Romero

But after the Dowling was shot, Marks and Mitchell lost their phones in the mad dash to get away from the murder scene, scaling the wall of the William Trent House.

Marks admitted he and Mitchell discussed that, if they were questioned by police, they’d say they were robbed of their phones and that’s why they were found at the murder scene.

But after the men were charged, Marks flipped on his best friend out of self-preservation and because Mitchell didn’t want to own up to the killing.

“I was being crossed,” Marks said. “He [said he] was gonna take the charge. He didn’t take it. I pleaded guilty to what I did.”

Marks said firmly he didn’t kill Dowling, who was shot in the head while driving with Satchel in a white Ford Taurus along Route 29  on Jan. 30, 2012.

Dowling was an unintended victim in a brewing feud between rival factions in East and South Trenton.

The “beef” escalated after Romero’s sister was jumped, Marks said.

That day, Mitchell and Romero gunned for a man known only as “Poopie,” Marks said.

Marks didn’t know Poopie’s real name, but a comment left under the obituary of Satchel, who died months later in an unrelated ATV accident, said, “RIP Poopie. Miss [you], bro.”

Marks, who wore Carhartts and a red Chicago Bulls cap the day of the murder, said he got keys to the stolen Sebring from Louis Alvarado, who lifted it outside of La Guira Bar.

Marks, Mitchell and Romero visited a deli, where they picked up Square.

While smoking a joint in the car, they went to Mitchell’s home to get guns and later to get a bottle from a liquor store in South Trenton.

Marks went inside his home and came back out with a black plastic bag, containing a .45-caliber. .357 snub-nosed and .357 Smith and Wesson.

Marks’ testimony about the guns contradicted what Square told jurors Tuesday, when he denied knowing about the guns or handling them, despite pleading guilty to a gun charge.

As the men rode out, “Bill Bill” was shotgun, Romero and Square in the backseat. Square was behind Marks, who was at the wheel.

There wasn’t a plan to shoot up anyone, Marks said.

The guns were for “in case we got into any trouble. There’s a lot of beef that goes on,” Marks said.

But as Marks described how everything unfolded, it appeared Mitchell allegedly sought out beef when he and Romero saw a car they recognized as Poopie’s near Lamberton Liquors.

He told Marks to follow behind.

Marks make a U-turn and got behind the car at a red light, prior to getting on Route 29.

That decision, defense attorney Patrick O’Hara surmised on cross examination, made Marks complicit in murder.

“I ain’t pull the trigger,” Marks said.

“But you didn’t hit the brake, either,” O’Hara said.

Well, they didn’t know the car was stolen.

That’s the most that can be said at this point for William “Bill Bill” Mitchell and Andre Romero, the suspected Route 29 killers on trial for allegedly shooting 23-year-old Daquan Dowling to death while they motored down the highway in Trenton in January 2012.

Andre Romero

A judge dismissed counts of receiving stolen property against each man, after prosecutors conceded there was not enough evidence that they knew they were rolling around in a stolen Chrysler Sebring the day of the Jan. 30, 2012 murder.

The car was lifted outside a troubled Trenton bar by a man named Louis Alvarado, who later pleaded guilty to as much. He turned over the keys to Anthony Marks, one of four men originally charged with the murder of Dowling.

The two suspected killers still face serious charges of murder and weapons offenses, which could send them away for life.

And prosecutors said they believe Mitchell fired the fatal shot, which struck Dowling in the head and killed him instantly. Assistant Prosecutor James Scott based that on ballistics at the scene and a detective’s testimony at trial.

Scott said Romero’s lone slug was stopped by the car frame, otherwise it would have potentially been a kill shot. He said save for his gun jamming, nothing would have stopped Romero.

That notwithstanding, attorneys for both men asked Judge Anthony Massi for a directed verdict on the remaining counts. Massi is expected to issue an order sometime Friday.

But as defense attorneys Patrick O’Hara and Christopher Campbell know, getting murder and weapons charges dismissed against their clients at this late stage is a long shot.

Campbell said it was pure speculation, unsupported by evidence, that Mitchell filed the fatal shot.

O’Hara, Romero’s attorney, asked the judge to charge the jury on lesser included counts of manslaughter and aggravated assault – even though Dowling died.

He said testimony supported the lesser charge of aggravated assault, because the jury could infer the alleged shooters didn’t plant to kill anyone and intended to “frighten the driver.”

“This was a spur-of-the moment thing,” O’Hara said. “And it wasn’t perfect.”

The judge didn’t go along with it, after hearing from two men who were in the car with Mitchell and Romero.

They told jurors they saw the men open fire on a white Ford Taurus carrying Dowling and passenger Morris Satchel, an apparent rival known on the streets as “Poopie.”

Getaway drive Marks, who copped a 10-year plea for weapons offenses for his role in the fatal shooting, testified this week that Mitchell said he was going to “tear the car” up after they visited Mitchell’s home and picked up a cache of guns – two .357 handguns and a .45-caliber.

Anthony Marks

Jamar Square, who was also in the car at the time of the shooting, also pleaded guilty to weapons charges and is hoping he doesn’t go to prison when he is sentenced after the trial.

He maintained he didn’t know guns were in the car and told jurors he was simply getting a ride from family friend Marks after his car got a flat tire. Marks picked him up outside a city bodega after he put on a reggae show for “some females,” he said.

Square claimed that moments before the shooting, as they were motoring toward Route 29, Mitchell and Romero noticed the white Taraus – a car they believed belonged to “Old Boy from South Trenton.”

Square said the men talked in code prior to riddling it with bullets.

Marks claimed the suspected killers recognized the car as belonging to “Poopie.” He didn’t know Poopie’s real name, but The Trentonian found a comment under Satchel’s obituary that referred to him as Poopie.

The apparent shooting was retaliation after Romero’s sister got jumped, Marks said.

Satchel survived the Route 29 shooting, and ensuing car crash, which closed down the highway overnight. But he died months later in an unrelated ATV accident.

Closing arguments are scheduled for Tuesday.

An attorney for one of the Route 29 murder suspects played the old switcheroo in his closing argument to jurors Tuesday, pinning the crime on a man who admitted lifting the car used in the drive-by slay.

Andre Romero

Defense attorney Patrick O’Hara said prosecutors didn’t have physical evidence showing his client Andre Romero was inside a stolen Chrysler Sebring on Jan. 30, 2012.

However, there was plenty of car thief Louis Alvarado’s DNA inside the car – a fingerprint on the outside of the vehicle and a cigarette butt with his saliva on it – that detectives simply “turned their backs” on.

“What links my client, for sure, with that car? There's more evidence this guy was there,” O’Hara said, fingering his pen toward Alvarado’s name on an easel.

O’Hara disputed that Romero, charged with murder along with suspected killer William “Bill Bill” Mitchell, ever opened fire on a white Ford Taurus driven by slay victim Daquan Dowling.

Mitchell and Romero sat silently in the courtroom as the prosecutor looked to deliver the kill shot that could send them to prison for life.

In a dramatic twist, after Assistant Prosecutor James Scott finished stacking up the “overwhelming evidence” against the two defendants, he pointed to them in the courtroom – Romero seated behind Mitchell – and told jurors they were similarly seated when they riddled Dowling’s car with bullets.

Mitchell was riding shotgun, Romero right behind him on the passenger’s side,when Mitchell announced he was going to “tear up the car.” They fired five times in three seconds, four shots striking the driver’s side, Scott said.

“That's purpose to kill the driver,” he said. “Mitchell thought, ‘Maybe I got away with this.’ No he didn't get away with this.”

Defense attorneys slammed state cooperators Anthony Marks and Jamar Square, who reached plea deals to testify that they saw Mitchell and Romero open fire on Dowling’s car along Route 29 in Trenton, as “two squealers”  who colluded to make up a story in order to get out from underneath a murder rap.

Anthony Marks

Christopher Campbell, Mitchell's attorney, told jurors the pair’s testimony was a “ridiculous story they cooked up while smoking weed and shooting the breeze” after the fatal shooting.

“It boils down to the word of Mr. Marks and Mr. Square,” he said. “Here's the rub. How do we sort out the liars?"

While he said this wasn’t a murder, because the suspected killers didn’t intend to kill anyone, Campbell conceded it might be manslaughter.

Dowling was an unintended victim caught up in the crossfire of a brewing feud between East and South Trenton that escalated after someone from the southside crew jumped Romero’s sister, Marks testified.

Scott called the apparent beef “ridiculous” and showed a gruesome photo of the bloodied murder victim with a hole in his head, slumped over the center console.

Dowling’s family members gasped as the photo was shown on the overheard and wailed loudly as a sheriff offered tissues to them.

The shrieks from the grieving family didn’t shake Scott who said ballistics and a .357 bullet recovered from Dowling’s skull proves Mitchell fired the fatal shot.

But he saidRomero was just as responsible for the murder because he fired first. His lone shot could have just as easily struck Dowling in the head if it hadn’t been absorbed by the car frame.

Murder victim Daquan Dowling

Romero was thwarted from exacting revenge on an apparent South Trenton rival known only by the names “Old Boy” and “Poopie” after his gun jammed – or “stove piped,” in the words of a ballistics expert who testified at trial.

Urging jurors to drive a wedge between his client and Mitchell’s culpability, O'Hara said prosecutors tried to make Romero guilty of murder by association.

During the trial, Scott showed photos of good friends Marks, Mitchell and Romero partying and shooting pool at Dave & Busters.

“The state took the people had extreme self-interests and is basing a case against my client,” he said. “Just because you’re in photographs with your friends doesn't make you a murderer.”

Along with three guns and a Jamaican wig that was strewn along the escape path, authorities found Mitchell’s phone lodged in the car seat cushions of the crashed, abandoned Sebring, prosecutors said.

An FBI expert analyzed the Samsung Galaxy, the apparent “case cracker,” and found it contained 218 photographs.

Scott showed jurors photos from the phone of Mitchell in the delivery room when his baby was born and others of him with Romero and Marks.

He swept aside Campbell’s claim that it may not have been his client’s phone since there were no “selfies” on it.

Defense attorneys hammered Marks and Square, pointing out their inconsistencies on the stand.

William "Bill Bill" Mitchell

Square testified he didn’t know there were guns in the car after he got a ride from Marks when his tire caught a flat earlier in the day.

Marks said he was with Mitchell and Romero when he scooped Square at a city bodega. They went to Mitchell’s home to pick up guns prior to heading toward a liquor store in South Trenton.

In one last-ditch attempt to deflect blame from his client, Campbell said that while Square went out his way to distance himself from a gun and the murder by running away to Virginia, he couldn’t get away from a fake Jamaican wig.

Square said he wore a similar dreadlocked wig when he put on a show for “some females” outside the bodega, though he claimed he gave it back.

Marks said Mitchell wore the Rastafarian wig when the gunshots rang out.

“It appeared magically in the car and it was on Mitchell's head?” Campbell said.

Omar Kennedy is accused of delivering the coupe de grace, if not the kill shot.

Afterwards, he was all smiles about it, prosecutors said.

Omar Kennedy (Mugshots.com)

Kennedy, 34, and two others are charged with murder and weapons offenses after they walked 19-year-old Lance Beckett into an alleyway where he was fatally shot the afternoon of Sept. 18, prosecutors said at a bail hearing Thursday.

One of the suspects let off four shots, mortally wounding the city teenager.

For good measure, Kennedy stomped on Beckett’s head “to ensure he was dead,” while he bled out in a wooded area near East Stuyvesant Avenue,  Assistant Prosecutor Tim Ward said.

Quashawn Emanuel, 18, and a 17-year-old boy are also charged in the slaying of Beckett, who died at the scene.

Prosecutors haven't said who fired the fatal shot, but Emanuel denied shooting Beckett to death, while admitting he knew he was sleepwalking the teenager to his death.

Prosecutors will likely waive up the 17-year-old boy as an adult.

With his shirt off and dangling out his back pocket, Kennedy was caught on tape laughing and joking with his co-defendants at a deli not long after the killing, Ward said.

Surveillance tapes helped authorities track down the suspected killers after witnesses provided police with vital clothing descriptions.

Quashawn Emanuel

One witness described to police seeing one suspect stomp Beckett’s head.

That turned out to be Kennedy, who was interviewed by authorities prior to fleeing to Virginia, Ward said.

The prosecutor said detectives initially released Kennedy without charging him.

Feeling the heat, Kennedy fled to Virginia, where he was picked up this month by U.S. Marshals NY/NJRegional Fugitive Task Force, prosecutors said.

Kennedy was brought back to the Garden State, where he admitted he was on surveillance tapes and present when the murder happened, Ward said.

He also acknowledged fleeing after the murder, prosecutors said.

Jenna Casper, Kennedy’s attorney, said her client maintains his innocence and didn’t run from authorities. He went to Virginia to attend an aunt’s funeral.

Casper questioned the strength of evidence against Kennedy if authorities let him walk the first time, prior to arresting him in Virginia.

“He was not involved with the actual shooting,” she said.

Lance Beckett (Facebook photo)

Kennedy has been arrested 17 times, in Virginia, South Carolina and New Jersey. He has six felony convictions, including for drugs, hindering, child abuse and contempt.

He had just gotten out of jail months before the murder, Ward said.

The prosecutor said Kennedy proved, “There’s not a risk of flight. There’s a certainty of flight.”

A judge maintained bail at $1 million, the same as for Emanuel, while the 17-year-old boy is housed at a Middlesex County juvenile jail.

Andre “Ceto” Romero was a friend of Daquan Dowling, the man shot to death four years ago in a drive-by along a busy capital city highway.

As kids, they played at parks together. They went swimming. They ate together. They had sleepovers at Dowling’s mother’s home in Trenton.

Andre Romero

“I raised that boy with my son,” said Saundra Dowling, Daquan’s mother. “In the beginning, I said ‘Ceto’ didn’t do it.”

In the end, the jury, after deliberating for roughly six hours, decided “Ceto” didn’t do it, either – a “disgusting” decision that caused Dowling’s relatives to lose faith in the jury system.

Dowling was struck in the head and killed instantly, on Jan. 30, 2012, as he drove along Route 29 in Trenton with passenger Morris Satchel.

“I know if they could get away with murder, I know I could,” said Samaijah Edwards, Dowling’s sister.

Dowling’s mother said Assistant Prosecutor James Scott “had everything down pat,” seamlessly weaving more than 100 pieces of evidence for jurors.

And they still came back deadlocked on whether suspected triggerman William “Bill Bill” Mitchell fired the fatal shot from a .357 handgun, strewn along the escape path on the highway.

Saundra Dowling didn’t shed a tear as the verdict was read, consoling devastated family members.

“Justice wasn’t served today,” she told The Trentonian. “What God has in store for murderers is so overwhelming.”

Scott had the difficult task of meeting with the family after the verdict.

“You always tell the family when you go to trial any result is possible,” he said. “Any attorney who says you have a slam dunk case hasn’t tried enough cases. But I would say pretty much everyone in that courtroom was surprised at that result.”

The biggest surprise, perhaps, was that the jury nearly sent Mitchell home. He’ll be retried instead.

A juror who did not want to give his name said nine people believed Mitchell was not guilty, a single person thought he did it and two were undecided.

Jurors were hung up on state cooperators Jamar Square and Anthony Marks, who testified they were inside a stolen Chrsyler Sebring when Mitchell and Romero riddled Dowling’s white Ford Taurus with bullets.

While they were initially charged with murder, the men reached plea deal with prosecutors to admit to gun charges.

Marks was given a 10-year deal, while Square, who was described by a defense attorney as a “one-man crime wave,” testified he hoped he doesn’t go to prison when he’s sentenced.

Marks told jurors that when Mitchell announced he was going to light up the car, he told him not to do it on the busy highway, in the middle of rush hour traffic.

Anthony Marks

Square didn’t come across well on the stand, never admitting he knew guns were in the car. He also distanced himself from a Jamaican wig he used to put on a performance for “some females” outside of a city bodega prior to getting picked up by Marks and Co.

A similar Jamaican wig was apparently worn by Mitchell during the murder, and discovered along the men’s escape route.

The two cooperators also gave different nicknames of the person Mitchell and Romero were targeting in a East Trenton-South Trenton feud that flared up when Romero’s sister got jumped.

Square claimed the men were after “Old Boy from South Trenton,” Marks saying it was “Poopie.”

Christopher Campbell, Mitchell’s attorney, said the “two cooperating witnesses’ stories were completely inconsistent in many, many ways, even without that ‘false in one, false in all’ charge.”

The juror didn’t buy a word of it.

“They had something to gain from their testimony and their prior run-ins with the law,” the juror said.

Saundra Dowling blasted the decision to give the two men deals to cooperate against Mitchell and Romero, saying their “lies” on the stand confused the jury and made it hard for them to convict Mitchell and too easy for them to acquit Romero.

“Four friends. Four dummies. And four murderers,” she said. “And God has the last say so.”

For Mitchell, the sticking point may have been a cell phone found lodged between the seat cushions of the stolen car.

It had pictures of Mitchell, Romero and Marks partying and playing pool at Dave & Busters.

They jury couldn’t reconcile that, so one man walked, and another one talked.

Mitchell didn’t hide his disgust with the jury after the verdict was announced.

After his co-defendant was acquitted on all charges, multiple witnesses in the courtroom contend Mitchell shouted at Scott: “Ceto’s DNA was on the gun. This is crazy, man.”

Dowling’s family members claimed Mitchell told Romero after the verdict he’d need protection on the streets.

William "Bill Bill" Mitchell

Campbell was standing next to his client and said all he heard him say was, “Congratulations. You’re going home.”

Not really.

Romero still has the two less serious cases his attorney will look to resolve. He is being held on a combined bail of $100,000, as his family didn’t have money to spring him from jail following the verdict.

Despite that, Romero and relatives were elated.

Olga Romero, Andre’s aunt, said she was comforted by “the power of prayer” and the belief her nephew was innocent.

“He’s not a saint, but he’s definitely not a murderer,” she said.

The tall, gangly Romero draped his arms around his much-shorter attorney, Patrick O’Hara.

O’Hara persuaded jurors to acquit his client by contending no physical evidence tied him to the stolen Sebring.

O’Hara said it was as plausible car thief Louis Alvarado, whose DNA was found in the car that he admitted lifting outside the La Guira Bar, was the fourth person on the car.

Despite claiming his client wasn’t in the car, O’Hara never pursued an alibi defense.

He explained Romero didn’t know he was a suspect for more than a year after the murder, until he was indicted in March 2013.

By that time, Romero couldn’t remember where he was the day of the murder, making such a defense a dodgy proposition.

“An uncertain alibi is a death knell for a defendant,” O’Hara said. “You have to be rock-solid certain.”

In the end, not going that route was his saving grace.

“I’m crying on the inside,” Saundra Dowling said. “Everyone gets to walk free. How to get away with murder? You just seen a whole video on it.”

Luddie Austin thought about tracking down and killing the man who helped kill his son, James, in February 2013.

(left to right) Amanda Austin holding Jakalya, one of James Austin's twin daughters, Kim Bellamy, and Luddie Austin holding the other twin Janalya.

On those days, when he contemplated taking out convicted killer Raheem Currie, the retired Trenton Police sergeant found solace in the people in his corner. Guys like Lester Ponder, a fellow veteran and close family friend.

It also helped that Luddie Austin remembered when his son was 12 years old, waiting deep for the kickoff during a youth football game for the Willingboro Panthers. They were playing the Trenton Tornadoes, and father and son made a little wager.

James wanted a gas-powered remote control car. His dad said he'd buy him one if he scored a touchdown. James took back the opening kickoff, and proceeded to tack on five more touchdowns, as the Panthers walloped Trenton.

“He earned it,” Luddie Austin told Judge Pedro Jimenez at Friday’s sentencing. “He didn’t take it like the defendant took his life.”

Vengeance percolated, but in the end, Luddie Austin couldn’t fathom the thought of dishonoring his son’s memory. Killing Currie while he was out on bail would have been biblical and cathartic, but it also would have been selfish.

It would have added another dimension to what Jimenez called a “human drama,” played out in Trenton over the last three years, and bookended when the judge sent Currie to prison for 23 years for aggravated manslaughter, conspiracy and a weapons charge.

James Austin with his twin daughters.

Jimenez said there was nothing Currie could do for the Austin family “unless you’re the Lord Jesus Christ raising Lazarus from the dead.”

Currie must serve 19 ½ years before he’s eligible for parole for enlisting his cousin, Robert Bartley, to bring a gun that was used to kill James Austin.

Bartley, who is expected to get 25 years for shooting the cop’s son, said he never intended to kill Austin, only intervene in a fight James Austin and his cousin had over broken car windows.

It didn’t end that way, shattering the new father's goal to become a corrections officer and "help clean up Trenton and make it safe" for his twin daughters, said Yvonne Maxwell, Currie's mother.

And it may never end.

“My son died in a city I swore to protect. We’re not gonna give up,” Luddie Austin said. “Even 19 years from now, when he comes up for parole, someone’s gonna be there.”

Luddie Austin was prescient.

The case is far from over, and it may not get far if Currie’s attorneys have their way.

Currie’s case it part of a legal sermon on a state Supreme Court case, State v. Bridges, intent and how it squares away with Currie’s culpability.

Jack Furlong, Currie’s attorney, and the judge had different interpretations of how the Bridges case came to bear into Currie’s trial, one side saying it allows for defendants to be held accountable for the murderous actions of others even if they didn’t intend the outcome, the other side saying not so much.

Raheem Currie

Furlong and an associate contended in court papers the jury’s “inconsistent” verdict – not guilty of murder and conspiracy to possess a weapon for an unlawful purpose and guilty of aggravated manslaughter, conspiracy to possess a weapon and weapon possession – suggested the panel was confused by the judge’s instructions on the law.

And for that reasons, and others, Furlong asked for a new trial and for the verdict to be set aside.

His argument centered largely on the Bridges case involving a Trenton man who brought his crew, armed with guns, so he could fight another man, fair and square.

Shots popped off, someone died, and Bennie Bridges went to prison for murder-conspiracy, even though he didn’t fire a shot and didn’t intend to.

The court said his actions were “reasonable foreseeable” since he brought goons with guns.

Ditto for Currie, Jimenez offered at the trial, when he said: “Why else bring a gun to a fist fight?”

The judge augmented those statements Friday, in denying the request for a new trial, while acknowledging the case law on accomplice liability is murky and undeveloped.

Nonetheless, he said Bartley was neither “invited guest” nor “peacemaker” and was brought to James’ house with a purpose, which he claimed was to get the cop’s son to pay for the shattered windows.

Instead, James Austin paid with his life. And Currie must pay, too, for “setting into motion” Bartley’s actions in the “toxic, hostile” situation.

The judge surmised Currie’s anger was the driving force.

“None of this would have happened if Currie didn’t make the call,” Jimenez said.

Furlong retorted: “None of this would have happened if Bartley said, ‘You know what? I’m not going.’”

In making his argument for argument’s sake, Furlong maintained his client admits nothing about what Bartley testified to at trial: that not only did Currie know about his gun, but that he asked him to bring it with him, during a phone call shortly after Currie and James Austin scuffled over the busted-out car windows.

Robert Bartley

No one who was in the car with Currie apparently heard him say as much. So therefore, Furlong said, his client didn’t express intent to kill James Austin, perhaps only to bring a gun.

“I can’t square the circle,” he said.

Channeling his attorney, Currie said he was remorseful but “not so much for my actions but for the culmination of the events that happened.”

Luddie Austin said he hasn’t forgiven the cousins. He also doesn’t accept Currie’s contention he didn’t know what was going to go down.

“The day has come for Justice for James,” he said.

Another day will surely come for Currie.

And when it does, the proud father who contemplated murder will be there to make sure his son's killer isn’t let loose.

A city teenager accused of killing 16-year-old Ciony Kirkman was quietly waived up as an adult last month to face murder charges in a random killing stemming from an apparent dispute over music disrespectful of a neighborhood gang.

Ciony Kirkman (contributed photo)

Teenager Peter Charles Jr. has been charged with murder, six counts of aggravated assault and weapons offenses in connection with the April 24 slaying of Kirkman, who was shot in the head while inside a stolen van with six others minors.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office said criminal complaints were filed in October against Charles, who was 17 years old at the time of the killing. He turned 18 in July.

The teen suspect's name was not made public by prosecutors until Wednesday, when The Trentonian asked prosecutor Angelo Onofri’s office for an update on the case.

The prosecutor's office did not provide a mugshot of the teen suspect.

Charles has not made a first appearance as an adult in Mercer County criminal court. His case is being handled by Assistant Prosecutor James Scott.

Charles' initial appearance took place at a sealed hearing in juvenile court before Judge Lawrence DeBello, who set bail at $500,000 cash. Juvenile matters are not open to the public.

Charles pleaded not guilty to the charges at that hearing, and prosecutors have yet to extend a plea offer, his attorney said.

Charles' attorney told The Trentonian in a phone interview Wednesday the case against his client is “nonsensical” and he will explore an alibi to show Charles was not present at the time of the shooting.

"We contend that is a misidentification," said defense attorney Bruce Throckmorton, who handled the high-profile police shooting case of injured Trenton teenager Radazz Hearns earlier this year.

Throckmorton said he has reviewed grainy surveillance prosecutors contend shows Charles moments before the shooting, walking toward the scene and leaving.

Throckmorton said the tapes did not capture the shooting, and he is adamant, “It’s pretty clear it’s not him.”

Throckmorton said  witnesses will contradict the prosecution’s witnesses who identified Charles as the gunman. Those defense witnesses have not spoken to police, Throckmorton said.

Authorities did not recover a gun, Throckmorton said, and prosecutors don’t have a clear motive for the killing. They don’t need one to get a conviction with a jury.

The story, Throckmorton said, is the shooting happened after a Kirkman and six other teens rode up Jersey Street twice in a stolen minivan on April 24.

They had come from Oxford Valley Mall in Langhorne, Pa., Throckmorton said, and were apparently bumping rap music which offended members of the “130 boys,” some sort of neighborhood gang.

Throckmorton did not know whether the group had connections to the Bloods or Crips street gangs in Trenton, nor could he say why they were perturbed by music blaring from the stolen Ford Windstar.

Throckmorton said his client is not a gang member.

As the minivan made the return trip, it was lit up by a gunman, Throckmorton said.

Police have said the minivan was ambushed by gunfire on Jersey Street around 6:30 p.m. on April 24.

Several sources contended to The Trentonian that residents of Jersey Street were warned the street was “going to be lit up like a firecracker” prior to the shooting.

Minutes after the warning, sources say, they heard at least a dozen gunshots in rapid succession.

Kirkman was struck in the head, was on life support and died two days later at a local hospital. Her death touched a nerve in the capital city and was one in a spate of killings where the victims were teenagers.

“How would my guy know the van’s coming?” Throckmorton said. “There’s pieces missing, and I can’t imagine those pieces would tell us the whole story.”

Throckmorton said his client has no known connection to Kirkman. He said his client may have known other individuals in the car, which was a mix of males and females.

The owner of the stolen minivan was identified and doesn’t appear to a connection to Charles or Kirkman, Throckmorton said.

Kirkman was a student at Daylight/Twilight High School. She became the city’s fifth murder victim.

Her funeral service was interrupted by an unfounded report of gunfire, police said.

Charles is still being held at the Middlesex juvenile detention center.

Throckmorton will ask a judge to reconsider lowering his client’s bail at a future hearing.

The defense attorney understands he is swimming upstream with city residents who were outraged about the murder.

“Any homicide is upsetting,” Throckmorton said. “You would hope people would be upset. None of it is OK. Doesn’t mean it was this kid.”

A city man who appeared headed for trial has accepted a plea deal that will send him to prison for nearly two decades for killing another city man in 2014.

Tomarkus Whitfield

Tomarkus Whitfield, 38, recently accepted a plea deal that will send him to prison for 19 and a half years for killing Pinkey Priester in June 2014.

Whitfield pumped more than 10 rounds into the 30-year-old Priester on June 16, 2014, on the 300 block of Centre Street. The men had a longstanding financial dispute that turned violent that day.

Arrested by U.S. Marshals and charged with murder and weapons offenses, Whitfield admitted to a lesser charge of aggravated manslaughter under a negotiated plea with prosecutors, a spokeswoman said in a statement.

He is being sentenced in February, when a judge is expected to impose the plea deal that requires Whitfield to serve roughly 16 and a half years before he’s eligible for parole under the state’s No Early Release Act targeting violent offenders.

Assistant Prosecutor Michelle Gasparian handled the case, which appeared poised for trial earlier this year.

In March, defense attorney Ron Garzio asked a judge for more time to review police reports and other documents handed over in discovery. The judge granted his request and later set the case down for plea cutoff.

Whitfield is behind bars on a $750,000 cash bail.

Curtis Grier was a God-fearing city man who went to church every Sunday. His parents told a judge they raised him to respect the law and his elders. His father is a retired corrections officer and his family is tight with retired Trenton police officers.

Yet in June 2014, two hours after his family friend clung to life after he was felled by three gunshots, Grier took matters into his own hands, a judge said Thursday at sentencing in Mercer County criminal court.

The judge agreed with Assistant Prosecutor William Fisher’s statement that Grier was a “vigilante.”

“Mr. Grier took it upon himself to arrange a reckoning,” Judge Peter Warshaw said, in handing down a 10-year sentence to the admitted killer. “The tragedy of this case is it didn’t have to occur.”

Grier walked the city streets, free on bail, for more than two years, knowing he gunned down Jahmir Hall, a 24-year-old city man who relatives said had started to turn a corner.

Grier pleaded guilty earlier this year to reckless manslaughter, confounding some city residents.

How was an admitted killer roaming free?

What few knew before Thursday was that Grier was provoked, defense attorney Robin Lord said.

Hours before Grier shot Hall five times on Quinton Avenue, Hall tried to kill another city man.

Jason Guillaume, who described Grier as a “brother" and a friend for more than 10 years, said he was getting out of his car April 19, 2014, when he heard footsteps.

It was an ambush, Hall the apparent gunman who fired on him three times, severely wounding him.

Another innocent bystander was also struck in the hail of bullets, he said.

“I almost died from loss of blood,” Guillaume said.

Hall wasn’t done, apparently. Grier was next on the hit list.

Hall’s grandmother, Ellen, didn’t buy it.

“I knew and raised Jahmir,” she said after the hearing. “He wouldn’t do that.”

To this day, it’s unclear why Hall apparently targeted Guillaume, Grier and a third man.

Guillaume declined an interview after the sentencing.

Hall was never charged for the shooting because he died two hours later, mowed down by Grier.

Daniel McCargo

Grier admitted he armed himself with a gun and sought out Hall. He said he planned to talk him down, get him to remember the “good times,” about how they were friends.

Things turned out differently.

He and Hall argued on Quinton Avenue. Grier said that Hall pulled out a gun on him, so he cut him down, afraid for his life.

“I don’t know what got into him,” Grier told the judge.

In a panic, Grier grabbed Hall’s gun and ran back to a parked black Mercedes Benz, where co-defendant Daniel McCargo was waiting. He handed over Hall’s gun.

That was the weapon police found on McCargo when they pulled the men over following the slaying.

Ballistics showed it wasn’t the murder weapon. McCargo got seven years for gun possession but didn't admit involvement in Hall's killing.

Lord said what happened wasn’t murder.

Her client was scared for his life and made a imprudent decision to try to save his skin – one that confounded Warshaw, perceived by many in the local defense bar as prosecutor masquerading as a judge because of some of his harsh sentences.

Warshaw spent decades as a prosecutor before ascending to chief prosecutor in Monmouth County, his daily routine defined by interactions with police.

Warshaw couldn’t understand how Grier, having grown up in a law enforcement family and with strong ties to police officers in the local department, didn’t go to the cops.

He cited a letter from a Trenton officer who urged him not to view Grier as other trouble-plagued “kids in Trenton.”

“Yet here he is, and he killed someone,” Warshaw said.

“People make really bad decisions in the heat of the moment,” Lord countered.

Grier couldn’t explain his actions.

“It was a bad, stupid decision,” he said. “I regret it to this day. I wasn’t thinking. I can’t undo the hurt.”

Grier’s parents told the judge their son’s actions were uncharacteristic.

“My hearts breaks. No mother wants to see this,” she said.

“He’s not a troublesome kid,” said Ralph Grier, a 20-year ex-prison guard who rose to lieutenant before he was unraveled by a 2004 official misconduct conviction for taking photos of a female inmate at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, according to published reports.

Grier’s father apparently turned over his life to a higher power after that, becoming a deacon and his son’s Sunday school teacher.

“It was an unfortunate incident,” Ralph Grier said of Hall’s death.

To Hall’s relatives, it was more than that.

Cousin Bernadette Hall said the hurt remains every day.

Hall’s grandmother said she’ll never see her grandson’s “mile-wide smile” again or hear his voice calling out “nana baby."

“Death has robbed us of his presence,” Ellen Hall said. “When Curtis killed Jahmir, he killed every one of us. There is no closure. Closure is a cliché.”

A man was shot and killed on Edgewood Avenue. November 15, 2016 (Penny Ray - Trentonian)

The flashing red and blue lights and faint sounds of women sobbing signified that another tragedy had struck the capital city.

A man was shot and killed early Tuesday morning in the 1400 block of Edgewood Avenue.

Police scanners reported the man was shot at least once in the head.

His body lay under a white sheet on the sidewalk outside of an apartment building while investigators placed crime scene placards next to potential evidence and knocked on doors searching for witnesses.

The 40-degree temperature couldn’t keep concerned citizens away as they rushed to the scene to confirm whether they knew the victim.

During the early stages of the investigation, police wouldn’t confirm the victim’s identity to the crowd. As an investigator asked onlookers to describe clothing worn by the person they suspected was killed, a woman cried out, “Where is he?”

Another woman said, “We just had him over earlier today.”

Other citizens could be heard whispering concerns about the victim’s children, assuming the man was indeed the person they suspected.

So far this year, 22 people have been killed in the capital city, which includes the death of Alfred Toe who was shot by an off-duty cop during a struggle for a gun.

Anyone with information about Tuesday’s murder is asked to call the Mercer County Homicide Task Force at (609) 989-6406 or contact the Trenton Police confidential tip line at (609) 989-3663. Individuals may also call the Trenton Crime Stoppers tip line at (609) 278-8477. Those wishing to text a tip can send a message labeled TCSTIPS to Trenton Crime Stoppers at 274637.\

Police investigate a murder in the 1400 block of Edgewood Avenue. November 15, 2016 (Penny Ray - Trentonian)

Grady Blue was done being told to shut up and take the deal.

Grady A. Blue III

In accepting a plea offer earlier this year, Blue III admitted gunning down 23-year-old Naquan Ellis as he was stood with a group of people outside of the North 25 housing complex in June 2014.

He was being sentenced Friday to 12 years in prison for aggravated manslaughter, for the shooting that claimed Ellis and injured another woman.

But Grady told the judge he wanted to take back his guilty plea. He accepted responsibility for a gun charge that called for a concurrent 7 years but not for the “body.”

“I ain’t taking no 12 years because I ain’t kill him,” Blue ‘said.

Assistant Prosecutor Kathleen Petrucci asked the judge to move forward with sentencing, noting Ellis family was in the courtroom.

Judge Thomas Brown admonished Blue for taking back his plea at the “eleventh hour,” pointing out he admitted killing Ellis when he pleaded guilty in September.

But in the end, the judge gave him time to file court papers outlining why he should be allowed to take back the deal, which was negotiated by public defender Jamie Hubert.

The divide between Hubert and Blue was evident as the suspect blasted his attorney for encouraging him to take the deal and “shut up.”

Hubert didn’t address Blue’s accusations, only saying another attorney would represent him going forward.

Prosecutors had sweetened their offer to Blue, who was previously floated a deal that called for him to serve 30 years for murder.

An alternative deal called for Blue to spend 25 years in prison if he cooperated with prosecutors in another case.

Blue is expected back in court in December.

Jaquan Dallas

It was the knock at the door no mother wants to hear.

Gloria Burke’s landlord stood outside, accompanied by two detectives.

The detectives showed Gloria a picture asked her if she recognized the man in the photo. She said it was her son.

They paused for what seemed like minutes.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” the detective said. “Your son was just murdered.”

Looking back at relatives of the slain disabled man, first-time felon Jaquan Dallas apologized for pulling the trigger during a botched robbery in November 2014 but stressed he didn’t intend to kill Rodney Burke.

“For every action, there’s a reaction,” the 21-year-old Dallas said in criminal court Friday. “I pray one day y’all can forgive me.”

Burke wasn’t the target of the Nov. 4, 2014 armed heist of a South Broad Street apartment. But he paid with his life for confronting Dallas, one of four people involved in the robbery plot.

Dallas admitted in September to a lesser charge of aggravated manslaughter and was sent to prison for 25 years by Judge Thomas Brown.

Two others, Kenneth Hines and Alexa Gomez, were arrested and charged with murder and conspiracy while another person was never caught.

Rodney Burke

Brown called the number of guns flooding the capital city streets “ridiculous” and said it contributed to countless deaths over the years.

The murder of the 48-year-old Burke pierced the crime-plagued city’s bleeding heart.

Dallas was 20 years old when he gunned down Burke, who remained conscious after he was shot but was unable to identify his killer as he was being dragged inside the residence the last moments of his life.

He was found inside an apartment on the 1000 block of South Broad Street, shot several times around 2 a.m. Medics rushed him to Saint Francis Medical Center, where he died.

Burke, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 18, had been repeatedly robbed during the last three years of his life, according to The Trentonian’s award-winning reporting on his murder.

“Around the first of the month when he got his disability check, they would take his money from him,” his mother Gloria Burke told The Trentonian in an interview in November 2014. “He never told me who was doing it; he was scared. They took his money all of the time.”

Assistant Prosecutor Kathleen Petrucci read prepared statements from Burke’s mother and sister as relatives sobbed in benches behind her.

Alexandria Gomez

Burke’s mother called the killing a “senseless act” that robbed her of her oldest son. She said he remains “forever in our hearts.”

Burke’s sister, Carla, admonished Dallas in her statement for “pulling the trigger without a second thought.”

She said her brother was a giving soul who went to the train station and brought the homeless hot drinks.

“While today may be bad for you, we have to live with this every day,” she wrote.

Offering condolences to the victim’s family, Dallas’ attorney, Tina Frost, said the punishment is significant for her client, who will spend more time in prison than the “years that he’s been on earth.”

Kenneth Hines (Mercer County Prosecutor's Office)

She said her client, a high school dropout who grew up fatherless and has fathered kids of his own, hopes to use the time behind to better his life, starting by getting his diploma.

The case isn’t over for the Burke family.

Gomez is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter for 15 years.

Hines rejected plea offers and is set to go on trial in May.

Petrucci recognized nothing will satisfy Burke’s family but hoped the sentence provided “some justice.”