Convicted gunman Isiah Greene is now a self-confessed killer.
Isiah Greene
Greene, 24, of Trenton, pleaded guilty Feb. 27 to second-degree manslaughter committed recklessly, admitting he killed Quaadir “Ace” Gurley at the Donnelly Homes housing complex in North Trenton.
Gurley was a 24-year-old father of six who suffered numerous gunshot wounds. He died from his injuries during the early morning hours of July 21, 2013.
Greene has been in jail on high monetary bail since members of the Mercer County Homicide Task Force arrested him Nov. 18, 2013.
Prior to his guilty confession, the state tried Greene at three separate trials seeking to win a murder conviction, but the first two trials ended in hung juries and the third ended in a partial verdict.
A jury last month unanimously found Greene to be guilty of unlawful possession of a firearm without a permit but got hung on the other counts in the indictment.
Greene is expected to be sentenced to six years of incarceration under the terms of his plea deal, but his time in state prison will be relatively short because he has over four years of jail credit. He pleaded guilty last week before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Anthony Massi.
Greene is scheduled to be sentenced May 4. The state will recommend he get sentenced to six years of incarceration on the manslaughter count with a condition to serve 85 percent of the term before becoming eligible for parole.
With Greene getting convicted for unlawful possession of a handgun in addition to him fessing up to manslaughter, a judge could sentence him to serve five to 10 years of additional incarceration after serving six years for killing Gurley. But Greene’s lawyer does not expect that to happen.
Quaadir Gurley (center) with two of his six children. (Contributed Photo)
Defense attorney Mark Fury said the judge will likely sentence his client to serve five or six years of incarceration for unlawful possession of a weapon to be served concurrent to six years of incarceration for reckless manslaughter.
The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office on Friday said the state “will make no argument” on whether Greene’s manslaughter sentence should run concurrent or consecutive to the gun conviction.
In addition to resolving his homicide case, Greene also pleaded guilty to aggravated assault on a second file from February 2013 with a recommended sentence calling for six years of imprisonment under a requirement to serve 85 percent of the term behind bars, the prosecutor’s office said Friday in an email.
The plea deal also calls for Greene to be subjected to three years of parole supervision upon release from state prison, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Greene could have received 30 years to life in prison if convicted on his first-degree murder charge. His plea deal downgrades the murder charge into a manslaughter count and calls for the state at sentencing to dismiss the other count in the indictment that charged Greene with possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose.
During a trial by jury, Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor James Scott said Greene fired 10 shots and that one of the shots accidentally struck Greene in the foot and that eight intentionally struck Gurley in the body, killing him.
Although Greene now admits to killing Gurley, the state was never able to unanimously convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Greene was guilty of murder.
“Our system is designed so people don’t get found guilty of things they can’t be proved guilty of,” Fury said Friday in an interview with The Trentonian. “The system worked exactly as it was supposed to.”
If Judge Massi sentences Greene to six years of concurrent incarceration and awards Greene with four and a half years of jail credit as expected May 4, then Greene would only have to serve about one year in state prison before becoming eligible for parole.