Gunman gets 12 years in 2014 Trenton homicide case
State prisoner Anthony L. Concepcion is serving additional time in the slammer for admitting he killed 39-year-old Patrick Walker in 2014.
Anthony Concepcion
Concepcion, 26, of Trenton, pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated manslaughter in October and received a 12-year prison sentence last week. He was already serving a five-year prison sentence at South Woods State Prison for pleading guilty in another case to unlawful possession of a handgun, court records show.
Armed and dangerous, Concepcion was arrested Sept. 30, 2014, for packing heat in the City of Trenton without a permit to carry. He eventually posted $50,000 cash bail on Oct. 22, 2014, buying his way out of jail and using his freedom to slay Walker outside of Trenton’s La Guira Bar on Dec. 13, 2014.
Weeks after the homicide, police re-arrested Concepcion in January 2015 and charged him with murder and weapons offenses on allegations he shot and killed Walker.
Patrick Walker
Concepcion became a New Jersey Department of Corrections inmate in May 2017 after pleading guilty in his initial weapons case. He later pleaded guilty in the homicide case after fighting the charges for years and failing to win an acquittal.
Concepcion’s murder trial ended without resolution in August due to a jury snafu. Members of the jury had conducted deliberations without all jury members being present, a clear violation of the judge’s instructions. The debacle tainted the judicial process and forced a mistrial.
The state was prepared to retry Concepcion on murder charges, but he averted a retrial by pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter, ending his presumption of innocence. Concepcion would have faced 30 years to life in prison if a jury had convicted him of murder.
The indictment originally charged Concepcion with first-degree murder, second-degree possession of a firearm for unlawful purposes, and second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun. He pleaded guilty Oct. 15 to first-degree aggravated manslaughter and had his weapons offenses dismissed at his sentencing hearing last Friday.
Mercer County Superior Court Judge Darlene Pereksta sentenced Concepcion to 12 years of incarceration. He must serve 85 percent of the sentence behind bars before he may become eligible for parole but has been awarded 1,431 days of jail credit, records show.
The self-confessed killer will be subjected to five years of parole supervision upon release from state prison and has been ordered to pay over $6,000 in restitution.
