Homicide Watch Trenton

The jury in the Raheem Currie murder conspiracy trial on Tuesday asked to re-hear testimony from prosecutors’ star witness, focusing on a phone call in which two cousins allegedly discussed a handgun used to kill a retired city cop’s son.

The 12-member panel this morning listened a second time to excerpts of Robert Bartley’s testimony. They returned minutes later and asked a judge for clarification about a lesser charge of aggravated manslaughter.

Raheem Currie

Currie’s attorney expressed concerns about the jury hearing portions of the testimony and not having the full context.

Prosecutors suggested at trial the cousins engaged in a conspiracy to kill Austin.

But Judge Pedro Jimenez tossed out a conspiracy to commit murder count against Currie because of a lack of evidence.

Bartley, Currie’s cousin, has admitted to fatally shooting 18-year-old James Austin in February 2013, after he intervened in a spat between Currie and Austin that prosecutors said started as a “silly street fight.Read more

The man who was shot in the head at a young girl’s birthday party Saturday night has been pronounced legally brain-dead.

Nolman Vidal Rodriguez, 24, was pronounced legally brain-dead Sunday afternoon at Capital Health Regional Medical Center. He’s expected to be taken off of life-support sometime Monday.

Rodriguez was attending a birthday party outside of an apartment building in the 600 block of Greenwood Avenue around 9 p.m. Saturday when an unknown man approached on foot and randomly fired at the crowd.

Dozens of people including several children were outside the apartment building when at least five shots rang out, sending kids scattering into the building.

“There were approximately 30 people attending an 8-year-old’s birthday party,” Capt. Don Fillinger said.

Nolman Vidal Rodriguez

Video of the shooting, obtained by The Trentonian, shows a man in a hooded sweatshirt walking on the opposite side of the street. The man stops at the Hanford Place intersection and fires several shots across the street toward people attending the party. The video captures the muzzle flash of the first shot, then shows the man with his arm extended as he continues to shoot.

When the gunsmoke cleared, Rodriguez was lying on the ground suffering from at least one gunshot wound to his head. Read more

TRENTON >> Anthony Hemingway shot once.

If a famous author could visit the violence-plagued streets of New Jersey’s capital city, he might say, “Every man’s life ends the same way.”

Anthony Hemingway(Left) and Quosheon Williams (Right)

In this case, it was 25-year-old Kayron Jones, who was gunned down in Trenton in 2013 by a group of men, including two friends, that planned to rob him. Things went awry.

The authorities believed at the time that gangs and drugs were involved, according to Trentonian archives. A grand jury returned an indictment against four men.Read more

Facing life imprisonment for murder, the cousin of a city man on trial for killing a city cop’s son did whatever he could to get a deal.

That included lying under oath at his cousin’s murder conspiracy trial, a defense attorney said.

Raheem Currie

Defense attorney Jack Furlong didn’t stop there, laying out bold and inflammatory allegations against the admitted killer, Robert Bartley, and his defense attorney, Caroline Turner, who helped broker a deal with prosecutors that included cooperation against Bartley’s cousin, Raheem Currie.

“Why do we bargain for the truth? Don’t we tell the truth naturally?” said Furlong, referring to what he contended was Bartley’s only truthful statement, when he was interrogated by detectives a day after 18-year-old James Austin, the son of a retired Trenton cop, was gunned down in February 2013. “He had a certain truthfulness to him when he was emotionally honest.”Read more

While he refused to toss out a more serious charge of murder, a judge on Wednesday dismissed a murder conspiracy count against a city man who allegedly plotted with a cousin to kill a retired city cop’s son in 2013.

Assistant Prosecutor James Scott conceded that there was not enough evidence to support a charge of conspiracy to commit murder against Raheem Currie, the cousin of admitted killer Robert Bartley.

The jury will still consider a lesser conspiracy charge, as well as counts of murder, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. The murder carries a potential life sentence for Currie if he is found guilty.

Prosecutors pursued the murder charge under the state’s accomplice liability law that makes Currie responsible for James Austin’s death even though he did not pull the trigger.

Raheem Currie

Bartley, Currie’s cousin, admitted fatally shooting James Austin, the slain 18-year-old son of retired Trenton Police sergeant Luddie Austin, in February 2013.

Judge Pedro Jimenez said that under accomplice liability Currie, who chose not to testify, could still be “vicariously responsible” for Austin’s murder because his death from Robert Bartley’s actions was “reasonably foreseeable.”

“The defendant did not balk when Mr. Bartley showed him the gun,” Jimenez said. “Why else bring a gun to a fist fight? Bringing a gun, it’s not inconceivable that gun can be utilized for more than talk.”Read more

A day after he shot a retired Trenton cop’s son to death, Robert Bartley was more worried about perception – and $258 – than reality.

The Trenton transplant, formerly of Chicago, told detectives as they walked into an interrogation room that he was missing a wad of cash. It was taken from him after he was arrested Feb. 27, 2013, and charged with the murder of James Austin, the 18-year-old son of retired Trenton sergeant Luddie Austin.

“I know that’s the least of my worries,” Bartley said. “The money wasn’t in my property. Can you write down that the money wasn’t in my property?”

“There’s a lot of worries, but nothing is the least of the worries,” said Gary Britton, a Trenton Police detective. “I will make it part of my continuing investigation to see where your money is. It’ll be a string around my finger. I gotta find Robert’s money. I promise I will do that for you.”

Robert Bartley

Britton played the part of calm, cool cop, trying to build rapport with the suspect, at a time when the department was under pressure to solve the murder of “one of their own,” as a Trenton cop testified to last week.

Britton solved the murder and also tracked down Bartley’s missing cash.

The taped interrogation, which was shown Tuesday for jurors in Raheem Currie’s murder conspiracy trial, happened hours after Bartley claimed he was beaten by police officers who kicked him in the mouth, his side and smashed his head into a parked police cruiser.Read more

Regina Thompson-Jenkins stood before a sea of supporters outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. as “a grieving mother.”

At a rally this month, she called for tighter gun control to quell the violence on the inner city streets. She described how she lost her only son, Tre Lane, who was shot in Trenton in 2012 after sacrificing his life to save two women who he barely knew.

“My story today can be yours tomorrow,” she told the crowd.

Then, one by one, she rattled off names of murder victims in New Jersey’s capital city who were taken from their families too soon.

“David Lewis III, Ira Charles, Ciony Kirkman, James Austin,” she said. “All lives matter.”

James Austin’s family knows Thompson-Jenkins’ pain all too well.Read more

It wasn’t enough that Robert Bartley shot retired Trenton cop Luddie Austin’s son to death in 2013.

The admitted killer had to get in another shot Thursday at Austin, and his brothers in blue – some of whom have testified at the trial of a man suspected of conspiring with Bartley to kill Austin’s son, 18-year-old James, on Feb. 26, 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.

Bartley, who has accepted a 25-year plea deal from prosecutors for his cooperation, took the stand and testified against his cousin, Raheem Currie.

During his testimony, he was asked about his arrest on the morning of Feb. 27, 2013. He claimed that he was brutalized by police prior to being taken to an interrogation room at Trenton Police headquarters, where he later confessed to the murder.Read more

Robert Bartley said his cousin knew about, and saw, his .32-caliber handgun, which he kept stowed away in a shoebox inside the room of the cousins’ home in Trenton.

Bartley, formerly of Chicago, moved to Trenton sometime around 1999, he testified Thursday. At some point, he moved in with his cousin, Raheem Currie, and his girlfriend, Endia Kaver, at a home on the 600 block of Greenwood Avenue.

Wearing a blue and orange polo shirt pulled over his bright orange prison jumpsuit, Bartley offered dramatic testimony that his cousin knew about his gun, asked him to bring it with him to an East State Street home, and brandished it in front of him, on the day Bartley fatally shot 18-year-old James Austin, the fallen son of former city cop Luddie Austin.

Robert Bartley

“I pulled my gun out and asked him what he’s trying to do,” said Bartley, prosecutors’ star witness in Currie’s murder conspiracy trial.

Bartley took the stand the same day as another Trenton man who testified about Currie’s possible motive for retaliating against Austin.Read more

A Mercer County medical examiner testified Thursday that a slain city cop’s son was healthy and his body went into shock after he was shot by a city man outside a Trenton home in February 2013.

James Austin, 18, the son of retired Trenton cop Luddie Austin, was shot once in the chest Feb. 26, 2013, outside his girlfriend’s East State Street home, following a fight with another man, Raheem Currie.

James Austin with his twin daughters.

Currie and his cousin, Robert Bartley, returned to the home with two others minutes after Currie and Austin smashed each other’s car windshields.

Bartley admitted fatally shooting Austin, in pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter, and is expected to testify this afternoon.

Currie is on trial, accused of conspiring with his cousin to retaliate against Austin, which ended in his death.

Prosecutors called ballistics and medical experts to testify this morning. The ballistics experts examined a .32-caliber handgun and a shell casing recovered at the murder scene and concluded it was came from the handgun used to kill Austin.Read more