Newark -- Acting Essex Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens, II, announced today that Mutah Brown, 21, of Newark has been sentenced to 23 years in New Jersey State Prison after being convicted of aggravated manslaughter and vehicular homicide for causing the death of 18-year-old Quadir K. Jackson, also of Newark.
Jackson was killed in a motor crash that occurred when Brown, Jackson and Kevon Anderson, 22, fled from police in a carjacked Mercedes Benz, according to Assistant Prosecutor Brian Pollock, who tried the case.
“This sentence sends the message that putting citizens at risk by running from the police is never acceptable. On the day of the crime, Quadir Jackson paid for the defendant's criminal actions with his life. Now, the defendant himself was finally held accountable,’’ said Assistant Prosecutor Pollock.
Officials say on May 6, 2017 Jackson carjacked a Mercedes Benz from a driver on Martin Luther King Boulevard at approximately 6 pm.
The car was later spotted by officers from the Newark Police Department. The officers attempted to pull over the car but Brown, who was driving the vehicle, fled.
In the area of 16th and South 10th, Brown loss control of the car.
When the car crashed, Jackson, who was the backseat passenger, was ejected from the vehicle and sustained fatal injuries. The two others – Brown and Anderson – tried to run but were caught by law enforcement.
In June an Essex County jury convicted Brown of vehicular homicide and aggravated manslaughter.
On Friday, Oct. 5, the Honorable Marysol Rosero, Judge of the Superior Court, who presided over the trial, sentenced Brown to an aggregate sentence of 23 years.
Judge Rosero sentenced him to 15 years for aggravated manslaughter. Under the No Early Release Act, Brown must serve 85 percent of the 15-year sentence before he is eligible for parole. She also sentenced him to a consecutive seven-year sentence for leaving the scene of an accident involving a fatality.
Brown could have been sentenced to up to 30 years. Assistant Prosecutor Pollock argued for 25 years.