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Roberto Ubiera, 58, of Newark, previously worked as an employee at the the neighborhood grocery store on North Park Street in East Orange that his victim, 55-year-old Tarlok Singh managed, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens, II, said.
Ubiera cuffed Singh's hands behind his back and isolated him in an employee bathroom in the early morning hours of Aug. 16, 2018, Stephens said.
He later stabbed Singh twice in the back, before cutting his throat twice with a knife and leaving him to bleed to death on the floor of the small bathroom with his hands still cuffed behind his back, authorities said.
Ubiera was seen in the store by customers who came in during the crime and he attempted to pretend to be working there, but the customers recognized that something was amiss, according to Stephens.
Ubiera fled the scene after a customer, who had seen Singh there, earlier returned and called out for Singh. The customer discovered him in the bathroom as Ubiera fled, police said.
Following a trial before Superior Court Judge Christopher S. Romanyshyn, Ubiera was found guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, robbery, felony murder, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. The weapon was a knife.
The victim worked at the store seven days a week and had been there for six years.
“This was an absolutely brutal and senseless crime," said Assistant Prosecutor Adam B. Wells, who tried the case.
"Mr. Singh was a hard-working man very well-liked by the community he served. Through the hard work of the investigators from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Task Force and the assistance and cooperation from members of the community, we were able to get some measure of justice for Mr. Singh."
Sentencing is scheduled for May 2. Ubiera faces life in prison.
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