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Zia Berisha, 46, of Linden, had his murder conviction for the Nov. 6, 2007 shooting and beating death of Michael Marro Jr. of Jersey City in a downtown high-rise killing overturned in 2019 by a state appeals court that sent the case back to Hudson County for a do-over.
Jurors found in 2010 that Berisha killed Marro, 39, during a robbery at his Portside Tower home that involved high-grade marijuana.
In addition to felony murder, they convicted Berisha of robbery, aggravated manslaughter and weapons possession.
A judge in Jersey City later sentenced to 30 years in state prison prison.
Berisha didn’t get a fair trial, the appeals panel said, because prosecutors didn’t give jurors the option of considering self-defense.
Berisha took a deal rather than face another trial, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez announced Monday.
As a result, she said, her office will seek a 20-year term – with no parole for 17 years – when Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Arre sentences Berisha on July 16.
The state stretch would run at the same time as a sentence of nearly 15 years that he began serving in a federal penitentiary in 2010 for drug conviction. He was tried and convicted locally that same year for killing Marro.
There’s no parole in the federal system, meaning Berisha could be freed from both state and federal custody in 2025.The sentence for the overturned murder conviction was 30 years -- 25½ of which Berisha would have had to serve before being eligible for parole. That means the earliest he could have been released on the state rap was 2035.
Assistant Hudson County Prosecutor Christina Krauthamer secured the plea and will be handling the sentencing for the state.
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