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The most severe went to ex-con Vincent Chan-Guillen, 33, who was sentenced to nearly 34 years in federal prison – longer than he’s been alive -- following his conviction of a host of charges.
Meanwhile, Jamie Fontanez, 45, got a plea-bargained 14½ years, while 33-year-old Paul Jimenez managed to get 10.
All must serve out their terms because there’s no parole in the federal prison system.
Store video shows Chan-Guillen pointing a gun at an employee of a liquor store in Elizabeth before the robbers flee with $4,000 in cash and three cell phones. Five days later, they got $8,400 from a store in Rahway.
Chan-Guillen was the gunman again during the robbery of a liquor store in Woodbridge that netted $800.
The tio then went to a liquor store in Bloomfield – only this time things didn’t go according to plan.
After shoving an employee aside, they couldn’t open the register. Chan-Guillen fired a shot that lodged in an ice freezer.
The robbers ran out empty-handed and hopped into a waiting Honda Civic that came back registered to Fontanez.
The holdup of a liquor store in Linden went smoother, with Chan-Guillen pointing a handgun at two employees while his associate removed $5,000 in cash from three registers. Once again, they fled in Fontanez's Civic.
Chan-Guillen's luck ran out in Lyndhurst on Nov. 30, 2018.
The front license plate was missing on a Nissan Maxima that he pulled into a parking lot when he saw Lyndhurst Police Officer Joseph White about to stop him.
As it turned out, Chan-Guillen wasn't only driving with a suspended license. He’d also skipped traffic court in Elizabeth.
After a computer check of the license plate came up empty, Chan-Guillen “claimed to have borrowed the vehicle from his cousin and indicated that the correct plates were probably somewhere in the car,” Lyndhurst Detective Lt. Vincent Auteri said.
It turned out Chad-Guillen had bought the car from a Union County woman for $1,000 in cash with no paperwork involved.
He'd also just been paroled after serving three years in state prison for drug and weapons convictions when the robbery spree began.
Chad-Guillen was taken into custody when he refused to open the trunk for Lyndhurst police. The vehicle was towed and his parole officer called.
Inside the trunk authorities found the same .45-caliber Charles Daly pistol used during the robberies. Ballistics testing matched it to the Bloomfield shooting. Chan-Guillen was also wearing the same sneakers and jacket he had on in each of the robberies.
Both Fontanez and Jiminez ended up taking plea deals that shortened their sentences.
Not Chan-Guillen.
Facing decades behind bars, he took his chances with a trial and was convicted by federal jurors in Newark this past March of various robbery and weapons offenses -- including possession a firearm as a convicted felon -- following a one-week trial.
In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler sentenced Chan-Guillen to five years of supervised release during a hearing on Monday, Dec. 11.
U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger credited special agents with the FBI for the investigation leading to the convictions and sentences, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Desiree Grace of his Criminal Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney John F. Mezzanotte of the Organized Crime/Gangs Unit in Newark.
The U.S. attorney also credited police from Elizabeth, Rahway, Woodbridge, Bloomfield, Linden, Kenilworth, Union, and Lyndhurst, the New Jersey State Police, the ATF’s New York Division and the NYPD.
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