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Omar Kennedy, 40, must serve out just about all of the sentence because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
Kennedy had originally been charged with murder in the September 2016 killing of a 19-year-old city man who was gunned down in an alley. He fled to Virginia, where members of the U.S. Marshals NY/NJ Regional Fugitive Task Force captured him.
Essex County prosecutors cut a deal with Kennedy, allowing him to plead guilty to aggravated assault for stomping on the victim's head to make sure he was dead.
In return, Kennedy was sentenced to three years in prison. He ended up serving only a year before being paroled in April 2019, records show. Meanwhile, another man was convicted of murder in the case.
It was exactly a month after Kennedy's release when he pointed a loaded gun at a woman, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger said. She fled their home, went to Trenton police and was with them when he called and repeated a threat to kill her, the U.S. attorney said.
Kennedy was carrying the gun when they arrested him, Sellinger said.
Rather than risk trial, Kennedy took another deal -- this time from federal prosecutors. He pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Trenton to possessing a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon.
Sellinger credited special agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Trenton Field Office, Trenton police and the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office with the investigation leading to the plea and sentencing, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle S. Gasparian of his Criminal Division in Trenton.
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