Port Authority police charge Hudson man with selling gun in Newport PATH shootings

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: The arrest of a man who shot two others — and himself by mistake — at the Newport PATH station wasn’t the end for Port Authority police, who have now charged a man who they said sold him the gun.

Photo Credit: *Courtesy PORT AUTHORITY PD*

Jerry DeMarco

01/17/2014 3:15 p.m.

PAPD detectives arrested 28-year-old Julio J. Mella of Jersey City with the assistance of agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives and Jersey City police.

The detectives said Mella brought the firearm to New Jersey from Virginia specifically to sell to Tari Turpin, a 34-year-old ex-con charged with shooting two people this at the Pavonia/Newport PATH Station on Aug. 25.

Turpin, of East Orange, tried to run from the scene but was chased down by a pair of Port Authority police officers, the authority’s Joseph Pentangelo said.

Turpin and the victims apparently boarded a PATH train to Jersey City at the 33rd Street station on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan sometime before dawn that mornning, Pentangelo said.

It’s unclear why, but Turpin got into an argument with the couple, believed to be a brother and sister.

Pentangelo said Turpin, who has a history of violent offenses, shot the man in the hand and the woman in the ankle with a Glock handgun he pulled from his pocket.

The victims survived.

The Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office is handling the prosecution of Mella on charges of illegal weapons possession and transportation. Meanwhile, he was being held on $40,000 bail.

MUGSHOT: Courtesy PORT AUTHORITY PD

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