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Charles Grant must serve 30 years before he’ll be eligible for parole for killing Isaac "Blaze" Tucker, 40, in 2015 under the sentence imposed by Superior Court Judge Sohail Mohammed on Thursday, Dec. 15.
Jurors in Paterson originally convicted Grant four years ago of gunning down Tucker.
Grant was serving a life sentence for the killing when a state appeals court overturned the verdict, ruling that certain evidence shouldn't have been presented at his trial.
The case was sent back to Paterson, and Passaic County Senior Assistant Prosecutor Evan Mongiardo took it from there.
Jurors deliberated for roughly a day and a half before returning guilty first-degree murder and weapons possession verdicts against Grant in late September.
Grant shot Tucker at close range in the face, chest and back on East 16th Street as they walked from Alto Rango Liquor Store on 12th Avenue before dawn on Feb. 23, 2015, Mongiardo said.
Tucker, who attended JFK High School in Paterson and worked for Wayside Construction Company, was planning on opening a restaurant with an insurance inheritance at the time, investigators said at the time.
The murder motive, they said, was retaliation for a previous killing.
Grant, who was already wanted for another shooting several weeks earlier, high-tailed it after Tucker was slain.
U.S. Marshals eventually tracked him nearly 150 miles to a small northeast Maryland town, where they captured him more than 2½ years later.
Grant insisted that he and Tucker had split up before the victim was killed. Jurors were nonetheless convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
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