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Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Rachael A. Honig announced Tuesday that her office has taken over the prosecution of Phillip Wiggins Jr. of Newark for the March 31, 2020 slaying of Damone “Munch” Smith.
Wiggins, 24, who investigators say belongs to the Wilkinson Avenue gang, shot Smith in the chest near the corner of Rose and Cator avenues.
Smith, 25, was brought by private vehicle to Jersey City Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 2:15 a.m. April 1.
Wiggins was a fugitive at the time, wanted by authorities in Texas.
Smith, who purportedly ran with the Rutgers Avenue crew, was one of several victims killed or wounded during a prolonged gang war that federal investigators traced back to mid-summer 2019.
The Rutgers faction aligned itself with members from two public housing complexes, Marion Gardens and Curries Woods.
The three operated as one against similarly allied gangs from Wilkinson and the Salem-Lafayette (SaLaf) apartment complex, federal authorities said.
Marion and Wilkinson also waged their own deadly feuds.
A U.S. magistrate judge in Newark on Thursday ordered that Wiggins remain held without bail on charges of “murder in aid of racketeering, discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, and causing death through use of a firearm.”
He faces state charges, as well.
Honig credited the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office and the Jersey City Police Department, as well as special agents of the FBI, for the investigation leading to the charges.
The three agencies participate in a Jersey City Violent Crime Initiative (VCI) created by Honig’s office for what she said is “the sole purpose of combating violent crime in and around Jersey City.”
Together, federal, state, county, and local agencies collaborate “to strategize and prioritize the prosecution of violent offenders who endanger the safety of the community,” the U.S. attorney said.
Participants also include her office, the DEA, U.S. Marshals, the Hudson County Sheriff’s Office, New Jersey State Parole, the Hudson County Jail and the New Jersey State Police Regional Operations and Intelligence Center/Real Time Crime Center.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Francesca Liquori of Honig’s Organized Crime and Gangs Unit and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sophie Reiter of her Violent Crime Unit in Newark is handling the case for the government.
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