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Shawn Alexander, 52, has spent all but three of the past 27 years in custody, including three stints in state prison, records show.
His most serious conviction followed the cold-blooded killing of a Paterson man in 1994.
Alexander and a companion had been carjacked by Barry “Bistro” Chapman when they went looking for revenge, authorities said at the time.
Chapman had humiliated Alexander and Dwayne Poindexter, taking their BMW, along with cash and jewelry, authorities said at the time.
Chapman, 28, then drove them to a Paterson housing project, made them drop their pants and left them with only cab fare back to Newark, they said.
The pair returned to Paterson looking for blood, prosecutors said.
Alexander, who shot Chapman with a MAC-11, later pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter and was sentenced to 22 years in state prison.
He ended up serving 6½, records show.
Alexander had been free barely a few years when he was sent back to prison for what became an even longer stretch -- eight years -- for robbery, assault and eluding convictions, records show.
Freed in April 2017, he was returned to state prison in February 2019 for another robbery conviction.
Before he was sentenced in that case, Alexander was arrested by Newark police who’d received a tip that he was selling drugs from an abandoned house on Lyons Avenue, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig said.
Rather than face a longer federal prison sentence, Alexander took a deal from the government, pleading guilty to possessing 42 decks of heroin with the intent to distribute them, the U.S. attorney said.
Alexander must served just about all of the 10 years because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Kevin McNulty sentenced Alexander to three years of supervised release.
Honig credited Newark police and Task Force officers of her office with the investigation leading to the sentencing, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracey Agnew and Senior Litigation Counsel V. Grady O’Malley Sr. of her Organized Crime/Gangs Unit.
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