Busted NJ carjack suspects have long rap sheets

December 23, 2013 in News by The Manimal

Source: The New York Post

The four thugs accused of savagely killing a young Hoboken lawyer in a New Jersey mall’s parking garage have extensive criminal histories — and one had been released from jail just four days before the slaying.

Hanif Thompson

Dustin Friedland, 30, and his wife had just finished their holiday shopping when they returned to their silver 2012 Range Rover and were confronted by the four carjackers, cops said.

Basim Henry

Karif Ford, 31, Basim Henry, 32, and Kevin Roberts, 33, all of Newark, and Hanif Thompson, 29, of Irvington, were all busted. Each is being held on $2 million bail.

Karif Ford

The four face a slew of charges in the Dec. 15 killing, including murder, carjacking, conspiracy and weapons possession, authorities said Saturday. Authorities refused to name the triggerman who shot Friedland point-blank in the head.

All four — who face possible life sentences — have rap sheets stretching back years that include multiple burglary and drug counts.

Thompson, who has done more than a dozen stints in the Essex County Jail, was released on Dec. 11 after serving time on a burglary charge.

Roberts has been arrested 13 times on narcotics and weapons offenses.

Both Ford and Henry were sent to prison in 2003 — Ford for burglary and Henry for bank robbery, records show.

Henry finished federal prison time eight months ago for a robbery in which he put a gun to the head of a Union Township bank employee.

Henry was busted for the mall shooting at a hotel in Easton, Pa., by an FBI task force and US marshals. Thompson was captured in Irvington, NJ, and Ford and Roberts were nabbed in Newark.

A woman who knew Thompson told The Post he was “a hustler” who sold drugs, but doubted he was a murderer.

Tiwanna Myers, 36, said she often saw Thompson around her Newark neighborhood before he moved out a couple of years ago.

“I don’t think he was a killer, but he was a hustler,” she said, adding: “I don’t think he’d kill anybody over no car. He hustled in the street — that’s how he made ends meet.”

A man who answered the door at Roberts’ home in Newark identified himself as the suspect’s brother but refused to give his name.

When asked if Roberts was innocent, the brother stopped, then said: “I don’t know.”
It was the “around the clock work” of law enforcement that helped nab the quartet after a weeklong manhunt, said Acting Essex County prosecutor Carolyn Murray.

Prosecutors said the suspects wanted the victim’s luxury ride.

“We are very grateful to the Essex County Police and all of the local authorities for pursuing this so vigorously,” the victim’s wife, Jamie Schare Friedland, said in a statement.