[color="Blue"](IIRC, Matt Hale was given 40 years for not killing Joan Lefkow.)

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/newark_man_sentenced_to_10_yea.html

Newark man who killed witness of quadruple slaying sentenced on weapons charges

by Joe Ryan/The Star-Ledger Monday September 14, 2009, 6:15 PM

NEWARK -- A 29-year-old Newark man whose long and violent record includes killing a witness to one of the bloodiest crimes in the city's modern history was sentenced on weapons charges in federal court today to a maximum 10 years in prison.

Michael Melvin stood impassively with his hands and legs shackled as U.S. District Judge Faith S. Hochberg said there were no excuses for his brutal ways.

"You are a violent man. You solve your problems with guns," Hochberg said.

[highlight]Melvin initially was charged with the 2004 slaying of four people found executed in a vacant lot beside a church in Newark's South Ward on the day after Thanksgiving. But the charges were dismissed, in part because two potential witnesses were killed, including Melvin's close friend, Lamar McMillan.[/highlight]

In 2007, Melvin pleaded guilty to killing McMillan, telling a state Superior Court judge he accidentally gunned down his "best friend" while drunk at a party in 2005. At the time, prosecutors said they had no evidence to dispute his account or to link McMillan's killing to the Thanksgiving case.

As part of his plea deal, Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow agreed to drop the murder charge and recommend Melvin be sentenced to no more than 16 years in prison.

It also called for that sentence to overlap -- or run concurrently -- with whatever penalty Melvin received from Hochberg for the federal charge of weapons possession by a convicted felon. To guarantee it, Dow's office released Melvin into federal custody, forcing Hochberg to sentence him first. That removed the federal judge's ability to make Melvin serve his state and federal sentences back-to-back, or consecutively.

The move clearly displeased Hochberg, who said she plans to release written opinion.

"It was wrong," Hochberg said from the bench today. "If the Essex County prosecutor was here I would bring that up with her."

Dow declined to comment today, saying through a spokesman she would wait for Hochberg's written opinion.

Charles B. McKenna, chief of the criminal division for the U.S. attorney's office in Newark, told Hochberg during today's hearing that believed that Dow's office cut an appropriate deal, given the available evidence.

Melvin is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in State Superior Court in Essex County. He is being held without bail at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Authorities charged Melvin in the quadruple slaying in 2005, more than a year after the victims -- Carmen Estronza, Camilo Reyes, Kyhron Ward and his brother, Jermeil Ward -- were discovered in a weed-filled lot next to St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church on Ludlow Street. The four, laid out in a row, had each been shot in the head.

The case illustrates the dangers for witnesses to murders in Newark; Police believe the killers were targeted Estronza because she had witnessed a shooting death in 2004.

The killing of McMillan, 27, helped break the case, prompting witnesses to come forward with information that enabled prosecutors to charge Melvin with the four killings, police said. Then in 2006, a second witness to the slaying -- Howard Roberts, 29, -- was gunned down, too.

Nonetheless, state prosecutors forged ahead with their case against Melvin. He pleaded guilty days before his trial was to begin.

Today, assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph R. Gribko urged Hochberg to deliver the maximum sentence, saying Melvin should be taken off the streets for "as long as possible."