UNION COUNTY — Two Newark men have been sentenced to a combined 100 years in state prison for an attempted robbery of an off-duty police officer and a subsequent carjacking, acting Union County Prosecutor Grace H. Park announced Monday.
Kenneth Green, 40, and Louis Adams, 42, each received a sentence of 50 years from state Superior Court Judge Stuart Peim. In June, a Union County jury convicted the pair of multiple counts of armed robbery, carjacking, burglary and numerous gun offenses after two days of deliberation.
Green and Adams were armed with a loaded handgun when they approached an off-duty Newark police officer and his girlfriend at the Swan Motel on Route 1 in Linden on May 18, 2009, according to Union County Assistant Prosecutors Joshua McMahon and Jill O’Malley, who prosecuted the case. Green pointed the gun at the officer’s back and both men ordered the couple into a room, where the officer drew his service weapon and fired at them before escaping, said McMahon.
Adams then fled the area while Green carjacked another couple, according to the investigation. The men reunited at Green’s home before traveling to a hospital in Wayne for treatment of injuries, providing hospital staff with fake names and a false story about them having been robbed and shot in Paterson.
A subsequent investigation connected the two men, who had nearly 50 prior felony convictions, to the Linden shooting.