| TRENTON
– Attorney General Stuart Rabner and
Criminal Justice Director Gregory A. Paw
announced that a Camden man was sentenced
to prison today for his role in a 2004 holdup
of two undercover State Police detectives
in which his accomplice was killed.
According
to Paw, Angel M. Mendoza, 23, of Camden,
was sentenced to eight years in state prison
by Superior Court Judge Samuel D. Natal
in Camden County. Mendoza will be required
to serve 85 percent of his sentence without
possibility of parole under the No Early
Release Act. Mendoza pleaded guilty on Oct.
16, 2006 to first-degree armed robbery with
a deadly weapon.
Mendoza
admitted his role in the attempted holdup
of undercover State Police Detectives John
Donegan and James Carnival on March 23,
2004. The two detectives, who were conducting
an anti-drug operation, were dressed in
plain clothes and sitting in a pickup truck
in the 600 block of State Street in North
Camden about 9:40 p.m., when Mendoza and
his accomplice, Joel B. “Joey”
Torres, 25, of Camden, approached the truck,
a state investigation determined.
In
pleading guilty, Mendoza admitted that he
and Torres intended to rob the truck’s
occupants. Mendoza stated that he was on
the driver’s side of the truck, where
Detective Donegan was seated, as Torres
approached Detective Carnival on the passenger
side, brandishing a .44-caliber handgun.
During the robbery, Detective Carnival struggled
for control of Torres’ gun and shot
him a single time in the chest with his
service pistol, fatally wounding him. Mendoza
ran away and was arrested in Philadelphia
two days later.
Supervising
Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Gottschalk
prosecuted the case and represented the
Division of Criminal Justice at today’s
sentencing.
The
shooting was investigated by the Attorney
General’s Shooting Response Team,
made up of representatives from the Division
of Criminal Justice and the State Police
Major Crimes Unit. In May, a state grand
jury heard evidence developed through the
team’s investigation and took no action
regarding the shooting.
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