Ponceno Records, scene of the December robbery and stabbing.
Two young Bronx men have been sentenced to prison terms for their roles in last December’s robbery of Ponceno Records on Shrewsbury Avenue, which left the store’s owner bound and bleeding from a stab wound.
Following guilty pleas to armed robbery charges in March, Jermaine Williams, 19, was sentenced to eight years in state prison, and Ramone Newman, 18, was sentenced to ten years by Superior Court Judge Francis DeStefano last Thursday in Freehold.
Williams, it turns out, is a nephew of store owner and stab victim Charlie Williams. He’d also previously worked in the store.
“The brazenness of the defendants in committing this violent midmorning robbery was exceeded only by the fact that the victim’s own nephew chose to actively participate in inflicting terror on his family member,” Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin said in a press release.
Jermaine Williams wore a mask when he and Newman entered the store at about 10:30 on Dec. 10. They locked the door behind them, tied the owner with duct tape and robbed a safe. But when the owner worked himself loose, Newman tried to stab him in the head; the victim blocked the knife and was stabbed in one arm, according to Valentin.
Charlie Willams later told redbankgree that he’d also been stabbed in the side.
Red Bank police apprehended Jermaine Williams, Newman and two other men a short while later as they entered a taxicab around he corner from the store at the Red Bank train station. In their possession, said Valentin, were the proceeds from the robbery; the knife and duct tape; and the store’s surveillance videotape.
The status of of the other two men was not reported by Valentin. Newman was “appropriately treated as an adult” in sentencing, though he was a minor at the time of the crime, Valentin said.
Both defendants will have to serve at least 85 percent of their prison terms before becoming eligible for parole under New Jersey’s No Early Release law, according to Valentin.
