4 Men Charged With the Kidnapping, Robbery and Killing of NJ Woman are Sentenced

Via NJ.com- Authorities said that on Oct. 28, 2008, Tanya Worthy, 35, a recruiter for DeVry University, was lured to a meeting with a former friend, Rashwan Bond, in Newark, and at that meeting, Lewis, Harris and Torres kidnapped her.

They drove her BMW to the large Green Brook home she shared with her boyfriend, Rahim Jackson. Jackson was a drug dealer, and the three men planned to rob him, believing he had $200,000 in the house, prosecutors said.

"They were motivated by money," Union County Assistant Prosecutor Ann Luvera said.

When Jackson interrupted the trio's attempt to enter the house, the attackers fled, and later robbed and shot Worthy, then left her body in the car on Neck Lane in Elizabeth, near Newark Liberty International Airport, and set the vehicle on fire, prosecutors said.

Defense attorneys stressed that the three men were charged with felony murder for a killing that occurred during a robbery, but none of the suspects was charged with murder because authorities never determined who fired the fatal gunshots.

The defense attorneys for each of the defendants requested new trials, saying the prosecutors presented a case of circumstantial evidence that was largely based on the cellphone records of the three men.

"The government was unable to argue the role of any particular defendant," said Alan Bowman, who represented Lewis.

Luvera countered that the prosecution called more than 50 witnesses during the trial. Donohue rejected the motions for new trials.

Before the sentences were announced, Williams spoke about the pain of losing her daughter and only child.

"I have missed sleep at night wondering what my daughter went through," Wiliams said. "How would (the defendants) feel if this was their daughter, sister, mother, aunt, niece," she asked.