Man Gets 12 Years Prison For Role In NJ, NY Carjacking Ring
TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A man involved in a ring that carjacked or stole high-end vehicles and sold them overseas is now headed to prison.
State authorities say Rashawn Gartrell recently received a 12-year sentence. The 37-year-old Irvington man had pleaded guilty in September to money-laundering.
Authorities recovered more than 90 stolen vehicles, including nearly two dozen found at regional seaports. The vehicles had been taken from an area stretching from Rockland County, New York to central New Jersey.
Gartrell was accused in a carjacking in Montclair on Aug. 24, 2015. A man was walking toward his 2014 BMW 650i when a man – later identified as Nasir Turner – got out of a Mercedes, reached behind his back as if to grab a gun, and demanded the man's keys, authorities said. Turner drove off in the BMW, while Gartrell took off in the Mercedes, which had been stolen in Saddle Brook, authorities alleged.
The ring sought out expensive vehicles. Some were stolen through carjackings, while others were taken from locations where the thieves could steal them with the vehicle's electronic keys or key fobs, which authorities say are critical to the resale value of the cars.
Twenty-one people involved in the ring were indicted in late April 2016.
Multiple rings have been busted since attorney Dustin Friedland was carjacked and murdered at the Short Hills Mall in December 2013.
The vehicles eventually were shipped to West Africa.
There is a demand for luxury cars in West Africa, where they sell for three times the value. But new technology involving push-button starts and new key fobs makes hot-wiring newer cars virtually impossible, authorities said.
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