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A North Jersey man found guilty in the grisly murder of two men who were shot and set ablaze in Paterson will get a new trial over a controversial police interrogation that tainted the jury’s verdict, a state appellate court ruled.
The decision, issued Monday, wiped away an 80-year-prison sentence against Gerry Thomas, an alleged accomplice to the murders of Aaron Anderson and Antonio Vega. The men’s charred bodies were found inside a blazing white Audi on East 28th Street in March 2017. Both had been shot twice in the head.
A jury convicted Thomas, 31, on two counts of felony murder, and single counts of aggravated arson and attempted robbery after a three-week trial in 2018. Those verdicts, however, are now voided because two Paterson detectives misled Thomas during an interview that led to his arrest, telling him that he could avoid being charged with the murders if he responded to their questions, the court found.