By Brian Witte, The Associated Press
BALTIMORE (AP) - A jury on Wednesday convicted a man of helping to kill a police officer by telling two men seeking revenge for his court testimony where the detective could be found and then driving the getaway car.
Anthony Brown, 36, was found guilty of aiding and abetting first-degree murder, use of a handgun in a crime of violence and conspiracy to commit murder in the slaying of Thomas Newman, 37, two years ago.
“It’s been a long and arduous road, but finally justice was meted out,” prosecutor Matthew Fraling III said.
The verdict brought gasps and tears from Brown’s family. Fraling said the verdict finally brought a sense of relief to Newman’s family.
“They were very pleased,” he said.
Brian Murphy, Brown’s lawyer, argued that conditions outside the Baltimore tavern where Newman was shot nine times were too chaotic for witnesses to make accurate observations of who killed Newman. In the end, however, Murphy said prosecutors brought a tough case against his client.
“They left no stone unturned investigating it,” Murphy said.
Brown was the third man convicted in Newman’s killing in a case prosecutors described as a “murderous mission” of street-justice retaliation.
Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of life without possibility of parole for Brown, who is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 22.
In October, Raymond Saunders, 24, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to the murder. In February, a jury sentenced co-defendant Jovan House, 22, to life without parole in Newman’s death. House had faced a possible death sentence.
House and Saunders attacked the detective in the parking lot of Joe’s Tavern in retaliation for Newman’s testimony against Saunders’ half brother, who’d been charged in another shooting that wounded Newman in 2001, authorities said.
The half brother, Andre Travers, was convicted of trying to kill Newman and sentenced to 30 years in prison.