Department of Justice
For Immediate Release
Essex County, New Jersey, Man Sentenced to 114 Months for Armed Carjacking
NEWARK, N.J. – An Irvington, New Jersey, man was sentenced today to 114 months in prison for brandishing a firearm while stealing a car in Newark, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Raheem Sylla, 24, of Irvington, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Esther Salas to an information charging him with one count of theft of a motor vehicle by force, violence, and intimidation, and one count of use of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Judge Salas imposed the sentence today in Newark federal court.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
During the early morning of Sept. 22, 2014, Sylla and a conspirator allegedly approached a 2000 Chevrolet Tahoe parked on a Newark street. Sylla went to the front driver’s window of the Tahoe, pointed a firearm at the driver’s chest and ordered the driver out of the car. The other conspirator approached the front passenger’s side window of the Tahoe and ordered the other passenger out of the car. Sylla and the other male then entered the car and fled.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Salas sentenced Sylla to three years of supervised release.
U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives under the direction of Special Agent in Charge George P. Belsky; the Newark Police Department, under the direction of director Eugene Venable and Chief Anthony Campos; the Rutgers University Police Department, under the direction of Executive Director of Police Services Kenneth Cop; and the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, under the direction of Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray; as well as criminal investigators from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark with the investigation leading to the charges.
The government is represented by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Svetlana M. Eisenberg of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Newark.
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Defense counsel: Kevin F. Carlucci Esq., Assistant Federal Public Defender, Newark