Asbury Park gang execution defendants getting separate trials after juror bullying claims

Kathleen Hopkins, Asbury Park Press
·3 min read
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FREEHOLD - The two men accused in a 2017 gang execution in Asbury Park were supposed to be retried last month, after their first trial ended in a mistrial in March, but a judge has now ordered that the pair stand trial separately.

Superior Court Judge Marc C. LeMieux, assignment judge for Monmouth County, on Friday ordered the case of Avery Hopes and Vernon Sanders severed, with Hopes scheduled to go to trial first, in August.

LeMieux said he separated the defendants because of the complexity of the case.

Hopes, 28, of Asbury Park, and Sanders, 38, of Brick, both alleged members of the Bloods street gang, are charged with the Nov. 22, 2017, murder of Denzel Morgan-Hicks, 27, a member of the rival Crips gang.

Vernon Sanders (left) and Avery Hopes are shown after Superior Court Judge Jill Grace O'Malley declare a mistrial Thursday, March 23, 2023, in their murder trial at the Monmouth County Courthouse in Freehold. The mistrial was declared after one of the jurors felt bullied and was suffering from physical distress. The men are charged in the murder of Denzel Morgan-Hicks in Asbury Park.

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Morgan-Hicks, a former Asbury Park resident who was living in Barnegat, died in a hail of gunfire while returning to his sport-utility vehicle after visiting friends in an apartment on Prospect Avenue on Thanksgiving Eve 2017.

Prosecutors alleged that Sanders wanted Morgan-Hicks dead and enlisted Hopes to participate in the murder because he thought Morgan-Hicks killed a member of the Bloods, although he was never charged in the 2011 murder in Asbury Park of 21-year-old Neptune resident Edric Gordon.

A six-week trial for Hopes and Sanders before Superior Court Judge Jill Grace O'Malley, which brought to light some of the inner workings of the Bloods, ended March 23, when O'Malley declared a mistrial.

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Superior Court Judge Jill Grace O'Malley declares a mistrial Thursday, March 23, 2023, in the murder trial of Vernon Sanders and Avery Hopes at the Monmouth County Courthouse in Freehold. The mistrial was declared after one of the jurors felt bullied and was suffering from physical distress. The men are charged in the murder of Denzel Morgan-Hicks in Asbury Park.

O'Malley declared the mistrial after one of the jurors told the judge she has attention deficit disorder and was having trouble concentrating, and that she felt bullied by her fellow panelists, a claim that many of the other jurors vehemently denied when they contacted the Asbury Park Press after the mistrial to give their side of the story.

LeMieux, in deciding a motion by prosecutors to have the two defendants tried separately, said Friday that the alleged bullying was never established because O'Malley never questioned the other jurors about it. But he cited the one juror's difficulty concentrating, and said the complexity of the case was the reason he was severing it.

LeMieux had been expected to preside over the retrials until last week, when he was named the county's assignment judge, overseeing operations of the Monmouth County courts.

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He assigned Superior Court Judge Joseph W. Oxley to preside over the retrials, as O'Malley will be in the midst of another trial this summer. However, LeMieux said he will preside over pretrial motions in the case on July 18, as he is more familiar than Oxley with it at this point.

In the pretrial motions, defense attorneys are expected to oppose plans by the state to call a sergeant in the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office, Keith Finkelstein, as an expert witness to testify about gangs and cellphones.

Finkelstein testified at the first trial as a gang expert, but not as an expert in cellphones.

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The state, however, did introduce extensive evidence on the location cell towers the defendants' phones were pinging off of to trace their movements on the night of the murder.

LeMieux scheduled jury selection for Hopes' trial to begin on July 24, with opening arguments and testimony scheduled to start on Aug. 8. He said he expects the trial to be over by Aug. 25.

Sanders' trial has not yet been scheduled.

Both defendants remain in the Monmouth County Jail.

Kathleen Hopkins, a reporter in New Jersey since 1985, covers crime, court cases, legal issues and just about every major murder trial to hit Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at khopkins@app.com

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Asbury Park gang execution defendants to be retried separately