Freeport, NY - December 14th, 2013 - Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced that a Queens man sentenced today to 17 years to life in prison for the gunpoint robbery and murder of a man in Freeport.
Jerod Plowden, 26, of St. Albans, was sentenced by Judge Jerald Carter. It took a jury two days in May to convict Plowden of Murder in the Second Degree, three counts of Robbery in the First Degree, and Robbery in the Second Degree.
“Jerod Plowden lured his victim to an abandoned home under false pretenses only to rob and brutally murder him with five gunshots about his whole body,” DA Rice said. “This sentence will keep this violent man incarcerated for a very long time and the streets will be safer because of it.”
DA Rice said that at approximately 1:35 p.m. on April 12, 2011, Plowden and another man, Nolan Gaugler, met with the victim, Moez Hassan, outside of an abandoned house on Steven Street in Freeport under the auspices of buying Xanax pills from him. Before the transaction could take place, however, Plowden and Gaugler robbed the victim of 75 Xanax pills and approximately $30 at gunpoint.
Hassan, 23, of Queens, was then shot five times, once in the head, chest, and left arm, and twice in the abdomen. The Nassau County Police Department’s ShotSpotter system picked up the sound of the gunshots and automatically alerted police to the area. Gaugler fled eastbound on foot down Steven Street and was caught within minutes by police several blocks from the scene of the murder, still in possession of the stolen drugs and cash.
Plowden, who fled through the backyard, was arrested 16 days later in Suffolk County after the vehicle he was a passenger in was pulled over in a routine traffic stop. Gaugler, of Mineola, pleaded guilty to Robbery in the First Degree in exchange for a promised prison sentence of 16 years.
Assistant District Attorneys Lauren Nickerson and Jessica Cepriano of the DA’s Major Offense Bureau are prosecuting the case. Plowden is represented by Michael DerGarabedian, Esq.