Accused killer convicted on separate drug charges
TRENTON » An alleged killer who previously served time in state prison for peddling drugs has been found guilty of possessing heroin with intent to distribute the deadly opioid in Trenton.
Markquice “Tank” Thomas, 32, of Trenton, faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in state prison with a five-year period of parole ineligibility for being convicted Tuesday by a jury of his peers. That verdict could be the least of his worries, for Thomas still faces active prosecution in two separate murder cases.
Thomas is accused of kidnapping 22-year-old Jared Littlejohn from a Ewing supermarket and executing the victim with a shot to the head on Sept. 27, 2012, and murdering 44-year-old Joseph Gaines in a 2014 Trenton shooting.
Thomas maintains his presumption of innocence in both murder cases and is scheduled to go to trial next month in the slaying of Gaines, a reformed city man who had his life cut short by senseless gun violence.
Defense attorney Robin Lord has represented Thomas during much of his adult legal troubles, including the Trenton drug case that ended in several guilty verdicts Tuesday.
“The defendant was deprived of a fair trial by the trial court,” Lord said Wednesday via email. “Most notably, the judge decided on her own without application by the prosecutor to make a black juror an alternate claiming he was sleeping during the prosecutor’s summation.”
Mercer County Superior Court Judge Darlene Pereksta presided over the trial. Lord said the black juror was not sleeping and says the judge “denied our request to interview him to see if he was or was not. The juror was one of only two blacks. His reaction during the reading of the verdict led me to believe he did not agree with the verdict. We will appeal.”
Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor John Boyle represented the state during the six-day trial before Pereksta that resulted in Thomas being found guilty on several counts in the drug case.
The drug case against Thomas began on March 11, 2014, when Trenton Police Officer Nathan Bolognini observed Thomas park a 2005 Mercury Montego sedan on Waylan Alley in
Trenton within 1,000 feet of P.J. Hill Elementary School. Police at the time were seeking to question Thomas in connection with the grisly shooting of Gaines, which occurred on March 9, 2014, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.
Police ultimately found Thomas in possession of several heroin packets and arrested him on a litany of drug charges and then charged him shortly thereafter with shooting Gaines. The victim died several weeks later after suffering a life-threatening gunshot wound to the head while sitting in his parked SUV on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, resulting in Thomas getting indicted on murder charges in that case.
Thomas has a long criminal rap sheet of pleading guilty to drug distribution for peddling operations that occurred in Trenton in 2004, 2005 and 2006, resulting in a sevenyear prison sentence back in 2006. Defense attorney Robin Lord represented him in those criminal matters, court records show.
As an ex-con, Thomas broke the law again in February 2010 when he resisted arrest by eluding in a motor vehicle in a manner that put others at risk of death or injury in Ewing. He pleaded guilty in that case and got sentenced in April 2012 to four years of incarceration, according to court records.
Instead of being behind bars as a known menace to society, prosecutors say Thomas was free in September 2012 and used his freedom to kidnap and kill Ewing man Jared Littlejohn.
Littlejohn’s murder remained unsolved for years until police charged Thomas on March 20, 2015, with a grand jury indicting him several months later on murder, robbery and kidnapping charges and weapons offenses. Thomas is represented by public defender Jessica Lyons in that case, which remains active.
Thomas has been incarcerated on high monetary bail at the Mercer County Correction Center since his March 2014 arrest on drug charges. A trial jury on Tuesday found Thomas guilty on several counts in that drug case and acquitted him on a few counts, too, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Thomas is scheduled to be sentenced June 15. He could get hammered with 10 years of incarceration on his latest drug convictions, but that is insignificant compared with the 30 years to life in prison that Thomas will face if a jury finds him guilty in either of his murder cases.