Trenton man gets 45 years for 2015 slaying
TRENTON » Convicted murderer Horace J. Gordon has been sentenced to 45 years of state incarceration for slaying an innocent man in cold blood.
Gordon, 38, of Trenton, was found guilty earlier this year of shooting and killing 29-year-old Harvey Sharp in June 2015.
Gordon claimed self-defense in the slaying, but a jury of his peers unanimously convicted him March 22 on all three counts in the indictment comprising first-degree murder, second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun without a permit and second-degree possession of a firearm for unlawful purposes.
The murder occurred in Trenton on the first block of Cummings Avenue on June 24, 2015. Gordon killed Sharp and then fled from New Jersey to southern Virginia, where he was later apprehended by a U.S. Marshals regional fugitive task force.
The shooting happened on Sharp’s birthday, and sources say it was the result of a “petty argument.”
Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Billmeier sentenced Gordon last Friday to 45 years of state incarceration pursuant to the No Early Release Act requiring he serve 85 percent of the maximum term before he becomes eligible for parole. He was awarded 1,058 days of jail credit in the murder case and ordered to provide a sample of his DNA, court records show.
Billmeier also sentenced Gordon to four years of state incarceration for violating the terms of his probation in a 2013 Trenton drug case.
Judge Timothy Lydon previously sentenced Gordon to three years of probation on Oct. 28, 2014, in the drug case. Gordon violated the terms of that sentence by murdering Harvey Sharp, so Billmeier revoked Gordon’s probation last Friday and ordered him to be sent to prison for four years with 1,089 days of jail credit in the drug case.
Gordon originally resolved the 2013 drug case with a guilty plea that called for his distribution charges to be dismissed in exchange for a conviction on third-degree cocaine possession and a non-custodial punishment of probation, according to court records.
Records also show that Gordon has been jailed at the Mercer County Correction Center since July 11, 2015. Gordon remained detained at the county jail as of Wednesday, according to court records, but he is expected to be formally discharged and transferred to a state prison within the next week or so.
Pool attorney Michael R. Rosas represented Gordon in the murder case, which was prosecuted by Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Amy Devenny.
Gordon could have received 30 years to life imprisonment for the murder conviction. State law defines life imprisonment as 75 years of incarceration, which is the punishment that Devenny wanted to see imposed, but the judge ultimately hammered Gordon down the middle with 45 years in the slammer.