Carjacker gets prison for crime spree

Lower Moreland woman terrorized at gunpoint in 2017 incident

NORRISTOWN » A New Jersey man is headed to state prison for participating in a carjacking spree, including one incident during which a Lower Moreland woman was terrorized at gunpoint.

Tauron R. Henderson, 28, of Mt. Laurel, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court this week to 14 to 28 years in a state correctional facility in connection with incidents that occurred in Lower Moreland and Philadelphia between March 1 and March 5, 2017. During a trial in December 2019, a jury convicted Henderson of multiple charges of robbery, robbery of a motor vehicle, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property and conspiracy to commit those crimes.

The sentence was imposed by Judge Wendy G. Rothstein, who presided over the four-day trial.

Assistant District Attorney Scott Frame sought a significant prison term against Henderson, arguing he is a danger to the community.

“At no point has he ever shown any remorse for any victim. The only thing this defendant needs for rehabilitation is four walls and bars, three hots and a cot, because that’s the only thing that will keep the public safe,” Frame argued. “This is a really, really dangerous guy.”

Defense lawyer Julia Lucas, in a sentencing memorandum, argued in deciding the appropriate sentence, the judge should examine the role of Henderson in the conspiracy of which he was convicted. Lucas argued no evidence was presented that Henderson pointed a gun at any of the victims and that no one testified that he “personally” caused any injuries.

Essentially, the jury, with its verdict, determined Henderson participated in or conspired with others in five separate incidents, three carjackings and two thefts of vehicles. The incidents involved seven victims.

At trial, prosecutors alleged Henderson worked in concert with three or four other men during the incidents. However, no others have been charged.

Specifically, Frame and coprosecutor Gabriella Soreth alleged Henderson participated as

the getaway driver during the incidents and that others involved used guns to terrorize the victims.

The Lower Moreland woman testified about the impact of the life-changing event.

At trial, Frame alleged the woman was pulled from her car, was struck in the face, had a gun pointed at her face, had her purse taken and then watched her car be taken away and that she will never be the same. Soreth argued at trial that Henderson and his alleged co-conspirators took “whatever they wanted from whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted by force, violence and intimidation.”

The carjacking in Lower Moreland occurred about 11:41 p.m. March 5 on Terwood Drive between Valley and Fetters Mill roads, according to a criminal complaint filed by Lower Moreland Detective Carl A. Molt. A woman traveling in a 2017 Audi A4 reported her vehicle was bumped from behind by another vehicle, a white Kia, and she pulled over to the side of the road. As the woman’s male companion exited the passenger side of the Audi to exchange information with the other driver, the woman observed two males exit the Kia.

“One of the offenders opened (the victim’s) driver’s door, grabbed her by her left arm and dragged her from the vehicle,” Molt alleged in court papers, adding the woman also was punched in the face by one of the offenders and that one of the offenders pointed a black semiautomatic firearm at her head.

At trial, prosecutors suggested Henderson was the driver of the Kia and the person who pulled the female victim from her vehicle. The three offenders then fled the scene in both the Audi and the Kia, leaving the victim and her male companion on the side of the road, detectives said.

The Lower Moreland incident was the third that occurred on the same evening.

At 10:10 p.m. March 5, a woman reported she was robbed at gunpoint by several men of her BMW X3 vehicle as she was parked in the 7000 block of Castor Avenue in Philadelphia while waiting for a male companion to come out of his office.

At 10:18 p.m., a man standing on the passenger side of his 2012 Range Rover, pumping gas into the vehicle at a gas station at Cottman and Roosevelt Boulevard in Philadelphia, reported a white Kia vehicle pulled up to the driver’s side of the Range Rover when a man exited the Kia and jumped into the driver’s seat of the Range Rover and drove off. The white Kia vehicle followed the stolen Range Rover, according to video surveillance footage viewed by the jury.

Prosecutors said the BMW X3 and the Range Rover were abandoned shortly after they were stolen because the offenders did not have the key fobs to the vehicles, which essentially shut down. That’s when the offenders headed to Lower Moreland for the third incident, prosecutors alleged, and during that carjacking the offenders did take the victim’s Audi key fob.

Prosecutors also tied Henderson to a March 1 theft of a white Kia Optima along Sylvester Street in Philadelphia. The jury acquitted Henderson of a charge of robbery in that incident but convicted him of theft by unlawful taking.

Henderson also was convicted of theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property in connection with another March 1 incident during which a 2008 BMW vehicle was stolen while the victim left it running but unoccupied on East Cheltenham Avenue in Philadelphia.

Frame argued “Henderson and company” exhibited an utter disregard for the rules of society.

Henderson did not testify during the trial.

But defense lawyer Eric Donato argued at trial that prosecutors did not have sufficient evidence linking Henderson to participating in the actual carjackings. Donato suggested Henderson was “a fence,” the person who acquired the vehicles after they were stolen and who then attempted to sell the vehicles or their parts and at most, could be convicted of receiving stolen property.

Donato argued prosecutors “forced the evidence into a mold that doesn’t fit” and that not a single person identified Henderson during the incidents.

When they testified, none of the victims could positively identify Henderson as being a participant.

But Frame and Soreth argued the incidents occurred quickly and were chaotic and that the victims, some of whom had guns pointed at them, were so terrified by multiple men involved in the incidents that they couldn’t possibly positively identify the culprits.

However, the victims did describe some of the participants as having hairstyles that included dreadlocks or twisted braids and certain specific clothing, which matched Henderson’s appearance when he was taken into custody on March 6.

Detectives testified that cell phone data placed Henderson in the vicinity of each of the incidents at the times they occurred.

Henderson was taking into custody by East Orange, N.J., authorities on March 6 during a pursuit of the Audi that was stolen in Lower Moreland, according to testimony and court documents.

After crashing the Audi, Henderson and several others who were with him in the vehicle fled on foot but were apprehended a short time later. Henderson was found possessing the key fob to the Audi and he was wearing clothing that matched the description provided by the victims of the Lower Moreland carjacking.

Prosecutors alleged Henderson’s DNA was also found in some of the vehicles.