Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office

                                 25 Kirkpatrick Street, 3rd Floor, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 08901 (732) 745-3300

 

                                *News Release*          Date: August 28, 2009

 
 

 

 


New Brunswick man sentenced in armed robbery of cab driver

 

 

          Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce J. Kaplan today announced that a New Brunswick man has been sentenced to serve up to 13 years in a New Jersey state prison for robbing a city cab driver at gunpoint.

 

Pablo Machado, (DOB 11/14/86) of 146 Remsen Avenue, New Brunswick, also was sentenced to serve an additional three years in prison for committing the armed robbery while he was serving probation in an unrelated witness tampering case.

 

Superior Court Judge Barbara Clark Stolte, sitting in New Brunswick, imposed the penalties during a hearing at the Middlesex County Courthouse on Thursday, August 27, 2009.

 

Under the terms of the sentence, Machado must serve 85 percent of the 13-year prison term. He was convicted on December 23, 2008, of armed robbery, conspiring to commit armed robbery, terroristic threats and theft. The three-year prison term for violating probation will be served consecutively.

 

During a trial that began on December 15, 2008, Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Manuel Sameiro Jr. presented evidence and testimony showing Machado was among five men who took part in the robbery of the cab driver in New Brunswick on April 23, 2007.

 

Sameiro contended that two passengers began striking the cab driver when he took them to their destination on Lee Avenue. The cab driver fled the vehicle, and was approached by three other men, including Machado.

 

The men knocked the cab driver to the ground, pointed a handgun to his head and fled with $500, a cell phone and a worker’s identification card.

 

Police subsequently traced Machado through a cell phone that was initially used to call for a cab ride. None of the others was apprehended.

 

 At the time of the attack, Machado was serving three years’ probation for witness tampering, admitting on November 2, 2006, that he warned a witness not to implicate him in a shooting on May 30, 2006.