The Essex County prosecutor wants to use the statement of a robbery victim who authorities say was killed to stop his testimony.
Rick King is accused of robbing Amit Patel at his family's liquor store. Patel was later killed and prosecutors want to use his statements to police as evidence in King's trial. (Essex County Correctional Facility) NEWARK -- After he was robbed in his father's liquor store in Irvington on Oct. 31, 2013, Amit Patel gave a detailed statement to police, even listing the exact denomination of the bills taken, authorities say.
Rick King, of Newark, was arrested shortly after the robbery. King subsequently learned that Patel had given statements to police and would be a witness in court, authorities allege.
On Feb. 15, 2015, the 28-year-old Patel, who lived in Edison, was shot at point-blank range and killed as he worked in the store, Roseway Liquors and Deli, authorities said at the time. Just before 4 p.m. on that Sunday afternoon, Patel was working the counter alone in the store when he was shot. His father, who was working in the back office, was the only other person inside, according to authorities.
Now prosecutors want Patel's statements to police about the robbery admitted as evidence in King's trial, arguing there is evidence pointing to the defendant as the possible shooter.
"In light of the probable likelihood Rick King caused Amit Patel to be unavailable (to testify), the state submits all of Amit Patel's statement should be admissible for trial purposes," Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Mira Ohm argued in a brief to Superior Court Judge Russell Passamano.
King, 32, was arrested for the robbery but later released on bail. He has not been charged with Patel's murder and Ohm admits in her brief that he would have to be tried for the crime.
"While the fact defendant murdered Amit Patel is highly likely in the context of the circumstantial evidence provided, that fact is for a jury to find at trial," Ohm said in her motion.
Months after Patel was murdered, King was arrested on unrelated weapons charges, according to court records. He has been in he Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark since last July.
Amit Patel, 28, of Edison, was shot and killed in his father's liquor store in Irvington in 2015. (Patel family photo) Ohm, in her brief, outlines evidence pointing to King as a possible suspect.
King was aware that after the robbery, Patel had briefly followed him and given a police dispatcher a description of his clothes, according to Ohm's motion. King had discarded the clothing, but police recovered those items and conducted tests showing they had King's DNA on them, the papers say.
Police also recovered a gun, and police found that King had in his possession the denominations of money that Patel said were taken in the robbery, the papers say.
When the store was robbed, there was no security camera, but authorities say that unbeknownst to King, a camera was installed in the store prior to the shooting, Ohm states in the motion.
King was living in a building on Union Avenue in Newark, the papers state. After Patel was killed, police obtained video from a security cameras showing a man entering the laundry room moments before the shooting and changing clothes, according to the document.
Other cameras on the streets show the same person going to the liquor store, and then moments later fleeing from the store and going back to the Union Avenue building, according to court papers.
Also, the building superintendent identified the person in the video as King, and told police that while King's family lived in a second-floor apartment, King had been sleeping in the laundry room, the papers state.
Ohm's motion also states that after Patel was killed, King told an Irvington police detective that he no longer had to worry about his one big problem, the robbery charge. Also, police examined King's cell phone after the shooting and discovered he had looked up information about Patel and the shooting.
"The motion was to show that the defendant was the likely person who, directly or indirectly, made Amit Patel unavailable," Ohm writes in the brief to Passamano last month.
A call to King's attorney seeking a comment was not returned.
Passamano is expected to rule on the motion in August.
Tom Haydon may be reached at thaydon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Tom_HaydonSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.