A pair of Plainfield residents have been sentenced to a combined 30 years in state prison for the 2011 shooting death of an innocent bystander outside a city convenience store, acting Union County Prosecutor Grace H. Park announced today.
Jordan Camacho and Laquan Chandler, both of whom received a 15-year sentence, must serve at least 85 percent of those terms before the possibility of parole, according to Union County Assistant Prosecutor Bruce Holmes, who prosecuted the case. The sentences were imposed Friday by state Superior Court Judge Scott J. Moynihan.
On March 21, 2011, Plainfield resident Nelson Santos Betance, 46, was sitting in his car after purchasing a phone card in the store at the corner of West Third Street and Monroe Avenue in Plainfield’s West End when gunshots were fired out of a nearby vehicle, killing him, Holmes said.
A joint investigation by the Plainfield Police Division and the Union County Homicide Task Force quickly resulted in the location of the suspect vehicle and the determination that Camacho and Chandler were responsible.
Camacho, who was 18 at the time, and Chandler, who was 15, both are confirmed members of Plainfield’s G-Shine set of the Bloods street gang; Chandler was waived up from juvenile court to be charged as an adult. In November 2013, each defendant ultimately admitted shooting in the direction of the store at other people standing in the street when Santos Betance was killed.