TRENTON — A man accused of a triple shooting in Trenton last summer was erroneously freed from the county jail in December due to a court “snafu” in his bail amount, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office said.
The prosecutor’s office figured out the error late last month and got a bench warrant for Bayshawn Jennings, 21, who is charged with attempted murder for shooting three people in June 2016. The
A U.S. Marshals’ task force tracked Jennings down in Trenton’s South Ward Wednesday night and arrested him without incident, officials said.
Jennings was arrested a day after the shooting in a vehicle and initially given a $1 million bail on the attempted murder charges, First Assistant Mercer County Prosecutor Doris Galuchie said Thursday.
Since Jennings was arrested in a vehicle, detectives obtained search warrant for it and found three guns and 198 decks of heroin, and charged him separately with possessing the guns and drugs.
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For that set of charges, Jennings received a $150,000 bail, Galuchie said.
But by the time he was sent to the Mercer County Correction Center after appearing in Mercer County Superior Court, the jail only received Jennings’ $150,000 bail.
“They had no knowledge of the $1 million bail,” Galuchie said of the jail. She said it appears the court never sent the higher bail. “It was a snafu by the court.”
Jennings posted the $150,000 bail Dec. 5 and was set free, Galuchie said.
When the prosecutor’s office figured it out on Jan. 24, they applied for a bench warrant, which a judge assigned, and sent it to the U.S. Marshals’ Regional Fugitive Task Force.
Officers detained him at about 6:50 p.m. Wednesday on the warrant, and by 3 a.m. Thursday he was back at the county jail, records show.
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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