At about 8:30 p.m. on June 9, 2012, 28-year-old Harold Claudio was fatally shot in an alley off Thomas Street in Newark, New Jersey. The alley ran between a school and a playground that had two basketball courts. Claudio was shot three times in the head, including once in the back of the head.
Two days later, on June 11, Lizaire Arce, a cousin of Claudio, told police that she had seen Claudio along with 22-year-old Olajuwan Herbert and two other men enter the playground area. Arce was more than 100 feet away and her view of the men was separated by teenagers playing basketball and two chain link fences. She told police that she saw Herbert raise his hand and then heard three gunshots.
She said Herbert and the two others then fled. She told the police she did not see a gun. She said that a week earlier, Claudio and another cousin, Alberto Torres, had gotten into a fight at the playground with Herbert, and Torres had beaten up Herbert. When Herbert left, she heard someone call him “Gunner,” which was a nickname for Herbert.
Arce said Herbert and the others ran up the street and got into a Honda Accord with a silver sunroof and drove off. Arce said she went to Claudio, saw that he was dead, and left without calling the police. She said she had not called 911 because she feared for herself and her family.
Arce was shown a photographic lineup and identified Herbert as the shooter. She was allowed to sign his photograph as “Jane Doe.”
The following day, June 12, Jessica Maldonado was shown a photographic lineup. She had told police that just before the shooting, she was parking her car on Thomas Street on her way to a baby shower at a nearby church. She heard gunshots and grabbed her three-year-old daughter and ran down the street. She said she saw four or five men on the other side of the street running in the opposite direction, plus another man on a bicycle. She identified Herbert as one of the men. She said one of the men was holding his pants and shirt over an object that seemed to be shaped like a gun. Maldonado signed Herbert’s photo as “Jane Doe 2.”
Herbert was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and possession of a firearm.
In December 2013, Herbert went to trial in Essex County Superior Court. Arce testified and identified him as the gunman. During cross-examination, she said she signed her name “Jane Doe” because she feared for her safety.
The defense objected, contending there was no evidence that Herbert did anything to cause her to be fearful, and asked the judge to give the jury an instruction to that effect. The court denied the request. Apparently referring to Arce’s reasons for her two-day delay in speaking to police, as opposed to her reason for signing the photos as Jane Doe, the court said the prosecution was entitled to explain why Arce “didn’t do certain things.”
Arce testified inconsistently about the lighting conditions at the crime scene; the distance from which she observed Herbert; and the presence of other persons in the area. Based on these inconsistencies, the defense challenged Arce’s ability to accurately identify faces, and to observe Herbert’s alleged flight in a vehicle parked over a block away.
Arce testified that a light-skinned man almost six feet tall with shoulder-length, orange-tipped dreadlocks was with Herbert. Arce said Herbert was wearing light blue capri pants, a red and white shirt, and Nike Air Force sneakers. She said there were four men and all were on foot.
Arce said there were no cars parked on Thomas Street between Pennsylvania Avenue and Brunswick Avenue, which gave her an unobstructed view of Herbert fleeing the scene. She said she did not see a woman with a child.
Maldonado testified that all the men fleeing the scene had short hair and brown skin. She said four were on foot and a fifth was riding a bicycle.
Maldonado said it was difficult finding parking near the church and that she was on the sidewalk with her child when the men came past.
She said that viewing the photographic lineup had been difficult. She admitted that the men in two other photographs also looked “similar” to the man she had seen, and that she selected Herbert’s photograph only after a police officer told her that she had to pick just one photo. She testified that she ultimately picked Herbert’s photograph because it depicted him with facial hair. The defense noted that in her statement to police in 2012, she said she could not tell if the man she saw had facial hair because it was getting dark and she was not wearing her glasses.
Newark Police Detective Tyrone Crawley testified that when Herbert was arrested, he was wearing sneakers that fit Arce’s description. There was no physical or forensic evidence connecting Herbert to the crime.
Crawley admitted that he had received information that someone else was responsible for the shooting. However, he was unable to elaborate further. Torres had told the detective that someone named “Bibble” had bragged about committing the murder. But, because the prosecution had been unable to locate Torres for trial, the trial judge barred any reference to Torres’s statement as hearsay.
During a pretrial hearing, Torres had testified that the shooting was gang-related. However, because of his absence, the trial judge had barred all references to gangs.
Still, Detective Crawley injected the issue twice. During his direct examination, he was asked why he did not speak to the teenagers who were playing on the basketball court, though Arce had identified several of them by name. He replied that the shooting occurred in a “high-crime, drug, gang area, and the people that live in that area are in fear of the police.”
The defense objected and asked for a mistrial. The judge denied the motion for a mistrial and instructed the jury to disregard the statement. The judge said Crawley’s testimony was “speculation and conjecture,” as Crawley had no information “as to why anyone didn’t come forward, or if there were any people that could come forward.”
The second time, during the redirect examination, the prosecutor asked Crawley if Arce had explained how she was able to identify Herbert. After a defense objection based on hearsay was denied, Crawley referred to the alleged fight between Herbert and Torres and Claudio a week before the shooting. “Yes,” Crawley said. “She told me, approximately a week ago, Gunner, who is a gang member–“
A defense objection and another request for a mistrial cut off Crawley’s testimony at that point. The motion for a mistrial was denied. The judge told the jury to disregard Crawley’s answer. The judge said there was “no information” in the case that gangs were involved, but did not directly address Crawley’s assertion about Herbert in particular. The judge also gave a limiting instruction regarding the eyewitnesses’ use of pseudonyms, noting that both witnesses wanted to shield their identity and that it was merely a matter of police procedure.
“You should not conclude, because they had Jane Doe 1, and Jane Doe 2, that carries any kind of implication whatsoever,” the judge said. “It does not. All right?”
The defense did not present any evidence. During the closing argument, Herbert’s attorney noted that there was no evidence that Herbert had threatened or intimidated Arce or Maldonado and that their accounts were inconsistent.
The prosecution argued that the shooting was in retaliation for the beating that had been inflicted on Herbert a week earlier.
On January 21, 2014, the jury convicted Herbert of first-degree murder, second-degree possession of a handgun, and second-degree possession of a firearm for an illegal purpose. He was sentenced to life in prison.
While the case was being appealed, Herbert wrote a letter to the Last Resort Exoneration Project at Seton Hall University School of Law seeking help. In his letter, Herbert noted that the police had viewed video surveillance from the apartment building where Herbert lived. The footage was recorded at the time of the crime. Herbert said in the letter that the video footage had not been presented at Herbert’s trial.
Because the case was still on appeal, Lesly Risinger, the director at the Last Resort Exoneration Project, informed Herbert that he should wait until his appeal was decided.
On January 10, 2019, the Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division reversed Herbert’s convictions and ordered a new trial.
The appellate court ruled that the trial judge’s instructions to the jury were inadequate to cure the prejudice of Crawley’s gang references.
“Each time the detective referred to gangs, the trial came to an abrupt halt,” the appellate court said. “The second time, when the detective called defendant a gang member, the jury gasped, according to defense counsel at sidebar. The assistant prosecutor contended the gasp followed his own loud reaction to the detective’s statement. Either way, the detective’s comment was not missed.”
The appellate court noted that Crawley’s comments “filled a hole” in the prosecution’s case–the motive for killing Claudio. The prosecution contended that Herbert was retaliating for the beating he received a week earlier. “But, that theory had a problem,” the appellate court noted. “The target was not the person who did the beating. Inserting the gang element provided a reason for the killing. The jury could conclude that the homicide arose out of a gang conflict involving both Claudio and Torres.”
In January 2026, Herbert went to trial a second time, represented by attorney Olubukola Adetula, who presented the video footage for the first time. Adetula argued that the video showed that at 8:42 p.m., less than 15 minutes after the shooting, Herbert was at his apartment building, which was a 25-minute drive from the scene of the crime. Adetula said that Herbert’s sister had viewed the video prior to his first trial and identified him in the video.
On January 22, 2026, after four hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Herbert and he was released.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-19-2026
