A Carroll County Circuit Court judge plans to sentence a Westminster man this week for furnishing the shotgun used in the county?s only murder in more than two years.
Anthony Cornelius Jones, 24, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit armed robbery and acting as an accessory to murder for providing a shotgun and driving the getaway car in the Dec. 7, 2005, slaying of Donnie Bowman, 43, of Westminster.
He testified against his cousin, Shawn Anthony Jones, 28, of Westminster, at Shawn Jones? murder trial in May in exchange for a plea deal that caps his punishment at 20 years incarceration with 10 years suspended.
Anthony Jones? defense attorneys still could argue during Thursday?s sentencing for a lesser punishment, but Judge Barry Hughes will ultimately decide what the sentence will be, state prosecutor Allan Culver said.
One of Anthony Jones? lawyers, Sun Choi, declined to comment on the plea deal, and the other, Richard Bricken, was unavailable for comment.
Anthony Jones testified that he drove his cousin to Pennsylvania after his cousin admitted to shooting Bowman and injuring Lamont Dew, 39, of Baltimore, as the pair sat in a parked car behind Little Jay?s convenience store in downtown Westminster just after 8 p.m.
Dew told police he considered himself the intended victim because he sold Shawn Jones some bad cocaine, according to investigators? testimony.
Last month, Hughes sentenced Shawn Jones? aunt, Vera Rennie Rogers, to a five-year suspended prison sentence and three years of supervised probation for setting up a potential drug deal that winter night in exchange for testifying against her nephew.
In May, a jury found Shawn Jones guilty of first-degree murder, thanks to the testimony of his kin, Culver said.
“Anthony Jones was an important witness because he was there that evening and could testify to the planning that was involved,” he said.
