UPDATE: Four Men Charged With Carjack Killing of Hoboken Lawyer at Short Hills Mall Plead Not Guilty

The four men who have been charged in connection with the carjack killing of a Hoboken attorney at the Short Hills Mall pleaded not guilty Wednesday at the Essex County Court House.

Basim Henry, 33, of South Orange, Hanif Thompson, 29, of Irvington and Karif Ford, 32, and Kevin Roberts, 35, both of Newark, pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, felony murder, carjacking, conspiracy and weapons offenses.

Dustin Friedland, a 30-year-old Hoboken lawyer from Toms River, was fatally shot during an attempted car jacking at the Short Hills Mall on Dec. 15. As previously reported on Patch, shortly after 9 p.m., four men accosted Friedland and his wife, Jamie Schare Friedland, as they entered their Range Rover on the upper level parking deck.

One of the car jackers fatally shot Friedland in the head after he struggled with his attackers. Friedland’s wife was then ordered out of the vehicle and two of the carjackers drove off in the Range Rover. The car was recovered a day later on the 200 block of Renner Avenue in Newark, the prosecutor’s office said.

After the shooting, the mall was briefly placed on lockdown as police attempted to locate the suspects. The lockdown was lifted after police determined that the shooting had occurred outside of the mall.

Friedland, who lived in Hoboken with his wife, was originally from Toms River, according to his Facebook page. Nick Malfitano, a Patch writer who was Friedland’s classmate at Toms River North, said Friedland was “a good man and a great classmate of mine at Toms River North who made life better for everyone around him.”

Jamie Schare Friedland has also filed a wrongful death lawsuit for unspecified damages, ABC news reported. In the law suit, Friedland alleges that the mall sacrificed security to increase profits, and that responders failed to properly handle their call for help. Both parties state that the allegations are untrue.