Crime & Safety
Man Provided Gun Used In Morris Co. Motel Shooting, Prosecutor Says
Officials accused the man of providing a 24-year-old woman with the AR-style rifle used in the shooting. The victim's leg needed amputated.
ROXBURY, NJ — Officials have charged a second person after a nighttime shooting at a Morris County motel last October, which left a man with a serious leg wound that required amputation.
In November, officers charged 24-year-old Auraceli A. Maldonado of Irvington with armed robbery and aggravated assault, saying she shot the victim after an attempted robbery. Police also arrested 33-year-old Jean Omar Rockson of Orange on Feb. 15, and accused him of providing Maldonado with the firearm.
According to police, on Oct. 18, at approximately 8:54 p.m., authorities were notified that a man had been shot while at the Roxbury Motel on Route 46 in Roxbury.
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When police arrived, they found the victim with a gunshot wound to the leg and offered emergency medical care. The victim, whose identity has since been revealed as Selwyn Torres, was brought to a hospital with serious injuries.
The gunman fled the scene immediately after the shooting, police said.
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A subsequent investigation revealed that Torres had arranged to meet with an unknown suspect at the motel. Surveillance video caught a Honda Accord with New York registration arriving in the motel parking lot on the day of the shooting, with a man and a woman leaving the vehicle.
Police believe that Rockson and Maldonado met with Torres, and that she was armed with an AR-style rifle during the encounter. The two suspects allegedly robbed Torres, who was shot in the leg after a fight for the gun and then fled the scene.
Police were able to identify Maldonado as the registered owner of a Honda Accord, which was seen traveling through East Hanover shortly after the incident.
Maldonado was subsequently located and detained in Middleburg, Florida, on Nov. 2, 2023.
A grand jury indicted both on three counts of first-degree robbery, one count of second degree conspiracy to commit robbery, one count of second degree aggravated assault, one count of second degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and one count of third degree unlawful possession of a weapon.
Both are being held in the Morris County Correctional Facility, and are scheduled for arraignment before Judge Ralph E. Amarita on March 11.
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