Alleged Terrorist Admits Killing Essex County Teen

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — Ali Muhammad Brown has pleaded guilty to fatally shooting Brendan Tevlin, 19, of Livingston, outside a West Orange apartment building in 2014. Brown, 34, of Seattle, Washington, admitted to killing Tevlin on Tuesday, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office said.

Tevlin, a Seton Hall Prep School graduate, just finished his freshman year at the University of Richmond at the time of his death.

• See related article: Seton Hall Prep to Name Athletic Fields in Honor of Murdered Livingston Teen

Prosecutors said that "without prompting," Brown also admitted to committing three other homicides in Washington State just weeks before coming to New Jersey. In one incident involving two victims, he said he killed them because he believed they were homosexual. The other homicide was a road rage incident, prosecutors said.

Brown made history in 2015 when he became the first defendant in a murder case to also be charged with terrorism under New Jersey state law. He also faces accusations that he was behind an attempted carjacking in Point Pleasant Beach.

Brown claimed that he killed Tevlin and three other men as an act of retribution for lives lost in the military conflicts in the Middle East. In his statement to the court made Tuesday, Brown admitted that the killings were a part of a “jihad," prosecutors said.

In addition to first-degree murder, Brown pleaded guilty to first-degree terrorism, first-degree felony murder, first-degree carjacking, first-degree robbery, unlawful possession of a handgun and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.

When he is sentenced on May 1, Brown faces a mandatory life sentence under the terrorism statute alone. He is currently serving a 35-year sentence for committing an unrelated armed robbery in West Orange in 2014, prosecutors said.

• See related article: Man Accused In Livingston Teen's Murder Sought 'Vengeance' For U.S. Military Action
• See related article: Alleged Murderer Charged With Terrorism In NJ
• See related article: Alleged Terrorist Convicted Of West Orange Armed Robbery

In July of 2015, prosecutors dropped charges against two other West Orange men accused of participating in Tevlin’s murder.

• See related article: Charges Dropped Against 2 Men Accused Of Killing Brendan Tevlin

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