Mineola Man to Serve Prison Time for Role in Robbery and Shooting Death

A Mineola man will serve 16 years in prison as part of a plea bargain stemming from a 2011 shooting death he and another man were robbing in Freeport.

According to the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, Nolan Gaugler, 21 of Mineola and Jerod Plowden, 25, of St. Albans, met with the victim, Moez Hassan, outside of an abandoned house on Stevens Street in Freeport to buy Xanax pills on April 12, 2011 at 1:35 p.m. Plowden and Gaugler then robbed the Hassan of 75 Xanax pills and approximately $30 at gunpoint. Hassan was then shot five times once in the head, chest, and left arm and twice in the abdomen.

Police registered the shots on the Nassau County Police Department Shot Spotter system with Gaugler being caught several blocks from the scene of the murder, still in possession of the stolen drugs and cash.

Plowden was arrested 16 days later in Suffolk County. Gaugler pled guilty to first-degree robbery in exchange for a promised prison sentence of 16 years.

After three days of deliberation, a jury acquitted Plowden of first degree murder, one count of second-degree murder and two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. He was convicted on a count of second-degree murder, three counts of third-degree robbery and a charge of second-degree robbery. He faces up to 25 years to life in prison and is due to be sentenced on June 6.

“Luring a victim to an abandoned home under false pretenses only to rob and murder him makes this not just a crime of brutality, but of cowardice,” Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said in a release. “Jerod Plowden and Nolan Gaugler had every opportunity to stop this murder before it happened, but neither had the courage to walk away and now lengthy prison sentences and a dead young man are all that’s left.”

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