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Freeport Man Gets 17 to Life for Murder

A Queens man was sentenced Friday to 17 years to life in prison for fatally shooting a 23-year-old man during an armed robbery in Freeport two years ago.

Jerod Plowden had been convicted at Nassau County court in May of second-degree murder and robbery.

Prosecutors said the 26-year-old St. Albans man lured Moez Hassan, also of Queens, to an abandoned home on Steven Street under the pretense of buying Xanax pills from him at 1:35 p.m. on April 12, 2011.

Plowden and another man, Nolan Gaugler of Mineola, instead robbed the victim of 75 Xanax pills and about $30 at gunpoint before Hassan was shot five times. He was struck in the head, chest, left arm and twice in the abdomen.

Gaugler was apprehended within minutes and Plowden was caught 16 days later in Suffolk County after the vehicle he was a passenger in was pulled over in a routine traffic stop.

Gaugler pleaded guilty to robbery. He is expected to be sentenced to 16 years in prison.