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Before Preston Taylor learned his punishment for his role in the 19-year-old Neptune City woman’s demise, the 22-year-old Neptune man apologized for taking part in the deadly scheme with former roommate Liam McAtasney, [Sarah] Stern’s childhood friend, who was found guilty in February of her murder.
‘So many things about this scenario I wish I could take back,’ Taylor said. ‘I should have known better and done something to stop this and I wish more than anything I had. I’m sorry.’
Michael Stern, Sarah’s father, got up and walked out of the courtroom as Taylor was about to speak and returned when he was finished speaking.
Superior Court Judge Richard W. English ordered Taylor to serve 85 percent of the sentence before he can be considered for release on parole.
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[Liam] McAtasney and Taylor were arrested Feb. 1, 2017, a day after [Anthony] Curry met with McAtasney on Ocean Avenue in Bradley Beach and secretly recorded McAtasney confessing chilling details of strangling Stern and, with Taylor’s help, throwing her body off the bridge.
Following his arrest, Taylor immediately cooperated with authorities.
On April 21, 2017, Taylor took a plea bargain and agreed to testify against McAtasney, with whom he had shared a cottage in Neptune City at the time Stern went missing.
In pleading guilty to robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, desecrating Stern’s remains, conspiring to desecrate her remains, and hindering his and McAtasney’s apprehension, Taylor admitted that he and his roommate had planned for months to rob Stern of the large amount of cash she had found in a shoe box in a house her family owns in Avon.
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Taylor said he took part in the scheme for a promise of $3,000 of the $10,000 McAtasney had stolen from Stern, money he said he never received.
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When Taylor entered his guilty plea, prosecutors said they would recommend he receive a 20-year prison term. They promised not to prosecute him for felony murder if he cooperated fully in the case and testified truthfully against McAtasney.
Before Taylor was sentenced, his attorney, John Perrone of Long Branch, asked the judge to impose a 10-year prison term, saying McAtasney may never have been convicted of Stern’s murder without Taylor’s cooperation.
Christopher Decker, assistant Monmouth County prosecutor, asked the judge to impose a term of 15 to 20 years, saying that although Taylor cooperated with authorities, he could have stopped Stern’s murder and didn’t.
‘There’s nothing to excuse his conduct,’ he said.
Michael Stern asked that Taylor get the full 20-year term.
‘He took Sarah’s lifeless body and moved it not once, not twice, but three times and dumped it in the Shark River,’ Michael Stern said of Taylor. ‘No words can be said to anybody who does anything like this to someone’s child.’
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