NJ attorney still on the run days after woman is found shot dead at home

MONTCLAIR — A high-profile attorney charged with shooting to death the mother of his child remains on the run nearly four days later.

James R. Ray III is accused of killing Angela M. Bledsoe, 44, in their township home. Bledsoe was discovered by police Monday night after authorities were called to do a wellness check.

The couple had a 6-year-old daughter together.

Essex County prosecutors say Ray may be driving a four-door, black BMW 328i with New Jersey license plate ZNX68M.

Profiles of the victim and the accused reveal a pair of successful professionals who were better known in New York than in the upper-crust Jersey suburb they called home.

Bledsoe worked as a financial advisor in Manhattan. She had a degree from Florida A&M University's School of Business and Industry and was active in the the school's alumni association.

NorthJersey.com reported that she owned a home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, but moved to Montclair to raise her child with Ray.

Bledsoe was active in charitable and political circles.

"She was young and owned her own home. How many can do that in New York City?"  friend Rodneyse Bichotte, a New York assemblywoman from Brooklyn, told NorthJersey.com.

Ray, meanwhile, previously made headlines after testifying in the trial of Nicki Minaj's brother. Ray represented a girl who had accused Jelani Maraj of rape. Ray testified that he demanded $25 million from Maraj to settle a potential lawsuit. Maraj claimed the demand was extortion but a New York jury last year found the rapper's brother guilty of raping his 11 year-old stepdaughter.

Ray also was sued in federal court in 2013 — a year after his daughter with Bledsoe was born — by his former paralegal who claimed that he tried to force her to become his third wife as part of a polygamous relationship. The lawsuit was settled.