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His lawyer, however, said that Mohammed Ranko of Hasbrouck Heights would gladly accept a plea deal.
Authorities say Ranko hatched the scheme from the River Street jail, where he’s been held since November 2011 pending trial on charges of kidnapping, aggravated assault and threatening to kill the same Paramus businessman.
Ranko recruited a former inmate to assemble a crew to kidnap the business owner, prosecutors said.
Mohammed Ranko (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
The co-conspirator and his crew had already bought ski masks, tape, ropes and wire to bind the victim, and found a van they were going to drag him away in, when they were thwarted by Paramus police.
They also broke into an above-ground mausoleum in an Englewood cemetery “where they intended to restrain the victim until they received further orders from Ranko,” Paramus Police Chief Kenneth Ehrenberg said at the time.
Ranko, in turn, promised $1 million in cash once the job was done, the chief said.
Hackensack police got wind of the plot and told their Paramus colleagues.
An investigation headed by Paramus Police Sgt. Robert Von Schalscha included the Bergen County Prosecutor’s and Sheriff’s offices, Ehrenberg said.
Detectives found that Ranko asked his former employer for $10,000 for some type of medical procedure and was denied, prosecutors said in court today.
Defense attorney Gail Hargrove countered that Ranko worked for the fellow Syrian native for 20 years and that the dispute erupted when Ranko discovered that he had been deceived. Social Security and income tax payments that were supposed to be made on his behalf weren’t, she explained.
Hargrove also told Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi that prosecutors offered Ranko a plea but inexplicably withdrew it.
“He told me ‘Please, I want to go home. I know I’m going to be deported. Let’s get this trial over’,” Hargove told the judge.
“Am I right?” she asked, turning to Ranko.
He nodded affirmatively.
DeAvila-Silebi warned Ranko that he could face up to 60 years in state prison if he’s convicted of the charges contained in three indictments returned since his arrest.
The judge said she was certain that a plea offer from prosecutors would be far less.
“There could be some light at the other end,” she told Ranko.
If a trial is held, it will likely take two weeks and require an Arabic translator, the judge said.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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