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Yesterday, prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed to reconvene in Hackensack on Jan. 24 to resolve the fate in Bergen County of former Englewood basketball phenom Sean Banks, who faces a host of charges from different incidents over the past few years.
Earlier in the week, Banks and three others — Akeem “Light” Boone, Aasim “Sean” Boone and Jerry Montgomery — admitted their roles in a pair of Sussex County burglaries in Aug. 2011.
Akeem Boone from previous court appearance
TOP: Sean Banks in court yesterday
(PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
Boone, the last purported leader of what was once the Bond gang, was sentenced this past August to four years in prison without parole in exchange for admitting his role in the theft of a safe from a Connecticut home that police found crew members trying to crack open in an Englewood garage.
Their Bergen and Sussex convictions combined should keep Boone and Banks behind bars for several years. Montgomery, meanwhile, was already serving five years on convictions out of Somerset County.
Put simply: The sheer volume of offenses throughout several counties will force judges to put the convicts away for much longer than ever before — although their victims may argue that the recent crimes wouldn’t have happened if this had been done before.
The Boones, Banks and Montgomery were arrested in 2011 after a high-speed chase that ended in a rollover crash. Police recovered more than $20,000 in jewelry and other valuables in their 2003 Chevrolet TrailBlazer, tying them to area break-ins.
Montgomery was also convicted by a jury of another Sussex burglary from 2011. The other three pleaded out in the case.
Banks (photos, top and below) got probation in November after pleading guilty in Hackensack to assaulting his girlfriend with a broomstick and a belt and then restraining her.
Sean Banks Englewood police
(MUGSHOT: Courtesy Englewood PD)
The onetime Bergen Catholic star, who turns 29 later this month, is still facing charges out of Englewood for breaking into the woman’s house and slashing her tires. Several other police agencies have obtained detainers on him for failing to show up for court on charges in their towns, as well.
Additional charges were pending elsewhere, including in Wayne.
Last fall, Banks scuffled with Englewood officers who were tipped off to his whereabouts.
Police said he’d burglarized the woman’s home, surprised her inside and began harassing her. When she told to leave, they said, he slashed her vehicle’s tires with a knife and took off.
The New Orleans Hornets signed the 6-foot-8-inch Banks as an undrafted rookie free agent in the summer of 2005 and assigned him to the team’s developmental affiliate in Tulsa after he averaged four points a game in pre-season and spend the first seven games of the NBA season on the inactive list.
After the Hornets waived him, Banks played in Puerto Rico and with other U.S. developmental teams. He’d become a father and had hopes of playing for Great Britain’s national team. His last hurrah was scoring 14 points in a D-League All-Star game six years ago.
The naturally gifted Banks wasn’t just any player coming out of Bergen County. At Memphis University, he was the Conference USA Freshman of the Year in 2004, scoring 17.4 points per game and grabbing 6.5 rebounds for a major college program.
But things went sour after he left school, unable to meet the academic requirements. Banks’s criminal history began with charges of drunk driving and the gang-related marking of a girl with a cigarette.
Then it got worse.
Banks was arrested several times the past few years — including four times last year alone — and made bail each time.
He remains free on $50,000 bail.
PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
PREVIOUS:
EXCLUSIVE: Former Englewood basketball phenom Sean Banks will get probation after pleading guilty yesterday in Hackensack to assaulting and restraining his girlfriend, although he’s facing enough charges in other cases in Bergen and elsewhere to put him in prison for several years. READ MORE ….
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Onetime pro basketball phenom Sean Anthony Banks of Englewood is on the run from police again — this time, they said, after he broke into the home of a woman he had a child with, harassed her and slashed her tires this morning. READ MORE ….
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: No sooner was a photo of fugitive Sean Banks flashed online by Englewood police than a tipster phoned headquarters with his whereabouts. READ MORE ….
ANOTHER CVP EXCLUSIVE: It may be hard for some to fathom, but onetime pro basketball sure thing Sean Anthony Banks is back in the Bergen County Jail for the fourth time in four months — just days after being indicted on other charges — as he awaits trials that could send him to state prison for a long time. READ MORE ….
ANOTHER CVP SCOOP: Onetime pro basketball sure thing Sean Anthony Banks of Englewood is in trouble again — this time on charges of threatening the father of a woman he’d been seeing and having marijuana on him when Englewood police arrested him. READ MORE ….
MORE
EXCLUSIVE: The last purported leader of what was once the infamous James Bond Gang of burglars agreed to spend four years in prison without parole today in exchange for admitting his role in the theft of a safe from a Connecticut home that police found them trying to crack open in an Englewood garage. READ MORE ….
A NEWSMAN WRITES: Despite what’s been published elsewhere, an associate of the notorious James Bond Gang who was arrested after a home burglary in Sparta the other night isn’t the current ringleader. In fact, if you want to know the truth: There isn’t even a ring. READ MORE ….
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