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Attorney David J. Goldstein told a judge in Hackensack yesterday that he has to withdraw from defending Sui Kam “Tony” Tung.
“He has no money to pay me or any other private attorney,” Goldstein said.
Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi directed Tung to file an application to be represented by the public defender’s office and return to court on July 7.
Robert Cantor
Tung, 51, is accused of killing Cantor in March, 2011 and setting his Elm Avenue house on file to conceal the crime.
Cantor and Tung’s estranged wife had become romantically involved after both began divorce proceedings, authorities said.
Tung began stalking the popular Verizon software engineer after learning of the romantic relationship in 2010, as both couples were being divorced, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said at the time.
A few months before the killing, he said, Tung confronted the 59-year-old Cantor at the Elm Street home where he lived alone.
Tung demanded to know where the two had sex, so Cantor brought him to a bedroom in the basement — where his body was later found, the prosecutor said.
The night of March 6, 2011, they said, Tung showed up again. After shooting Cantor several times, Tung set the house on fire, authorities said.
An expert in computer repair, Tung then erased the hard drives on all of his computers, among other measures, to destroy evidence, they said.
Fourteen months later, in May 2012, prosecutor’s detectives arrested him at his Yorkville apartment in Manhattan.
Tung, who was unemployed, has been held on $3 million bail in the Bergen County Jail since then. He’s charged with two counts of murder, aggravated arson and desecrating human remains, among other offenses.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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