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Jurors in March convicted 38-year-old Yohan Balcacer of possession of fake drugs and eluding police in the high-speed getaway after he rejected a plea deal that would have put him behind bars for more than a dozen years without a shot at parole.
The gamble paid off when the jury also cleared him of several more serious charges.
Superior Court Judge James J. Guida (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
Balcacer, of East Elmhurst, Queens, pointed his car at undercover police officers as it sped from the Hampton Inn parking lot on Route 46 in Ridgefield Park, missing two of them by inches, in “a very hazardous escape at a very high rate of speed,” Superior Court Judge James J. Guida noted.
The vehicle bounced off other cars and a concrete retaining wall, then barreled up the highway to the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Police chased him into New York where he vanished.
They arrested him the next morning in Queens.
Balcacer, who walks with a limp, came to yesterday’s sentencing in Hackensack in a wheelchair, as he has all previous court appearances, for easier transportation by correction officers.
Although Guida’s sentence carries six years before parole eligibility, Balcacer got credit for the 1,010 days he’s spent so far in the Bergen County Jail.
It provided some consolation to his family, who attended the sentencing.
Defense attorney Genesis Perduto told the judge that it would be an extreme hardship on Balcacer’s three children — all under 16 — to lose their father for a long period.
“Unfortunately, that’s his doing,” Guida responded. “I don’t give it great weight.”
The ringleader in the four-defendant case, Jose Rodriguez of Union City, testified against Balcacer during the trial.
He said that Balcacer waited at the back of the hotel parking lot while he pretended to deliver the fake drugs, which the buyer believed to be heroin, while two accomplices — Brandon Seegar and Ronald Green — prepared to pull a gun and steal the money.
The buyer was actually an undercover narcotics detective from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, with seven backup officers in tow.
They seized Rodriguez, Green and Seegar immediately as Balcacer drove off. Seegar later skipped bail and has remained a fugitive.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor James Santulli, defense attorney Genesis Perduto, Yohan Balcacer (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
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