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Defense attorney Raymond Flood (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
However, a judge warned him that he could then be civilly committed.
Daniel Tvert, 33, “clearly has issues regarding sexual behavior and does need sex offender counseling,” Superior Court Judge James J. Guida said. “I am concerned for the safety of the public.”
The sentence resulted from a deal that Tvert cut with prosecutors.
They originally charged him with sexual assault involving non-physical acts after they said he met the teen at a mall, then pursued a scheme to get her to a friend’s house for sex by calling there and pretending to be her father.
After negotiations, they dropped the sexual assault charges.
In exchange, Tvert pleaded guilty to:
• communicating with the teen through social media, in violation of Megan’s Law probation;
• failing to notify police of a change of address;
• child endangerment;
• violating probation following two 2012 convictions.
“I just want to apologize for my actions,” Tvert told Guida in Hackensack on Friday.
Superior Court Judge James J. Guida (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
“I know they were inappropriate. I take full responsibility,” he said, reading from a prepared statement.
Defense attorney Ray Flood told CLIFFVIEW PILOT that he expects his client will serve three to four years in prison before he is released. He said he doesn’t believe he’ll be granted parole in 15 months — or that he’ll eventually be detained indefinitely.
Civil commitment is reserved under New Jersey law for offenders who are considered an almost definite risk to re-offend and present a serious risk to the public, he noted. Tvert was diagnosed as neither repetitive nor compulsive.
Flood, however, told the judge that his client is the beneficiary of a financial trust that family members intend to put toward treatment and counseling.
Tvert himself was a victim of sex abuse as a child, he noted.
“There is no doubt in my mind that has played a major role in some of the decisions he has made in life,” Flood said.
“He does have a tortured history, psychiatric and family. He does need counseling,” the judge responded, noting suicide attempts and a bipolar disorder diagnosis. “If he has private means, he would be better off in treatment than down in state prison.”
Tvert served two years in Yardville for child abuse and endangerment — while on probation for another conviction — before released in December 2007.
He was on probation for not completing community service after his arrest for not returning a rented car in 2011 when the new charges arose.
Old Tappan police, while conducting a separate investigation, learned of the Paramus incident and notified the county prosecutor’s office, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said at the time. Molinelli’s detectives, with Paramus police, then arrested Tvert in October 2013.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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