Ex-con being tried for Mahwah loaded guns traffic stop

Anthony L. McDonald, 37, was a passenger with his cousin, Scott McDonald, driving when Officer Christopher Fasulo stopped their rented U-Haul truck on Ramapo Valley Road just before 3 a.m. on March 9, 2011.

Fasulo said he feared the truck was too high to clear the upcoming 9 1/2-foot underpass at North Ramapo Avenue.

STORY / PHOTO: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

Sitting between the cousins was a pit bull with a chain-link collar, the officer said.

Asked for his driver’s license, Scott McDonald — a Trenton resident — handed Fasulo a New York State benefits card, court papers show.

Neither man had a driver’s license, as it turned out.

Asked where they were headed, Scott McDonald told the officer that he was helping his cousin move from Brooklyn to Woodbury, N.Y., but they “accidentally entered Woodbury, New Jersey into the GPS and were lost,” according to court papers in the case.

Things only got deeper once the men were separated.

Although Anthony McDonald said his wife rented the truck, Scott McDonald said his cousin wasn’t married.

Eventually, Fasulo said, he asked for and received permission to search the vehicle.

That’s when he said he found a .380 caliber Kel-Tec pistol and a 10mm Glock Model 20 handgun, both loaded, that allegedly belonged to Anthony McDonald — along with .45-caliber hollow-point bullets and .25-caliber ammo.

McDonald posted $50,000 bail a little over a month after the arrest and has remained free since.

A superceding indictment was returned last April, following an original June 2011 indictment.

The charges he’s facing at trial are two second-degree counts of possession of weapons with no permits.

Defense attorney Joseph Cataldi filed a motion last year to suppress the gun and ammunitions evidence, but that was denied by Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Roma.

Superior Court Judge James J. Guida is presiding over the trial.

Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Natalie Candela is representing the state.

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