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Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor James Santulli offered Derik Sanchez, 27, of West New York a plea deal of 12 years in state prison, with no parole eligibility for 42 months.
Sanchez’s attorney, Dennis McAlevy, told the judge Monday that he will be challenging a “warrantless search by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office in my county – Hudson.” He entered a not-guilty plea on his client’s behalf.
Sanchez, who has two prior narcotics convictions on his record, was arrested along with 22-year-old Ernesto J. Gonzalez of Hudson Avenue in Union City last June.
He and Gonzalez, who will be arraigned at another time, are charged in an indictment with first-degree possession of cocaine with the intent to sell the drug, along with several other counts.
Prosecutors said Gonzalez first met an undercover operative with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Narcotics Task Force in North Bergen and sold him slightly less than two ounces, or 50 grams, of cocaine.
The investigator then negotiated for a larger amount, 17.64 ounces, which was recovered when he and Sanchez showed up in a black Cadillac driven by Sanchez later that day, they said.
Just before the buy was to go down, they said, officers moved in and Sanchez threw the cocaine out the window. Both were then arrested, authorities said.
STORY / PHOTO: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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