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Blonson Florestal (STORY/PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia)
At the same time, she refused another bail reduction for Blonson Florestal.
Judges previously had cut bail for Florestal — first in half from $2 million and then to $750,000, based, in part, on his not being inside the apartment when 50-year-old Jeronimo Lopez was shot dead while three of Florestal’s accomplices robbed nearly a dozen victims at gunpoint during their regular Friday night poker game last May 3.
Defense attorney Diane D’Alessandro requested a further reduction, to $500,000, based on the fact that her client hadn’t been indicted.
“I know they are serious charges,” she told Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi on Friday, “but bail is still too high, and I don’t know why the state is taking so long to go to grand jury. He’s a U.S. citizen born in New Jersey.”
There’s is a six-month state guideline for bringing indictments, or else defendants can ask that charges be dismissed.
Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi (STORY / PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia)
DeAvila-Silebi questioned Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Danielle Grootenboer about the lack of grand jury progress.
Grootenboer replied that she’s been working a murder trial that she’d thought would have concluded by now.
As a result, she said, “I haven’t been able to present the case to the grand jury, despite my best efforts, and I’m not going to be able to present it this month.
“I think it will be presented by the end of February.”
The judge was satisfied — for the moment.
Florestal “is a U.S. citizen, but he has an open charge of eluding in Essex County. That charge carries flight issues,” DeAvila-Silebi said. “He is also involved in gang activity and I have to take that into account when setting bail.”
FILE PHOTOS: Evens Dumas, Keshawn Malone, Blonson Florestal, Jose Rivas (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
At the same time, she said, “Ms. Grootenboer has been here on trial, on her feet. It’s not an unnecessary delay.
“I will look at it again in March,” she told Florestal’s lawyer, “and if not indicted by then you will get a significant reduction.”
Prosecutors said three defendants were all armed with guns when they stormed Lopez’s Walker Street apartment, put nearly a dozen people on the floor and took $1,800 in cash and valuables while Florestal waited outside.
Lopez was taken into the kitchen and shot in the stomach during the holdup by Evens Dumas of Irvington, they said. He died later in surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center.
Dumas — who may have been in the country illegally — was carrying two guns, a .380-caliber and a .25-caliber, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said at the time. READ MORE….
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