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Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi gave Daniel Margulies until Nov. 7 to apply and be evaluated for Bergen County’s drug court.
She also issued a warning to Margulies’s lawyer.
“He’s a train wreck,” the judge said. “He’s on all kinds of medication. He’s on Adderall — that means he has ADD. He’s a mess.
“If he goes into drug court and bombs out, he’ll go to state prison,” she said. “Burglaries, robberies, and theft are exposing him to jail time. Drug possession will not send him to state prison, but second-degree offenses will.”
Margulies was arrested for three separate thefts while awaiting yesterday’s sentencing — this after January thefts of lockers at the Ice House in Hackensack.
Each time he made bail, the same as after the Nov. 13, 2012 robbery.
It was weeks after Hurricane Sandy had hit New Jersey, authorities said, when Margulies and two co-defendants stopped at the Essex Street BP station in Lodi and noticed the power still out.
They drove back to Teaneck, got disguises and a gun and then returned.
While Margulies and Carlos Escarramen waited outside, Jean Barthelemy pointed the weapon at an attendant, forced him to open the store register and took off with about $800, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said at the time.
The 6-foot-4, 180-pound Bathelemy also grabbed a pack of Newports on the way out, he said.
All three took off in the car, with Margulies behind the wheel. Along the way, Barthelemy began tossing clothing he was wearing “to alter his appearance in the event the vehicle was stopped by responding officers,” Molinelli said.
Barthelemy was sentenced in September to six years in state prison, nearly all of which he must serve before he’ll be eligible for parole. Escarraman, meanwhile, remains free on $50,000 bail.
Earlier this year, Margulies broke into the Ice House in Hackensack during an adult league hockey tournament and rifled lockers, stealing nearly $1,000 in cash and belongings from a team from Riverdale, N.Y. known as the “Rusty Nuts.”
Charges from that incident were merged with the armed robbery case and Margulies pleaded guilty to reduced charges.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor David Calviello objected to him being allowed to re-apply to drug court after already being denied.
The prosecutor said he personally asked Margulies’s parents to work with him but they refused. Margulies then committed three more thefts while awaiting sentencing — two in June and another on Sept. 5, he said.
“He told the probation department ‘I am not a criminal. I’m only a criminal when I need drugs.’ And I would agree with that,” Calviello said.
“The problem is his drug use has escalated and so have his crimes,” the prosecutor added. “[His parents’] own doctor told us he has relapsed seven times.”
Defense attorney Kevin G. Roe, who said he knows the family personally, agreed.
“Judge, it’s pathetic,” he said. “It’s not so much that he doesn’t want to, but he’s ravaged by addiction. He realizes he is in desperate need of help. He needs to be in an impatient program.
“It’s a heartbreaking case,” Roe said. “His parents have spent more than a year coming back and forth trying to help their son.”
Roe also took issue with Calviello reaching out to them.
The prosecutor said he was merely doing his job.
“I reached out to them to see if there was a window to get him off the street,” Calviello said. “As much as I would like to get help for him, I had a greater interested in keeping him off the street during the summer.”
For his part, Margulies told the judge that he wants “the opportunity to be a good parent.
“I needed the opportunity to finally detox,” he said. “I wanted to stop. I really could not.”
Defense attorney Kevin G. Roe, Daniel Margulies (STORY / PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia)
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