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As a result, 26-year-old Marc Rainey isn’t looking at his first shot at parole for nearly seven years — and could remain behind bars until 2026.
Rainey began a 10-year sentence in October after a jury convicted him and six co-defendants in the theft of a 600-pound safe from Connecticut.
Last month, he pleaded guilty to a Wyckoff burglary as jury selection was about to begin. Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi, in turn, added a firm three years from that conviction to the four that Rainey must serve before he’s eligible for parole in the Connecticut safe theft.
Wyckoff police said they caught Rainey in May 2012 after a neighbor called to report a suspicious vehicle on Ravine Avenue. They said they found the house broken into, every room ransacked and a pillowcase full of jewelry left behind.
Although footprints indicated that Rainey had an accomplice, he never gave anyone up. He did exhaust his legal options before finally pleading guilty last month.
Rainey’s incarceration further smashes a loosely knit crew of burglars organized by Akeem Boone, the last known leader of what once was the Bond gang of burglars, investigators say.
A multi-jurisdictional task force that stretched from Morris County to Connecticut was looking for Boone when they raided a William Street garage near the King Gardens apartment complex and arrested him, Rainey and several others in connection with the safe heist.
Boone, who’s been serving time in state prison since last August, won’t be eligible for parole until 2021.
Given the chance to speak, Rainey said nothing during his sentencing on Friday.
“Perhaps it should be ‘See you soon,’ ” Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Nicholas Ostuni said, “because that seems to be his MO.
“The state is not moved by his decision to plead guilty,” Ostuni told the judge. “I’m more persuaded by his horrendous criminal record, averaging one a year since his 18th birthday.
“I’m convinced as soon as he gets out, he’ll get back together with his friends and enter other houses to steal.”
The sentence handed down Friday guarantees the longest stretch by far of Rainey’s life, DeAvila-Silebi said.
“You’re probably going to max out on it,” the judge told him, meaning that 13 total years isn’t beyond possibility.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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