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Michael Baba, 55, has used medical problems as an excuse to skip other court appearances since being arraigned more than a year ago in connection with the July 2013 crash, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Martin Delaney told Superior Court Judge James J. Guida.
Guida issued a bench warrant after Delaney asked him to compel Baba to come to court for “eyes on” and require him to submit to a medical exam.
The judge, who intended to set a trial date for Baba today, got the name of a doctor from Delaney to conduct the exam at Hackensack University Medical Center, and not at the facility where Baba is regularly treated.
Defense attorney Walter Schreyer told Guida that he didn’t know where to find his client.
“I went to his house Monday and it was locked up, and I called him every day,” the lawyer said. “It’s unlike him not to communicate with me.”
Schreyer also told the judge that Baba suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a breathing disorder (COPD) and leukocytopenia — a low white cell count that makes him susceptible to infection.
Delaney, in turn, said that Baba wouldn’t have undergone recent elective surgery to repair an inguinal hernia if he were in the kind of perilous health that has kept him from court.
“He checks himself into the hospital for a day or two, then he is discharged for three, four days, then he checks back in,” the prosecutor said. “He has a convenient pattern of being hospitalized when he wants to be.”
Authorities said Baba ran a red light at the corner of Washington and Lafayette Avenues, where his 2012 Toyota Camry rammed a 2002 Ford Explorer so hard that it flipped onto its roof before coming to rest on a lawn on the intersection’s northwest corner.
Niall O’Hagan of Belleville was later taken by helicopter to HUMC.
Detectives initially charged Baba with assault by auto and was issued several motor vehicle summonses, including reckless driving, failure to obey a traffic signal and driving an unregistered vehicle.
Charges related to being under the influence followed after blood and urine samples were analyzed. A search that led to the discovery of cocaine at his home led to a drug possession count.
O’Hagan of Belleville and his family were in court today.
STORY: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia / FILE PHOTOS: Boyd A. Loving
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