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Terence “Terry” Shelton, 31, who robbed the TD Bank branch on Main street of $5,899 while wearing a clown mask and holding a pistol, will be sentenced to 14 years in prison in exchange for taking the full weight of the holdup.
Hi brother, Nicholas, 28, who drove the getaway car, will get probation.
Terry Shelton told Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi yesterday that his brother had no idea what he was up to that Dec. 27 night.
Nicholas Shelton was arrested soon after crashing the getaway car in East Rutherford. Police said they found the smashed-up 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse on the entrance ramp to Route 3 from Route 120 — and a dazed Shelton hiding in the nearby weeds — after he fled a traffic stop by a Moonachie police officer in Carlstadt.
Terence “Terry” Shelton, Nicholas Shelton (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
Terry Shelton, a fugitive from Ohio who police said hopped out of the car and ran after the stop, was tracked to an abandoned chicken coop in the Meadowlands swamps and taken into custody.
Most of the cash was recovered and returned by a Carlstadt freight company manager after Shelton tried stashing it under a truck while fleeing. The rest was in the pockets of a peat coat that the Little Ferry Police Chief Ralph Verdi said he ditched nearby.
“Witnesses saw Terence running down Main Street with the clown mask on,” Verdi told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “While all this was going on, a dye pack in the batch exploded on him.”
He then hopped into the car driven by his brother.
Within minutes of the broadcast, Moonachie Police Officer Vito De Trizio stopped the getaway car as it headed south on Moonachie Road, Moonachie Police Chief Michael J. Maguire told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
The officer was getting out of his cruiser when Terence Shelton bolted on foot. As De Trizio chased him, Nicholas Shelton hit the gas and sped off, Maguire said.
The Mitsubishi crashed just up the road. East Rutherford police found it moments later on the Route 3 entrance ramp from Route 120. They also found a dazed Nicholas Shelton in the weeds nearby.
He was brought to Hackensack University Medical Center and then to Little Ferry police headquarters, where department detectives and the FBI interrogated him.
Terry Shelton, meanwhile, eluded police for more than two hours before a Bergen County Sheriff’s K-9 unit found him.
First, Shelton jumped a barbed-wire fence at Con-Way Freight on Moonachie Avenue in Carlstadt just off Moonachie Road, Verdi told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
There he shed the peat coat and hid some of the stolen loot under the chassis of a tractor-trailer, the chief said. The coat, torn up from the barbed wire, was splotched with dye from the exploding pack and had money stuffed into the pockets, he said.
CLICK HERE: Bank robbery brothers lock disabled uncle in bedroom
It proved useful for police dogs trying to track him.
After dashing back across Moonachie Avenue, Shelton jumped a fence at a UPS lot and vanished, Verdi said. De Trizio injured his back during the chase and was later attended to at HUMC, he said.
A perimeter was set up and K9 units were brought in from both the Bergen County Police Department and Bergen County Sheriff’s Office. Officers from Carlstadt, Hackensack and several other area departments joined the search. A New Jersey State Police helicopter arrived soon after.
Bergen County Sheriff’s K9 Officer Matthew Ryan and his partner, Dak, later found Shelton in an abandoned chicken coop in the meadows.
Dak grabbed a mouthful of the 6-foot, 200-pound suspect, who was then turned over to Little Ferry police. After a trip to the hospital, he was taken to police headquarters.
Ohio authorities weeks earlier issued a fugitive warrant for Terry Shelton after he left the state while on three years of intensive supervised parole following an eight-year prison stretch for burglary, aggravated assault on a police officer and violating “post-release control” following a previous prison sentence.
Shelton was believed to be hiding out in the Geraldine Road house that his younger brother bought from their mentally challenged uncle, North Arlington Police Chief Louis Ghione told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
“We’d been watching the house off and on for at least a month, looking for Terry,” Ghione said after the brothers were arrested. “He didn’t produce himself until the robbery.”
North Arlington police rushed to the house and forced their way when Detective Mark Ballantyne knew that Nicholas Shelton was responsible for his uncle, the chief said. So uniformed officers went to the house following the brothers’ arrests.
“They didn’t get an answer at the door, so they forced their way in,” he told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “They found the uncle locked in a bedroom.”
State Adult Protective Services was called and relatives contacted, Ghione said.
“He’s OK and being taken care of,” the chief said.
Terry Shelton pleaded guilty yesterday to one first degree count of armed robbery, while Nicholas pleaded guilty to endangering his uncle and purposely eluding police to provide a diversion for his brother while he was trying to escape.
Nicholas Shelton, questioned by attorney Landry Belizaire, admitted to the two-fold crimes of neglecting his disabled uncle and eluding police to create a diversion to help his brother escape.
He also admitted eluding police and crashing his car.
DeAvila-Silebi told Terry Shelton he will have to serve 85 percent of his 14-year sentence, or 11 years and 10 months, plus five years of parole.
Nicholas Shelton will be sentenced to one or two years parole, which has still to be decided. He also said he plans to apply for pre-trial intervention in an attempt to clear his record.
DeAvila-Silebi set sentencing for Sept. 12.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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