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Christian Lopez (STORY / PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Correspondent Mary K. Miraglia)
A defense attorney said the family of Christian Lopez, 24, of Secaucus, is working to raise the $30,000 necessary to secure a bondsman to post the full bail.
Lopez said nothing apart from speaking quietly with his lawyer during a bail hearing attended by more than 30 friends and family members — including a brother who came from his home in California.
Loved ones of the victim were in court, as well, as they were last week when co-defendant Nakeem Gardner, 18, of Paterson had his bail lowered from the same original $350,000 to $275,000.
Both remained held in the Bergen County Jail.
Two additional male and one female student are charged with failing to help the victim — and even recording what was happening on their cellphones.
Defense attorney John Bruno told Superior Court Judge John A. Conte a short time earlier that Lopez was a Dean’s List criminal justice major, with a 3.7 Grade Point Average, before being banned from campus following his arrest.
Christian Lopez (STORY / PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Correspondent Mary K. Miraglia)
The attorney said Lopez, who was born in Jersey City to Salvadoran and Ecuadoran immigrants, has a “stellar record as a young man,” with no prior criminal history, a good academic history and experience at Secaucus High School on wrestling, soccer, track, baseball and bowling teams.
“He is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and we are convinced that presumption will prevail and he will be found innocent,” the lawyer said.
“His record isn’t spotless,” Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Catherine Fantuzzi countered. “He has a record as a juvenile and I believe we will find he has arrests in New York once his full record is investigated.”
Fantuzzi last week said that Lopez met the 19-year-old victim at at on-campus fraternity party the night of Nov. 14.
The woman became intoxicated, after which Lopez locked her in a room at the frat house “and may have actually sexually assaulted her there,” she told a judge.
Others at the party intervened and kicked out Lopez, who “took the victim on his back to a car and was driven to a dormitory where he took her into a room” as evening turned to overnight, the assistant prosecutor said.
Using a room key someone had given him, Lopez sexually assaulted the woman, Fantuzzi said.
“When he came out of the room, he bragged to his friends that he had just had sex with her, and she was passed out on the bed,” she said. “He then asked two friends did they want ‘a piece of it?’
“One of them declined, but Gardner went into the room where the woman was naked and unconscious and proceeded to have sex with her,” the assistant prosecutor said.
He also admitted videotaping a portion of the assaults, she said.
The woman told investigators she wasn’t feeling well, went to lie down and woke up that next morning partially clothed in an on-campus dorm room, sources with direct knowledge of the investigation told CLIFFVIEW PILOT at the time.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Catherine Fantuzzi (STORY / PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Correspondent Mary K. Miraglia)
After taking a shower, she went to Hackensack University Medical Center, whose personnel notified authorities, they said.
Investigators from the prosecutor’s office and Mahwah police interviewed the girl, as well as several students, before arresting Gonzalez on campus and Lopez at his home two weeks ago.
The victim had “vaginal lacerations and bruises to her legs, both of which are consistent with forced intercourse,” Fantuzzi told a judge last week.
Video also shows Lopez going into the room with the woman, leaving, and Gardner then going into the room, while other students “were looking in and laughing,” the assistant prosecutor said.
Several witnesses confirmed that the woman was unconscious, she added.
Gardner intially was charged with aggravated sexual assault and invasion of privacy. Detectives last week added a charge of endangering an injured victim.
They also charged Lopez in connection with a second alleged student victim — for inappropriate sexual contact — while adding counts to the first offense: criminal restraint, endangering an injured victim and invasion of privacy.
And they arrested three more Ramapo College students who they said “aided or encouraged” the alleged assault, two of whom they sadi also “took pictures of the victim without her consent.”
Justin Somers and Christopher Rainone, both of Staten Island, and Jordan Massood of Wayne, all 18, are each charged with endangering an injured victim. Somers and Rainone are charged with invasion of privacy.
All three were released pending Municipal Court appearances. READ MORE….
Defense attorney John Bruno (STORY / PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Correspondent Mary K. Miraglia)
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