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As they pulled from a Nutley dead end following two burglaries, unmarked SUVs carrying police and detectives from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office and the Englewood, Hackensack, Teaneck, and Fort Lee police departments moved in.
That didn’t stop the duo, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor David Calviello told jurors in Hackensack yesterday during the opening of their burglary trial.
Chance, 22, driving his mother’s BMW, hit the gas, Calviello said. Chased by police, he sped through Nutley and parts of Bloomfield and Little Falls before the car slammed into a brick wall in front of a hilltop house in Montclair.
Hakeem Chance (l.), Dammen McDuffie (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
The last couple of miles were “driven on steel” after the car hit a curb as Chance made a steep left, shredding the front tire on his side, Calviello said.
According to Calviello, the area was illuminated, and Detective Johnathan Arcohas saw McDuffie, 39, “looking out the passenger side, directly at him.”
“What does McDuffie do?” Calviello continued. “He climbed over Chance through the air bags, out the driver’s side door. He didn’t surrender. He took flight and ran as fast as he could down the hill, through a yard, through a vast, dark meadow – into brush six to eight feet high.”
“Chance, having been stepped over, climbed out. He refused all commands and ‘beat feet’ the other way, through another thick, brushy meadow,” the assistant prosecutor said.
Chance, of Hackensack, was found and arrested nearby. Arochas later identified McDuffie, of Englewood, through his driver’s license photo via the state motor vehicle database, Calviello said.
Defense attorney Vincent Basile, representing Chance, told jurors that the prosecutor’s case has a fundamental weakness because investigators didn’t recover any stolen property from either house.
“With all of this technology, why didn’t they find the stuff?” he asked. “They can show you block-by-block the route the car took.
“With all this technology, I suggest to you, they should have been able to find it.”
Frank Carbonetti, representing McDuffie, told jurors that his client has “suffered a nightmare” since his arrest a few days after the burglaries and was in “shock and awe” at how police treated him.
“The cops confront you, treat you like an animal, and you’re just supposed to say ‘OK’?” Carbonetti asked.
No fingerprints or DNA belonging to McDuffie were found at either house, the lawyer said. What’s more, he said, the GPS data pinpointing the location of Chance’s car says William Street and not Dubois Court, where he lives.
Carbonetti challenged the contention that an officer saw his client in the BMW before he purportedly jumped over Chance following the crash.
“It was pitch dark,” the defense lawyer said.
Both defendants are charged with separate counts of burglary.
McDuffie is also charged with hindering his own prosecution or apprehension by concealing the stolen items. Prosecutors contend he also threatened Detective James Eckert of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office and Fort Lee Police Detective Edward Young in an effort to prevent his arrest.
Chance, meanwhile, faces a dozen criminal charges related to the chase. They include reckless driving and creating a risk of death or injury, as well as eluding capture and prosecution by the following officers:
Young; Bergen County Prosecutor’s Detectives Eckert, Elliott Cookson, Jonathan Arochas, John Booth and Michael Falotico; Hackensack Police Officer William Iglima; Teaneck Officer Gabe Santiago.
Chance also is charged with the attempted bodily injury of Cookson, Arochas, Booth, Eckert, Falotico, Young, Inglima and Santiago.
Chance has prior arrests for assault, theft and weapons, as well as pending burglary charges out of Teaneck.
McDuffie has been arrested in five separate New Jersey counties: Bergen, Essex, Morris, Middlesex and Somerset. Although several of those cases were downgraded, dismissed or not pursued, he pleaded guilty in four different theft cases and in one of showing false indentification.
The trial continues this morning.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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