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“Your honor, I don’t want this man to represent me due to conflict of interest,” George Sanchez said, waving a sheaf of legal papers and gesturing toward attorney Benjamin Morton at what was supposed to be a sentencing hearing.
“I’ve been trying to get rid of him for 18 months,” Sanchez said.
Superior Court Judge Edward Jerejian (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
Superior Court Judge Edward A. Jerejian reluctantly agreed to the delay but told Sanchez that he won’t get another.
“You were convicted in July and the sentencing has to move forward,” Jerejian said. “It’s been adjourned again and again, and the arguments you’re making today were all brought up at trial.”
Jurors last summer convicted Sanchez of two counts of sexual assault while finding him not guilty of more serious charges of first-degree rape and kidnapping.
Sanchez told Jerejian he’s been writing to Superior Court Presiding Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi asking to have Morton removed because of an alleged conflict of interest with a juror.
George Sanchez (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
“Judge Silebi wouldn’t let you hire a new lawyer because you were trying to delay the trial,” Jerejian responded. “We questioned Mr. Morton, and the juror, and neither of them knew the other.
“You can have anyone you want represent you at sentencing,” the judge continued. However, he said he was puzzled why Sanchez would want to.
Morton did “an excellent job” in getting not guilty verdicts for charges that “could have gotten you as much as life in prison” if he’d been convicted, Jerejian told Sanchez.
Sanchez, in turn, repeated objections made during the trial — among them, that there was no DNA evidence, although the victim described being tied up, beaten, sodomized, and stabbed with a fork.
Sanchez also accused DeAvila-Silebi of having a conflict to a financial dispute he had with her father-in-law over a construction job eight years ago, among other claims.
“All these complaints were brought up at your trial,” Jerejian said, before giving him the two weeks.
Shouting could be heard as Sanchez was being led back to the holding cell to be transported to the Bergen County Jail, where he remained held without bail pending sentencing.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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EXCLUSIVE:In a mixed verdict, jurors in Hackensack today convicted a Fair Lawn mason of two counts of sodomizing his former fiancé with a steel-toed boot while clearing him of more serious rape and kidnapping charges. READ MORE ….
EXCLUSIVE: “You know how I get when I get angry. Sometimes I can’t control myself around you,” George Sanchez told his fiancé the night of March 17, 2012 to try and discourage her from filing charges against him, authorities said. What he didn’t know was that she was talking to him over her cellphone speaker at Fair Lawn police headquarters, where detectives were listening, a prosecutor said this week. READ MORE ….
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