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Calvin Glover, 57, of Paterson had been on probation all of four days when he began checking for unlocked car doors in the courthouse parking lot last Sept. 26.
What he didn’t know was that county sheriff’s officers were watching him the entire time.
Glover eventually found an open door, helped himself to the CD case — and was immediately arrested by the officers.
He subsequently was convicted of theft.
Glover asked Superior Judge James J. Guida for leniency.
“Get me some help,” he said. “Putting me in prison isn’t going to help anything. I made a mistake.”
His lawyer, public defender Ian Silvera, said the crime was petty, that the victim “left her window open,” and that Glover’s age posed a probability of health problems should he go to prison.
Guida wasn’t having any of it.
“The crimes were independent of each other,” the judge said. “It was clearly not a single period of aberrant behavior, and there were multiple victims involved.”
What’s more, Guida said, another judge already cut Glover a break after he was caught in another car burglary in September 2011 by giving him probation.
Given that Glover already had a long rap sheet and violated probation twice in less than a year, an extended term is entirely appropriate — especially given that the two car-burglary convictions in just two years were for the same crime, the judge said.
“Mr. Glover has a record dating back to 1981 in Paterson,” the Guida said. “He has six prior criminal convictions including threats and robbery in 1994, aggravated assault in 1997, taking a motor vehicle in 2003, taking a car without permission in 1995, and another car burglary in South Hackensack in 2011, as well as several municipal court offenses.
“And he is still committing crimes,” the judge said.
“His age and the possibility of developing health problems can’t be considered,” Guida said. “He is healthy now.”
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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