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Presiding Superior Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi set an Oct. 4 date in Hackensack after the prosecutor in what is the oldest active murder prosecution in Bergen County said yesterday that she won’t offer Yoher Jiminez, 28, a plea deal.
Jimenez and his attorney were seeking a charge less than murder, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Maria Rockfol said, and she couldn’t agree.
“So there was no offer,” she told the judge.
Defense attorney Ian Silvera said that the baby’s mother, Jackline Jimenez, “most likely is going to be a witness.”
The Jimenezes had just moved from a relative’s house in Hasbrouck Heights to Harding Place in Fairview when she went shopping in April 2010, leaving Baby Victoria — the daughter of a different father — with him.
Police called to the home later found Victoria unresponsive. She was first taken to Palisades General Medical Center and then transferred to St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Paterson, where it was discovered that she had a skull fracture and several rib fractures.
She died a few days later after being removed from life support.
Charges were upgraded to murder against Jimenez, who denied killing the child.
She “was in the crib and [I] heard the baby coughing and gave her water,” Jiminez told CLIFFVIEW PILOT through a relative at the time. “Then [I] came back to check on her and she was pale and her lips were purple.”
Jackline Jimenez was charged with child endangerment after investigators determined that she knew enough not to leave Victoria alone with her boyfriend because of “past abuse at [his] hands,” Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said at the time.
The INS also sought to detain her. After a month in the county jail, she was released.
A grand jury indicted Yoher Andres Jiminez in 2011 and a trial originally was scheduled for June, 2013. Jimenez demanded that he be allowed to represent himself, however, and filed several motions from jail.
Meanwhile, a person claiming to be a representative for him approached CLIFFVIEW PILOT contending that Victoria’s spinal cord was severed as emergency workers tried to resuscitate her.
Jimenez is charged with first-degree murder, and child abuse of Victoria, whom he had “a legal duty to care for,” as well as with lying to police to deter prosecution or punishment.
He remains held $1 million bail in the Bergen County Jail. The INS also will look to deport him once the case is resolved.
STORY / PHOTO: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia
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