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The time it’s taking to bring the case hasn’t deterred the supporters of Michael Marrara Jr., however.
Marrara, a maintenance worker for the Festival Flea Market in Pompano Beach, Fla., has remained free on $250,000 bail at his home in Boca Raton, making the trip north for occasional court hearings since his arrest in March 2012.
Family members and friends have faithfully attended the appearances — including 20 or so who came to court, many wearing orange ties, for his arraignment in Hackensack this week.
They have insisted that Marrara is innocent of first-degree aggravated manslaughter and child endangerment charges, and that Andrew Jeremy Marrara died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Injuries that a medical examiner found to the boy’s ribs occurred during childbirth, they maintain.
Fort Lee police responded to Marrara’s Center Avenue apartment at 7:45 a.m. March 26 on a 911 call of an infant not breathing and found the child, Marrara and his fiance, Lindsey Whitman.
Officers and EMS personnel “tried in vain to save the child,” who was pronounced dead at 8:50 a.m. in the emergency room of Englewood Hospital, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli later said.
An autopsy was conducted, and the initial findings “included old injuries to the baby that were in various states of healing, as well as fresh injury to the child’s brain,” the prosecutor said.
“Ultimately the medical examiner concluded the cause of death was closed head injury and the manner of death was classified as a homicide,” he said.
Defense attorney John Latoracca asked for more time to review the evidence against his client, so Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi scheduled a Sept. 2 status conference.
STORY / PHOTO: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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