52°
Blake Tannen, 32, was arrested after Allendale police traced an abandoned 911 cellphone call to his home on Baldwin Road in November 2015.
They said they stopped Tannen's car as he tried to pull away and found a woman in the front passenger seat who'd been sexually assaulted.
Tannen, who worked as a store clerk and had met the victim just hours earlier, was charged with sexual assault by force and minor drug possession. Police then sent him to the Bergen County Jail.
Despite the seriousness of the charges, a Superior Court judge in Hackensack released Tannen two days later, records show.
Tannen took a guilty plea in July 2016 and was allowed to remain free pending sentencing.
Less than two weeks later, he attacked another stranger, this time in a vehicle in Manhattan, authorities said. The 21-year-old victim also had her head slammed against the dashboard at one point, they said.
Tannen fought those charges.
In turn, jurors in downtown Manhattan convicted him of first-degree sexual abuse by force and assault in January 2018.
A judge there later sentenced Tannen to seven years in state prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release.
Tannen had served 4½ of that sentence when he was paroled this past September from the Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida, NY, records show.
He was immediately transported to the Bergen County Jail and is scheduled to be sentenced in the local case next Friday, Dec. 16.
Tannen faces a minimum four-year prison sentence with lifetime parole supervision and Megan's Law registration.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Wyckoff-Franklin Lakes and receive free news updates.
