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Prosecutors said Jergere Minaya-Acosta, 52, believed his wife was cheating on him when he deliberately stabbed her twice in their Coles Avenue apartment in April 2019.
Rosanna Cuevas played dead while her husband showered, changed into fresh clothes and tossed the bloody garments and knife into a garbage bin before fleeing to New York, detectives told Daily Voice at the time. She then ran to a neighbor for help.
Minaya-Acosta surrendered to Englewood police hours later. Meanwhile, doctors at Hackensack University Medical Center operated on Cuevas, whose trachea had been punctured.
Unable to speak, the abused spouse typed out a note to investigators saying that Minaya-Acosta had tried to kill her before by smothering her with a pillow, prosecutors said.
Minaya-Acosta went to trial rather than take a plea deal, insisting that he grabbed the knife from Cuevas and used it in self-defense during an argument that got out of control.
Jurors in Hackensack, weren't buying it, though, convicting Minaya-Acosta of aggravated assault, endangering an injured victim and weapons offenses, among other counts.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Lee Schaer argued for a stiff sentence, noting how Minaya-Acosta "never expressed an ounce of remorse."
No evidence was found that his wife had cheated on him, either, she noted.
Superior Court Judge Keith Bachmann said the attack warranted the sentence. "Not even the most naïve person" would consider it self-defense, the judge said.
Minaya-Acosta would have to serve 11 years of the sentence under the state's No Early Release Act. He's already spent 2½ years behind bars since his arrest, which would make him eligible for parole no earlier than 2030.
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