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A judge ordered bail revoked and Michael Marrara, 37, held in the Bergen County Jail until a scheduled June 15 sentencing, when he could be sent to state prison for more than 30 years.
The jury convicted Marrara, a former volunteer firefighter, of aggravated manslaughter, aggravated assault, child endangerment and hindering apprehension after deliberating for about six hours over two days following a month-long trial.
Family members at the time said that little Andrew Jeremy Marrara died of SIDS on March 26, 2012. Defense lawyers later said a virus caused a rare bleeding disorder that killed the infant.
Fort Lee police responded to Marrara’s Center Avenue apartment at 7:45 a.m.that day on a 911 call of an infant not breathing and found the child, Marrara and his then-fiance -- Andrew's mother -- Lindsey Whitman, prosecutors said.
Officers and EMS personnel tried in vain to save Andrew, who was pronounced dead at 8:50 a.m. in the emergency room of Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, they said.
Homicide detectives from the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office investigated and an autopsy was conducted by the county Medical Examiner’s Office.
The medical examiner reported a trio of broken ribs in various states of healing, as well as fresh injury to Andrew’s brain -- which prosecutors said occurred when Marrara became frustrated with feeding the baby and beat him, prosecutors said.
The blunt-force trauma to the head killed the infant, they said.
Marrara, who later moved to Boca Raton, FL and became a maintenance worker for the Festival Flea Market in Pompano Beach, had been free on $250,000 bail.
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