Bergen County Prosecutor John
L. Molinelli will be called to the witness stand to testify against two Bergen
County Police Department officers accused of moving shell casings at the end of
the car chase and then lying under oath to cover up a shooting, the lead
prosecutor in the case told jurors in Hackensack today.
Assistant Bergen County
Prosecutor Wayne Mello, during his opening argument in the trial this morning,
called the actions of officers Saheed Baksh (above, right) and Jeffrey Roberts
(left) “a betrayal of the badge we all have a right to trust.”
“The badge of a police officer
is a symbol as much as the flag … a symbol of trust [and] commitment to truth
and honesty,” Mello told jurors.
He then told jurors expect
details of a “a chase second to none.”
“It will amaze you,” Mello
said, promising to show jurors police cruiser dashboard videos of the pursuit
from Paramus to Bogota.
Baksh’s lawyer, Louis Diluzio,
portrayed the August 2010 scene as a mess of 20-plus officers from several
jurisdictions — including local, county, and New Jersey State Police, plus the
Bergen County Sheriff’s Office.
Mass confusion plus a short
time frame — and not an attempt to deceive — led to assumptions and delay in
reporting an officer-involved shooting.
Diluzio also said prosecutors
have no evidence to prove Baksh removed the shell casings from the crime scene.
He also disagreed with Mello’s
contention that Baksh was ordered to leave his car at the “shooting scene” to
await a tow and take another officer’s car to the hospital with the two
suspects he’d chased after they complained of injuries.
No one ever gave that order,
the attorney said.
Baksh traveled from the
“apprehension scene” on the other side of the railroad tracks back to his car,
which he drove back to the “barn” — the county police garage in Hackensack, he
said.
It wasn’t until about two hours
later that Roberts asked Baksh if he told anyone he discharged his weapon,
Diluzio said.
Baksh said he hadn’t, so
Roberts said he would, he said.
New Jersey Attorney General
guidelines require county prosecutor’s offices to review all police shootings
to determine whether they are justified.
According to Mello, the
two-hour gap compromised the scene — and, as a result, the investigation.
Roberts’ attorney, Charles
Sciarra, likened Mello to a bricklayer building a wall to convince jurors that
the defendants are guilty.
“But I think when he’s
finished, you’ll find quite a few bricks are missing and the wall won’t stand,”
Sciarra said.
Among what’s missing, he
alleged, are a motive and a crime that had to be covered up in the first place.
Sciarra also accused
Molinelli’s office of being “up to something” by not delivering evidence that
he needed to prepare his case until a few weeks ago.
The two officers face a total
of six charges, including second-degree conspiracy to commit official
misconduct.
Grand jurors in August 2012
indicted both after prosecutors presented videotape from various patrol car
dashboard cameras and transcripts of interviews with several officers following
the chase.
No one was hit, but prosecutors
said Baksch pocketed the shell casings after firing the shots, while Roberts
did nothing to stop him.
The officers have been free on
$10,000 bail each and remain suspended without pay.
Both insist that Molinelli
(above, inset) pursued the charges against them as part of a politically
motivated “witch hunt” designed to “result in the dissolution of the Bergen
County Police Department.”
Superior Court Judge Patrick J.
Roma, who is presiding over the trial, last fall refused their request to
either dismiss the case or, failing that, transfer it to the state Attorney
General’s Office.
Molinelli, in an October 2013
filing to Roma, wrote that Baksh and Roberts committed criminal misconduct that
“disgraces the badge and good name of all law enforcement officers.”
The trial continues tomorrow
morning with testimony from BCPD K-9 Officer Les Lorenc, whno found the shell
casings.
Prosecutors say Lorenc and
Englewood Officer John Peterson examined the shell casings and put them back.
When crime scene investigators
arrived, they said, the casings were gone.
The incident began the
afternoon of Aug. 12, 2010, when a Forest Avenue resident returned home and
found a black SUV with a man inside parked in her driveway. Suddenly, a second
man emerged from her house and got into the SUV, which drove away.