Tempers flare at court hearing for teen charged in Morristown rape case

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Against the advice of his son’s lawyer, the irate father of a juvenile being held in a Morristown rape case stood up in state Superior Court on Wednesday and accused the court of racism.

“I think it’s borderline racism. If these were white people, this wouldn’t be happening,” protested the father, when Judge Michael Paul Wright declined to release two teens to their parents’ custody while their cases unfold.

After the hearing, the father engaged in a shouting match with a reporter in a court hallway, calling assembled reporters “devils” and declaring “you’re all crackers” as Morris County Sheriff’s Officers instructed him to leave.

The judge, who is African American, was compassionate toward the distraught parent–to a point. If the state court system in Morristown had an electronic home monitoring system for juveniles, like one in Sussex County, he said he would consider it for cases like this one.

But in the absence of such electronics, and given the seriousness of the charges–three youths are accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl who reportedly was semi-conscious after drinking at a Morristown party one year ago–and knowing that more serious charges may be coming, Judge Wright said he could not release the pair from the juvenile detention center where they have been held for more than a month.

He scheduled an Oct. 16 hearing to weigh a request by Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Samantha DeNegri to try the two teens as adults. As juveniles, they face up to four years in juvenile detention if convicted. As adults, the maximum sentences could be 20 years in state prison.

Their names are being withheld because they were 17 at the time of the alleged crime, which the alleged victim did not report to authorities until May.  A third suspect, Tyrec Phillips, 19, is being held in lieu of $150,000 bail.

The judge said he would consider any new developments in the case. But he told the father: “What I have before me is probable cause that your son has been involved in a heinous event…Clearly, my analysis is that the risk of harm [in releasing the teen] outweighs the unfairness” of continued custody.

Handcuffed and shackled at the ankles, the two teens sat quietly in the courtroom as their defense lawyers, Randy Davenport and Elizabeth Boylan, filling in for Dean Maglione, argued for leniency.

The father of one of the teens could not suppress his anger.

“This is punitive,” he told the judge, contending his son was being incarcerated for unproven charges that have besmirched the teen’s reputation. “Day after day, week after week, I just don’t like what’s going on here.”

Judge Wright said he was troubled, too, that justice sometimes required the temporary detention of innocent people. But his patience eventually reached its limits and he firmly told the father: “Stop talking.”

Words were exchanged in the narrow hallway when a reporter confronted the parent over what he perceived as a threatening gesture toward another reporter.

 

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