Posted on 03/02/2009 1:25:49 PM PST by Coleus
PATERSON — Citing the cruelty of the crime and the defendant's extensive criminal background, a state Superior Court judge on Friday sentenced a Newark man to 35 years in prison for his role in the robbery and throat slashing of a Lodi man who survived the attack but killed himself nine months later. The judge also sentenced two other men in the crime against Jason Zabotinsky, which occurred in December 2005. Drake Primus, 38, of Newark, who received the longest sentence of 35 years, was convicted of aggravated assault, armed robbery and unlawful possession of a weapon. Zabotinsky's blood was found on Primus' sleeve, and the keys to his vehicle were found in Primus' pocket, the prosecution said.
The prosecution had argued that it was Primus who encouraged one of the other defendants to cut Zabotinsky's throat. He received 40-plus stitches for his wound. "To be involved in the slashing of a man's throat so you can steal his money – that's the definition of pure evil," Senior Assistant Prosecutor Robert Pringle told the judge before the sentencing, while he asked for an extended term for Primus.
Eugene Dix, 42, of Paterson, was sentenced to 15 years after being convicted of aggravated assault and robbery. The prosecution believes that Dix cut Zabotinsky's throat during the early-morning robbery near 17th Avenue and East 19th Street in Paterson. William Manigo, 39, of Paterson, convicted of aggravated assault in the third degree and robbery in the second degree, was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The prosecution was barred from presenting Zabotinsky's account of the crime because he took his own life before the trial started. All three defendants had extensive criminal records, which the prosecution and the judge cited Friday as reasons for the lengthy terms. They each have to serve 85 percent of their sentences before being eligible for parole. "I had asked for a little more, but the judge hit them with pretty hard sentences," Pringle said after the sentencing.
According to the prosecution, Zabotinsky was at a restaurant in Paterson at about 2 a.m. on Dec. 5, 2005, when he ran into Dix. He allegedly told Dix that he was looking for drugs. Dix said that he knew where Zabotinsky could find some. Dix then got into Zabotinsky's pickup and drove to the area of 17th Avenue and East 19th Street, where Dix told Zabotinsky to pull over. That's when Primus and Manigo got involved, the prosecution said. Primus tried to pull Zabotinsky out of the truck, while Manigo hit him with a baseball bat, prosecutors said. Dix rummaged through the interior of the truck. When Dix found a box cutter in the glove compartment, Primus allegedly told him: "Cut the mother (expletive)." Primus held Zabotinsky's head on the headrest, while Dix cut his throat, the prosecution said.
After the incident, Zabotinsky identified the men as those who attacked him, Pringle said. The victim's father, Burt Zabotinsky, who addressed the court before sentencing, said his son had a drug problem. He said that his son was manic depressive and had been under psychiatric care for most of his life. He found his son, 32, dead at his Lodi apartment in September 2006. "Did they kill him with the slashing?" Zabotinsky asked. "Were they a part of why he took his life? Absolutely. He was traumatized after that."
The victim's father said they should each spend the rest of their lives in prison. "Every day, for the rest of their lives, that would be my call on it," he said later outside the courtroom. Primus insisted that he was not at the scene of the crime, that his fingerprints were not found on the truck and that Zabotinsky did not identify him as the one who assaulted him. "I was never there, nothing places me there," Primus said despite the evidence of Zabotinsky's blood on his sleeve. Manigo's attorney, Walter S. Dodson, the assistant deputy public defender for the Passaic region, said it was not fair that his client's sentence was longer than Dix's when they were both convicted of similar charges and his client's alleged role in the incident was smaller than Dix's.
"I felt like I gave an appropriate sentence," Marmo told Dodson, saying that of the three defendants, Manigo had the most extensive criminal record. But Manigo said he had already served time for past crimes. "You are wrong," he told Marmo. "You are dead wrong."
Looks like liberal sewer NJ.
Celebrate diversity!
Looks like the NJ prison system is going green.
Give them a short rope...
I noticed the murderers were in the 30’s - isn’t that kind of old to be engaging in boyhood pranks? Sarc/
There's the problem right there.
Three less paid ACORN activists on the street....
Ah, but in Obozo the Kenyan Klown’s Amerika they will continue to have their votes counted.
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