Superior Court Judge Michael L. Ravin denied the motion for a judgment of acquittal filed by Bloomfield Police Officers Sean Courter and Orlando Trinidad
NEWARK -- A Superior Court judge has rejected a bid by two Bloomfield police officers to throw out their conviction on official misconduct and related charges for submitting false police reports about a 2012 arrest.
Judge Michael L. Ravin denied the cops' motion for a judgment of acquittal after finding that prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence to enable "a rational jury" to convict Sean Courter and Orlando Trinidad, according to the judge's Jan. 13 written decision.
Jurors convicted Courter and Trinidad on Nov. 5 of making false statements in police reports about the June 7, 2012 arrest of Bloomfield resident Marcus Jeter on the Garden State Parkway.
Based in large part on police dashboard videos - including footage of Jeter with his hands raised inside his vehicle - the jury determined the officers' reports falsely claimed Jeter tried to grab Courter's gun while Courter was removing Jeter from the vehicle, and that Jeter struck Trinidad.
Jeter testified during the trial that he had his "hands up" the whole time and that he did not resist arrest or strike Trinidad.
In his written decision, Ravin cited Jeter's testimony and the dashboard footage as among the evidence that supports the guilty verdict.
"The Court finds that a rational jury could have found Mr. Jeter's testimony credible and interpreted the dash cam video as corroborating Mr. Jeter's testimony," according to the decision.
"On the basis of this evidence, a rational jury could find that Defendants knowingly submitted false reports and complaint warrants regarding Mr. Jeter's actions during the incident giving rise to their charges," the decision states.
The decision adds that "a rational jury could infer that Defendants knowingly committed a violation of official duty."
"Additionally, the State presented sufficient evidence that Mr. Jeter was injured and that Defendants' reports were inconsistent with the dash cam video from which a rational jury could conclude that Defendants sought the benefit of concealing their actions during the incident at issue from departmental review in order to make their actions appear to be correct," the decision states.
Bloomfield Police Officers Sean Courter and Orlando Trinidad, pictured left to right, when their photos were taken after they were taken into custody on Nov. 5, following their conviction on official misconduct and related charges.Essex County Correctional Facility
In addition to official misconduct, Courter, 35, of Englishtown and Trinidad, 34, of Bloomfield, were convicted of conspiracy to commit official misconduct, tampering with public records, falsifying or tampering with records and false swearing.
Trinidad also had been charged with aggravated assault for striking Jeter during the incident, but the jury convicted him of the lesser offense of simple assault.
Courter and Trinidad are scheduled to be sentenced by Ravin on Friday. The officers are each facing a minimum of five years in state prison without parole on the official misconduct charge.
After the verdict was issued, Ravin revoked the officers' bails and remanded them to the Essex County Correctional Facility, where they remain in custody.
After the officers were convicted, Bloomfield Police Director Samuel DeMaio said the township police department was moving to terminate Courter and Trinidad. The officers had been suspended without pay.
Jeter also is pursuing a lawsuit against Bloomfield, Courter, Trinidad and other defendants.
The officers' motion centered in large part on their argument that the police reports were based on what they "reasonably believed" had occurred at the time they prepared those documents.
Courter's attorney, Charles Clark, argued at a Jan. 8 hearing that the state did not present evidence that would lead a "reasonable juror" to conclude the officers' intent was to falsify those reports.
"I just don't think the evidence is there where a reasonable jury could conclude there was intent," Clark said.
Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Berta Rodriguez, one of the prosecutors who tried the case, said at the hearing that the state had presented sufficient evidence to warrant the conviction.
At the time of the incident, Courter stopped Jeter on the Parkway after he and Bloomfield Police Officer Albert Sutterlin had responded to a domestic-related call at Jeter's township home. His girlfriend's sister called 911 after Jeter threw the girlfriend's cell phone down a staircase during a verbal dispute.
After the officers arrived, Jeter left the residence. Courter has said Jeter was drunk and fled after he had ordered him to stop, but Jeter has said he was not drunk and that Courter indicated he could leave the residence.
When Jeter drove off, Courter returned to his patrol vehicle and chased after him, followed by Sutterlin. During the motor vehicle stop, the officers approached Jeter's vehicle with their guns drawn and ordered him to get out. Trinidad arrived at the scene and struck the front of Jeter's car with his patrol vehicle.
After Courter received approval from a supervisor, he broke the driver's side window and removed Jeter from the vehicle.
In their police reports, Courter and Trinidad claimed Jeter tried to disarm Courter and that he struck Trinidad. Jeter was charged with eluding, attempting to disarm a police officer, resisting arrest and aggravated assault.
While Jeter's case was still pending, prosecutors only had the dashboard video from Courter's patrol vehicle. Jeter's attorney later obtained the dashboard video from Trinidad's patrol vehicle through an open public records request made with the Bloomfield Police Department.
After reviewing that second video, prosecutors determined the video was inconsistent with the officers' police reports. The charges against Jeter were then dropped in April 2013 and Courter and Trinidad were ultimately indicted in January 2014.
At the trial, prosecutors argued the videos showed the officers made false statements in their reports that Jeter tried to grab Courter's gun when Courter was removing him from the vehicle, and that Jeter hit Trinidad.
The officers' attorneys countered that the video from Trinidad's patrol vehicle shows Jeter's hands came down at some point when Courter was trying to remove him. The attorneys also claimed the officers' reports are based on what they "reasonably believed" about the incident at the time they prepared those documents.
Retired Bloomfield police officer Albert Sutterlin. the third Bloomfield police officer associated with the arrest of Marcus Jeter, reads from his incident report as he testifies at the trial of Bloomfield cops Sean Courter and Orlando Trinidad. Newark, NJ 10/21/15 (Robert Sciarrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) Robert Sciarrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
In his decision denying the motion for a judgment of acquittal, the judge also cited the trial testimony of Sutterlin.
Sutterlin, who retired in May 2013, pleaded guilty in October 2013 to falsifying or tampering with records. After testifying at the officers' trial, Sutterlin was later sentenced to two years of probation.
Sutterlin testified he included information in his police reports that Jeter tried to grab Courter's gun and that he struck Trinidad, even though Sutterlin had not witnessed those events. He said he received those details from Courter and Trinidad when he consulted with them about the sequence of events.
Sutterlin said no one had told him to lie about the incident, and that he believed his reports were accurate when he wrote them.
But Ravin found that Sutterlin's testimony could lead jurors to believe Courter and Trinidad conspired to submit false police reports.
The judge wrote that "the State's presentation of testimony from Mr. Jeter and Officer Sutterlin, in addition to the dash camera video, was sufficient to allow a rational jury to infer that Defendants wanted to injure Mr. Jeter out of anger and deceive the Bloomfield Police Department, or alternatively, that they sought to conceal their own wrongdoings in connection with Mr. Jeter's arrest."
"Based on Defendants' communication with Officer Sutterlin, the similarity of all three reports and the video evidence allegedly contradicting the reports, a rational jury could infer that Courter and Trinidad knowingly prepared false reports and helped Officer Sutterlin prepare a false report for the purpose of committing official misconduct," according to the decision.
Bill Wichert may be reached at bwichert@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillWichertNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.