Bloomfield Police Officers Sean Courter and Orlando Trinidad were convicted of making false statements in police reports about a 2012 arrest
NEWARK -- Over the past month in a Newark courtroom, Bloomfield Police Officers Sean Courter and Orlando Trinidad said their police reports about the 2012 arrest of Marcus Jeter were based on what they believed had occurred.
Those reports claimed Jeter tried to grab Courter's gun while Courter was removing him from a vehicle on the Garden State Parkway, and that Jeter struck Trinidad. The reports claimed Jeter resisted arrest.
But an Essex County jury ultimately agreed with prosecutors that police dashboard videos - including footage of Jeter with his hands raised inside the vehicle - proved the officers' claims were false.
The jurors on Thursday convicted Courter and Trinidad of official misconduct and related charges for making those false statements in police reports about the June 7, 2012 incident.
Those reports led to resisting arrest and other charges against Jeter. After reviewing the video from Trinidad's patrol vehicle, which shows Jeter with his hands up, prosecutors dismissed Jeter's charges and ultimately indicted the officers.
Courter, 35, of Englishtown and Trinidad, 34, of Bloomfield, are now each facing a minimum of five years in state prison without parole on the official misconduct charge.
After the verdict was handed down, Judge Michael L. Ravin revoked the officers' bails and remanded them to the Essex County Correctional Facility. Their sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 11.
Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Berta Rodriguez, who tried the case with Assistant Prosecutor Frantzou Simon, said in a news release that "justice was finally served for Marcus Jeter."
"These officers give a bad name to all the good, honest, decent police officers," Rodriguez said. "Courter and Trinidad took an oath to uphold the law. On that day in June of 2012 they violated that oath."
Courter's attorney, Charles Clark, said in a phone interview that "we respect the jury's verdict," pointing out how jurors assessed the evidence over three and a half days of deliberations.
"We respectfully disagree with it, because...we're 100 percent convinced they're innocent," Clark said.
Clark also noted the impact of the minimum five-year prison sentence on Courter's wife and three young children. "The reason why it's sad, in my opinion, is.....it's just a harsh penalty for the conduct alleged," Clark said.
Trinidad's attorney, Frank Arleo, could not be reached for comment.
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.In addition to official misconduct, the officers were found guilty 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 have been suspended without pay from their positions for more than two years.
A third officer involved in the arrest, Albert Sutterlin, who retired in May 2013, pleaded guilty in October 2013 to falsifying or tampering with records, and is awaiting sentencing. Under a plea agreement, Sutterlin is expected to receive probation.
Courter, Trinidad and Sutterlin also are among the defendants being sued by Jeter in his lawsuit over the arrest. The attorneys for Courter and Trinidad frequently pointed to that lawsuit during the trial to attack Jeter's credibility.
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The series of events leading to Jeter's arrest began when Courter and Sutterlin responded to a domestic-related call at Jeter's Bloomfield 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 Courter later stopped Jeter on the Parkway, followed by Sutterlin, 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.
Once Courter received approval from a supervisor, he broke the driver's side window and removed Jeter from the vehicle.
In 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.
Jeter testified during the trial that he had his "hands up" the whole time and said he never tried to disarm Courter and did not strike Trinidad. Jeter also compared his arrest to the 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police.
Marcus Jeter testifies he had his hands up when police approached his vehicle after pulling him over on the Garden State Parkway. Bloomfield police officers Sean Courter and Orlando Trinidad, are on trial charged with official misconduct and related charges in connection with their June 7, 2012 arrest of Jeter. Prosecutors allege that a police dashboard video shows Courter and Trinidad lied about the incident in police reports. Newark, NJ 10/15/15 (Robert Sciarrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) 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 prosecutors reviewed that second dashboard video, they 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.
Prosecutors argued during the trial that the police dashboard 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 prosecutors pointed out how the video from Trinidad's vehicle shows Jeter's hands were raised inside the vehicle.
"His hands are way up in the air in a gesture of surrender the whole time," Rodriguez told jurors in her closing statement, referring to Jeter. "No way that Marcus Jeter was going for that weapon."
But the officers' attorneys argued the video shows Jeter's hands came down at some point when Courter was trying to remove him.
The attorneys also stressed that the officers' reports are based on what they "reasonably believed" about the incident at the time they prepared those documents.
If Courter believed Jeter was trying to grab his gun, then he's not guilty, according to Clark. Clark noted how no witnesses said Courter and Trinidad purposely lied.
"It's all about the officers and what they reasonably believed at the time they wrote their reports," Clark told the jurors in his closing statement.
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During Sutterlin's testimony, Sutterlin said 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.
But Clark and Arleo pointed out how Sutterlin acknowledged no one had told him to lie about the incident, and that he believed his reports were accurate when he wrote them.
Rodriguez countered that Courter and Trinidad conspired and told "Officer Sutterlin what to put down in the reports, even if it wasn't explicit that it was a lie."
"The agreement can be inferred," she told the jury.
When Trinidad took the witness stand, he became emotional and started crying, leading Ravin to tell the jurors to leave the courtroom.
Trinidad later maintained his composure during the rest of his testimony, but before the jury returned to the courtroom, the judge asked Trinidad whether he could continue testifying without losing his composure or needed more time.
"I think I should be fine, your honor," Trinidad told Ravin. "I can't guarantee it. I'm very emotional about my job and that I did my job that night."
Bill Wichert may be reached at bwichert@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillWichertNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.