PRESS RELEASE
May 24, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Bernie Weisenfeld- PIO
Frank Smith’s youthful indiscretion with drugs cost him a fall from a tree and life in a wheelchair, and led to a job convincing more than 44,000 Gloucester County kids not to make the same mistake.
In recognition of his 22-year career as a field specialist in narcotics education with the Gloucester County Department of Human Services, the county’s Police Awards Committee today presented him its annual Civilian Service Award.
“His inspirational story is a powerful prevention tool, shared with sincerity and humor,” said committee member and Glassboro Police Lt. Ed Alicea. Smith was nominated by Sgt. Danielle LoRusso of the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office Gangs, Guns and Narcotics Task Force. “You really changed a lot of people’s lives,” LoRusso told Smith, who she partners with in his Project Aware program.
Prosecutor Sean F. Dalton said he still recalls the first time he saw Smith’s presentation 16 years ago. “It had me trembling in my seat, as far as the power of his message and the importance of his message,” Dalton said.
“You turned a disability around into something really positive,” added GCPO Chief of Detectives Fred Suter.
“You know how I speak. I get down to kids’ level,” said Smith, a 1990 Gloucester County College graduate.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Mexico Arrests Fugitive in '03 Franklin DUI Crash
PRESS RELEASE
May 23, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Bernie Weisenfeld- PIO
Phone: (856) 384-5617; Pager (856) 251-4736
Re.: Arrest of ’03 Franklin auto assault defendant in Mexico
Almost seven years after he disappeared, Juan Bautista (DOB 3/17/81), formerly of Bridgeton NJ, charged with critically injuring a Franklin Township NJ woman in a drunk driving crash, has been arrested in his native Mexico and will be tried there for the Franklin crimes he faces.
Bautista was charged with aggravated assault, assault by auto, driving while intoxicated, and without a license or insurance in connection with a Sept. 16, 2003 two-car collision on Delsea Drive that left Christina Applegate, then age 21, in a coma. Her condition remains unchanged today. Bautista was released from jail on $35,000 bail on Sept. 24, 2003. After his indictment, he failed to appear at a court hearing on the charges on June 4, 2004. A warrant was issued for his arrest.
The Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office was notified late last week that Bautista, who was an illegal alien living in Bridgeton at the time of the crash, was arrested Dec. 16, 2010 on a warrant issued in Mexico in November 2010. The warrant resulted from lengthy efforts by the GCPO fugitive unit to have all records related to the Bautista investigation translated into Spanish with the assistance of the California Department of Justice. The translated case file was then submitted to Mexican authorities.
In addition, Mexico required proof before seeking Bautista that he was a native of that country, and now-retired GCPO Sgt. Tim O’Brien obtained a videotaped statement to that effect from Bautista’s sister, who lives in Bridgeton. She confirmed she was present at her brother’s birth in the state of Puebla, Mexico.
The prosecution of Bautista will take place in Mexico because the crimes he is charged with are not covered by an extradition agreement. However, Mexican authorities now have all the proofs the GCPO and Franklin Township’s Police Department assembled on the crash.
“We believe Mexican prosecutors have all they need for a conviction of Juan Bautista on a crime equivalent to that which he committed here,” said Gloucester County Prosecutor Sean F. Dalton. “We have always assured Christina’s family that this man would not go free, even if, as we suspected would be the case, we had to reach across our borders to find him. Now we hope our neighboring nation’s justice system will hold him accountable.”
“It’s a case we’ve been working on for some time,” said Special Agent Val Jiminez of the California Attorney General’s Foreign Prosecution and Law Enforcement Unit, whose office assists other law enforcement agencies in the documentation work. Translation of a criminal file is “quite detailed,” typically involving 300 to 500 pages, including lab reports and diagrams, Jiminez said.
The final step was verification of Bautista’s citizenship, which was a challenge since he was born with a midwife assisting, not in a hospital, Jiminez said.
Bautista will be held without bail until his prosecution, the agent said.
At the urging of Applegate’s family and friends and the GCPO, the “America’s Most Wanted” television show broadcast a segment on Bautista in 2006. The report included a dramatization of Christina Applegate’s life. Recently married, she was an aspiring race car driver and was well-liked by co-workers at a WaWa convenience store in Franklinville.
The crash occurred within sight of Applegate’s workplace as she attempted to turn her Ford Mustang onto Swedesboro Road from Delsea Drive. Bautista was driving an SUV at a high rate of speed in the opposite direction on Delsea Drive and struck the Applegate vehicle. Two passengers in the Bautista vehicle were also injured and he was charged with separate assault by auto counts for them.
May 23, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Bernie Weisenfeld- PIO
Phone: (856) 384-5617; Pager (856) 251-4736
Re.: Arrest of ’03 Franklin auto assault defendant in Mexico
Almost seven years after he disappeared, Juan Bautista (DOB 3/17/81), formerly of Bridgeton NJ, charged with critically injuring a Franklin Township NJ woman in a drunk driving crash, has been arrested in his native Mexico and will be tried there for the Franklin crimes he faces.
Bautista was charged with aggravated assault, assault by auto, driving while intoxicated, and without a license or insurance in connection with a Sept. 16, 2003 two-car collision on Delsea Drive that left Christina Applegate, then age 21, in a coma. Her condition remains unchanged today. Bautista was released from jail on $35,000 bail on Sept. 24, 2003. After his indictment, he failed to appear at a court hearing on the charges on June 4, 2004. A warrant was issued for his arrest.
The Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office was notified late last week that Bautista, who was an illegal alien living in Bridgeton at the time of the crash, was arrested Dec. 16, 2010 on a warrant issued in Mexico in November 2010. The warrant resulted from lengthy efforts by the GCPO fugitive unit to have all records related to the Bautista investigation translated into Spanish with the assistance of the California Department of Justice. The translated case file was then submitted to Mexican authorities.
In addition, Mexico required proof before seeking Bautista that he was a native of that country, and now-retired GCPO Sgt. Tim O’Brien obtained a videotaped statement to that effect from Bautista’s sister, who lives in Bridgeton. She confirmed she was present at her brother’s birth in the state of Puebla, Mexico.
The prosecution of Bautista will take place in Mexico because the crimes he is charged with are not covered by an extradition agreement. However, Mexican authorities now have all the proofs the GCPO and Franklin Township’s Police Department assembled on the crash.
“We believe Mexican prosecutors have all they need for a conviction of Juan Bautista on a crime equivalent to that which he committed here,” said Gloucester County Prosecutor Sean F. Dalton. “We have always assured Christina’s family that this man would not go free, even if, as we suspected would be the case, we had to reach across our borders to find him. Now we hope our neighboring nation’s justice system will hold him accountable.”
“It’s a case we’ve been working on for some time,” said Special Agent Val Jiminez of the California Attorney General’s Foreign Prosecution and Law Enforcement Unit, whose office assists other law enforcement agencies in the documentation work. Translation of a criminal file is “quite detailed,” typically involving 300 to 500 pages, including lab reports and diagrams, Jiminez said.
The final step was verification of Bautista’s citizenship, which was a challenge since he was born with a midwife assisting, not in a hospital, Jiminez said.
Bautista will be held without bail until his prosecution, the agent said.
At the urging of Applegate’s family and friends and the GCPO, the “America’s Most Wanted” television show broadcast a segment on Bautista in 2006. The report included a dramatization of Christina Applegate’s life. Recently married, she was an aspiring race car driver and was well-liked by co-workers at a WaWa convenience store in Franklinville.
The crash occurred within sight of Applegate’s workplace as she attempted to turn her Ford Mustang onto Swedesboro Road from Delsea Drive. Bautista was driving an SUV at a high rate of speed in the opposite direction on Delsea Drive and struck the Applegate vehicle. Two passengers in the Bautista vehicle were also injured and he was charged with separate assault by auto counts for them.
Monday, May 23, 2011
26-Year Sentence in '09 Deptford Fatal Stabbing
PRESS RELEASE
May 20, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Bernie Weisenfeld- PIO
Phone: (856) 384-5617; Pager (856) 251-4736
Re.: 26-year sentence in ’09 Deptford fatal stabbing
Donald D. Hetrick (DOB 2/25/62), formerly of 812 Winding Way, Deptford Township NJ was sentenced today (5/20) to 26 years in New Jersey state prison for what a prosecutor called a “particularly heinous” February 2009 fatal stabbing of 39-year-old neighbor Roland Webster in the defendant’s Knightsbridge condominium unit.
Although Hetrick claimed in pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter March 31 that he was drunk and unable to recall the multiple stab wounds inflicted on Webster, the victim’s mother told Superior Court Judge Walter L. Marshall Jr. that was “ludicrous,” since he had “the presence of mind” to clean up after stabbing her son 14 times and go out to a bar. Hetrick’s mother discovered Webster’s body when she went to his residence after his arrest on weapons and assault charges at a local bar on Feb 18, 2009.
Webster’s mother, Ceceil Nunes, said she had thanked Hetrick’s mother for reporting the death to police, but added “I honestly do not feel the least bit sorry her son is being sentenced to jail today.” Nunes said her son had gone to Hetrick’s home to pick up a dining table he’d purchased from the defendant to furnish his first home since fighting off a painkiller addiction after a car hit him.
Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Dana Anton, calling the stabbing “particularly heinous,” told Judge Marshall that Nunes and Webster’s sister wanted to speak and show photos of Webster “to put a face to this crime.”
May 20, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Bernie Weisenfeld- PIO
Phone: (856) 384-5617; Pager (856) 251-4736
Re.: 26-year sentence in ’09 Deptford fatal stabbing
Donald D. Hetrick (DOB 2/25/62), formerly of 812 Winding Way, Deptford Township NJ was sentenced today (5/20) to 26 years in New Jersey state prison for what a prosecutor called a “particularly heinous” February 2009 fatal stabbing of 39-year-old neighbor Roland Webster in the defendant’s Knightsbridge condominium unit.
Although Hetrick claimed in pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter March 31 that he was drunk and unable to recall the multiple stab wounds inflicted on Webster, the victim’s mother told Superior Court Judge Walter L. Marshall Jr. that was “ludicrous,” since he had “the presence of mind” to clean up after stabbing her son 14 times and go out to a bar. Hetrick’s mother discovered Webster’s body when she went to his residence after his arrest on weapons and assault charges at a local bar on Feb 18, 2009.
Webster’s mother, Ceceil Nunes, said she had thanked Hetrick’s mother for reporting the death to police, but added “I honestly do not feel the least bit sorry her son is being sentenced to jail today.” Nunes said her son had gone to Hetrick’s home to pick up a dining table he’d purchased from the defendant to furnish his first home since fighting off a painkiller addiction after a car hit him.
Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Dana Anton, calling the stabbing “particularly heinous,” told Judge Marshall that Nunes and Webster’s sister wanted to speak and show photos of Webster “to put a face to this crime.”
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