JUDGE WONT GRANT LOWER BAIL FOR ALLEGED DEPTFORD CHILD SEX OFFENDER
Monday, February 23, 2015
WOODBURY NJ--Citing his concern that deportation might precede prosecution, a Superior Court judge today (2/20) denied any further reduction in the bail of Carlos Calderon (DOB 10/16/83), of Deptford NJ, charged with sexually assaulting a girl under age 13 in Deptford on at least two dates in 2014.
Judge Kevin T. Smith said the “strong likelihood of deportation, even without conviction,” convinced him to leave Calderon’s bail at $300,000, which had been reduced by court order from $800,000 at the time of his arrest on 2/11/15.
Bringing Calderon back from his native Guatemala to face charges of sexual assault, criminal sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child “would be at substantial expense to the state of New Jersey and the County of Gloucester,” Judge Smith said.
The current bail “is appropriate” and “certainly within the bail range” for the charges, the judge said.
Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Joseph Brook opposed any bail reduction, saying Calderon had left the United States and returned to Guatemala once before in 2000, returning two years ago. He now faces “an enormous amount of prison time” if convicted and could leave again if he receives the “substantial lowering of the bail” his lawyer requested, Brook said.
Calderon attorney Ron Appleby said his client, a divorced restaurant cook who lived with a sister in Deptford, “asserts his innocence.”
Nonetheless, the girl he is accused of sexually assaulting made disclosures to her mother, to a social worker and to a detective from the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office and “the disclosures have been consistent,” Brook said.
THE SUSPECT IS PRESUMED INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE
source Gloucester County Prosectors Office