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Prosecutor: Ramapo College students took turns raping unconscious woman in dorm while others watched, laughed

CVP EXCLUSIVE: Two Ramapo College students took turns raping an unconscious fellow student in a dorm room while others watched and laughed after one of them carried her there on his back from a frat party, a prosecutor told a judge in Hackensack today.

Photo Credit: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Correspondent Mary K. Miraglia
Photo Credit: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR
Photo Credit: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY SHERIFF
Photo Credit: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR
Photo Credit: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Correspondent Mary K. Miraglia
Photo Credit: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Correspondent Mary K. Miraglia

Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Catherine Fantuzzi described the Nov. 15 assaults in graphic detail during a bail hearing this afternoon for one of the two men, 18-year-old Nakeem Gardner of Paterson (photos above, below).

The 19-year-old victim went to a fraternity party on campus the night before, met co-defendant Christian Lopez, 24, of Secaucus there and became intoxicated, Fantuzzi said.

Lopez then locked her in a room at the fraternity house “and may have actually sexually assaulted her there,” the assistant prosecutor said.

Others at the party intervened and kicked out Lopez, who “took the victim with him on his back to a college dormitory,” she told the judge.

Using a room key someone had given him, Lopez sexually assaulted the woman, Fantuzzi said.

Christian A. Lopez, Nakeem D. Gardner (MUGSHOTS: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR)

“When he came out of the room, he bragged to his friends that he had just had sex with her, and she was passed out on the bed,” she said. “He then asked two friends did they want ‘a piece of it?’

“One of them declined, but Gardner went into the room where the woman was naked and unconscious and proceeded to have sex with her,” Fantuzzi said.

He also admitted videotaping a portion of the assaults, she said.

Family members and several friends of the victim attended the hearing. At one point two of them, visibly upset by the descriptions, hurried from the courtroom while another in the second row covered her mouth and sobbed quietly.

Gardner, meanwhile, said nothing.

The woman told investigators she wasn’t feeling well, went to lie down and woke up that Saturday morning partially clothed in an on-campus dorm room, sources with direct knowledge of the investigation told CLIFFVIEW PILOT last week. She then went to Hackensack University Medical Center, whose personnel notified authorities.

Investigators from the prosecutor’s office and Mahwah police interviewed the girl, as well as several students, before arresting Gonzalez on campus and Lopez at his home last Monday.

The victim had “vaginal lacerations and bruises to her legs, both of which are consistent with forced intercourse,” Fantuzzi told the judge today.

Video also shows Lopez going into the room with the woman, leaving, and Gardner then going into the room, while other students “were looking in and laughing,” the assistant prosecutor said.

Several witnesses confirmed that the woman was unconscious, she added.

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Antonio Almodovar (MUGSHOT: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY SHERIFF)

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Authorities have charged a Rockland County man with setting a fire last week that tore through a 2½-story wood-frame house under construction on a Mahwah cul-de-sac. READ MORE….

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Fantuzzi insisted that bail for Gardner remain at $350,000 — the same as it is for Lopez — given that he would face more than 20 years in prison if convicted of the charges against him.

Gardner has been suspended from college and barred from the campus, she added. He “hasn’t worked since September, and told investigators he has no income.”

Defense attorney Walter Nealy argued for a reduction.

“Your honor, his parents are hard-working people. They do not have the means to post $350,000 bail,” he told Superior Court Judge James J. Guida, who conducted the teleconference from Judicial College.

“I think $100,000 to $150,000 so he can get out and defend himself would be reasonable,” Nealy said.

Guida, in turn, said Gardner is “a young man, with no prior record or juvenile record, but a strong likelihood of conviction given there are videos.”

“I find bail should be significantly high,” he said.

He then cut Gardner’s bail to $275,000.

Lopez is due for a similar hearing next week.

Justin Somers, Christopher Rainone, Jordan Massood (MUGSHOTS: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR)

Gardner intially was charged with aggravated sexual assault and invasion of privacy. Detectives yesterday added a charge of endangering an injured victim.

Detectives also charged Lopez yesterday in connection with a second alleged student victim — for inappropriate sexual contact — while adding counts to the first offense: criminal restraint, endangering an injured victim and invasion of privacy.

They also arrested three more Ramapo College students who they said “aided or encouraged” the alleged assault, two of whom they sadi also “took pictures of the victim without her consent.”

Justin Somers and Christopher Rainone, both of Staten Island, and Jordan Massood of Wayne, all 18, are each charged with endangering an injured victim. Somers and Rainone are charged with invasion of privacy.

All three were released pending Municipal Court appearances. READ MORE….


Nakeem Gardner, defense attorney Walter Nealy, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Catherine Fantuzzi (STORY / PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Correspondent Mary K. Miraglia)

 

 

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