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Defense attorney Chris DeLorenzo made the comments immediately after Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebia hiked bail for Aakash Dalal to $4 milliion from $1 million.
Aakash Dalal (MUGSHOT: Bergen Prosecutor) INSET: Dalal with Ron Paul (EXCLUSIVE CLIFFVIEW PILOT PHOTO)
DeLorenzo accused Molinelli of seeking favorable publicity because “his term as prosecutor is coming to an end, and there may be a run for political office in the near future.”
Molinelli immediately dismissed the contention, saying it was “the same thing the lawyer for [Hackensack Police Chief] Ken Zisa tried.”
Zisa was convicted of official misconduct after a trial in which his lawyer, Patricia Prezioso, contended that her client was railroaded by Molinelli and other “political enemies.”
Dalal, standing between his two attorneys in an orange jail jumpsuit, remained quiet throughout the brief proceeding.
Later, DeLorenzo claimed that prosecutor’s detectives questioned his client several times without his knowledge or consent, and told him that Dalal denied being represented by him.
The lawyer said he was compelled to “immediately drive to Hackensack” so he could adequately represent his client.
Dalal’s original bail in the arson case was $2.5 million. A state appeals court reduced that amount, DeLorenzo said, “in part because of the extremely weak case” being mounted by the prosecution.
Most of it is based text messages between Dalal and Graziano that the lawyer said proved that his client “was being prosecuted for malicious words and not for deeds.”
Prosecutors alleged Thursday that Dalal had assembled the $1 million he needed to bail him out this week and was hatching a plot to murder Assistant Prosecutor Martin Delaney, who is handling the case against him and the accused firebomber, Anthony Graziano.
However, Molinelli said, an FBI agent received a tip that led them down a new road.
DeLorenzo said the bulk of the new case is based on work by a jailhouse snitch who wore a wire and “badgered, led and coerced” Dalal into making statements implicating him in a plot that he essentially had no intention of committing.
ALSO SEE:
Synagogue firebomb suspect charged in plot to kill assistant Bergen prosecutor
Thursday, 28 June 2012 15:11 Jerry DeMarcoYOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Detectives have arrested and charged a 20-year-old man accused in a rash of synagogue firebombings earlier this year with planning to kill a prosecutor handling the case against him and the man charged with carrying out the attacks. READ MORE….
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