Appellate Court Judges Decline to Send Little Egg Sex Offender Back To Prison

Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato never wanted Christopher Wilson back on the streets after his arrest on Jan. 19.

Coronato and Little Egg Harbor Police Chief Richard Buzby opposed Ocean County Superior Court Judge Wendel E. Daniels' decision to release of Wilson, 20, who both consider a sexual predator. Buzby also posted a warning on the Little Egg website that Wilson had been released, according to a report in app.com.

A state appellate court judge panel refused to send Wilson back to prison to face new charges. But they did order Daniels to reconsider his Jan. 25 decision to release Wilson.

"I am pleased the Appellate Division took a hard look at this and remanded it back," Coronato said. He filed the appeal of Daniels' decision to release Wilson. He did so after failing to obtain an emergency order to keep the defendant behind bars.

"Hopefully, the judge on second look will see it our way, that the public should be protected from this individual," Coronato said. "I consider him to be a sexual predator, and the public should be protected from this individual."

While only identified in the court papers by initials, the defendant's identity has been established as Christopher Wilson, 20, of National Union Boulevard, Little Egg Harbor, who was arrested Jan. 19 and accused of offering a game console to a 12-year-old girl in exchange for sex.

A new hearing date has not yet been set.

The court ruling is a published decision, which means that courts throughout the state can now rely on it as they navigate the fledgling criminal justice reform initiative, which eliminated cash bail in most cases and established a risk-assessment process to be used to determine whether a defendant should be released pending trial.

Judge Jack M. Sabatino of the Appellate Division of Superior Court noted that court employees who evaluated the defendant prior to his detention hearing recommended that he be detained pending trial.

Sabatino said that the lower-court judge, in releasing the defendant, did not provide a written record of his reasons to deviate from that recommendation.

"We are also concerned about the trial court’s abbreviated passing references to defendant’s juvenile record and his classification under Megan’s Law," Sabatino wrote in the decision. "The court did mention the existence of those things in its oral ruling, but did not explain why they did not make a difference to the outcome."

Wilson was jailed on Jan. 19 on attempted sexual assault and child endangerment charges after authorities say d he approached a 12-year-old girl as she got off her school bus in Little Egg Harbor and offered her a game console in exchange for sex. The girl refused.

Wilson, classified as a high-risk sexual offender, has a juvenile record for an attempted sexual assault he committed when he was 12.

Daniels ordered Wilson released from the Ocean County Jail and placed under house arrest and electronic monitoring on Jan. 25.

"The court reached that conclusion in spite of the defendant's troubling prior record of sexual wrongdoing as a juvenile, his two violations of probation that caused the Family Part to order him confined for three years in a juvenile detention facility, his highest-level Tier 3 classification under Megan's Law, and his close proximity to the (minor victim's) residence," the appellate ruling said.

The risk assessment procedure, which does not include a person's juvenile history, came under attack following Wilson's release by the Ocean County Association of Chiefs of Police, which unanimously asked for the process to be scrapped.

The appellate judges, in the opinion, noted that the ruling to release Wilson came within weeks of the implementation of the new system.

"We approach our review acutely cognizant that the court's rulings were issued in the first month of the new act's implementation," the ruling stated. "That was before any published case law construing the act had emerged and while prosecutors, defense lawyers and court personnel were all adjusting to the many operational challenges presented by the new statute."

Coronato sought an immediate order to block Wilson's release, and when that failed, Little Egg Harbor Police Chief Richard Buzby, in an unprecedented move, took to the internet to post a warning to the community that a sexual offender had just been released into their neighborhood.

A hearing on Coronato's appeal of Wilson’s release was held before Sabatino and Judges William E. Nugent and Michael J. Haas of the Appellate Division of Superior Court on March 13. Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Samuel Marzarella and Deputy Attorney General Claudia Joy Demitro asked the judges to return Wilson to jail, while Laura Lasota, an assistant deputy public defender, asked that Wilson be allowed to remain free.

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