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Englewood career criminal convicted of beating girlfriend to be tried for doing it again

ONLY ON CVP: No sooner was an Englewood career criminal given probation for beating his girlfriend than he moved back in with her — and assaulted the woman again, smashing her shoulder blade, cutting her scalp and telling her “I will make sure something will happen to you,” a prosecutor in Hackensack said.

Photo Credit: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
Photo Credit: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

Derrick Smalls, 37, will stand trial on the new charges next month after rejecting a plea deal of 10 years without parole eligibility.

Defense attorney Ian Silvera contended that prosecutors were too “heavy-handed” in plea negotiations with his client because “they didn’t get the conviction that they wanted” in last year’s trial.

Silvera said they “need to make a better offer” to Smalls, whose criminal record stretches back to when he was 21.

Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Vered Adoni called the offer justified “considering the injuries the victim suffered” and called Silvera’s counter-proposal of four years unrealistic.

Adoni noted that the judge who last year sentenced Smalls on a disorderly persons conviction following the domestic violence trial “told him not to let this happen again, and issued a no-contact’ order.”

Instead, he immediately moved back in with the mother of his child, whom he’d been with 10 years, and assaulted her, the prosecutor said.

Police arrested him on aggravated assault charges, after which Smalls threatened the woman, Adoni said.

That led to a witness-tampering charge atop the other counts that he is facing.

Yet another indictment also is pending, the prosecutor said.

Smalls has been in and out of jail repeatedly since 1997 without going to prison for any extended stretches. That will change if he’s found guilty of aggravated assault.

Combined with witness tampering, such a conviction could put Smalls away for life, Adoni said.

Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi suggested that Silvera try an offer of seven years, but Smalls interrupted, saying that he wasn’t interested.

“You’re rejecting the offer of 10 years?” the judge asked him.

“Yes,” Smalls answered.

“Then you’re going to trial,” DeAvila-Silebi said. “And you’re in luck — we have a judge [available].”

The judge set a Nov. 12 date for the trial, which she said should take about a week to complete.

Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Vered Adoni, defense attorney Ian Silvera, Derrick Smalls (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)

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