Dad of kid in school with drugs released from jail
TRENTON >> The troubled dad whose toddler son recently took heroin and crack cocaine to school on separate occasions has been released from jail against the objections of prosecutors who had sought to keep him detained indefinitely at the Mercer County Correction Center.
Maurice Leonard Jr., 29, who was most recently arrested earlier this month on allegations he sold 79 glassine packets of heroin to a middleaged woman, has been freed from custody despite having three other criminal matters pending before the courts.
Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw on Tuesday ordered Leonard to be released from jail because, he said, Leonard has never failed to appear in court on his other indictable offenses and the judge also determined there were conditions that Leonard could be freed that would still protect the safety of the community.
As conditions of his release, Leonard must report to pretrial services on a weekly basis; he must not commit any new offenses; he must comply with the conditions of release for all of his pending legal troubles; he must not possess any firearms; he must abide by a curfew barring him from being outdoors between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.; he must not use any narcotics without a valid prescription; and he must refrain from excessive consumption of alcohol.
Leonard, who has a fiancée and cleans cars for a living, is permitted to work during his release.
In his other legal woes, Leonard is scheduled to go to trial on April 3 for a robbery case stemming from a November 2012 indictment; he also has pending legal proceedings stemming from a 2015 unlawful weapons possession case and last year’s case of him being charged with endangering the welfare of a child in connection with his then-5-year-old son bringing 30 decks of heroin to school in a lunch box.
The child was a student at the International Academy of Trenton Charter School. He brought heroin to school last September and then brought crack cocaine to school about a month later. The New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency later placed the boy in foster care, while other family members fight an ongoing custody battle.
In 2007, Leonard received a seven-year prison sentence for his complicity in a robbery that culminated with gunman Jaquan Austin shooting and killing 44-year-old Jose Arias.
The latest arrest on Leonard stems from an alleged March 8 drug transaction near the intersection of Hamilton Avenue and Hudson Street in Trenton.
Defense attorney Peter Abatemarco is representing Leonard in all of his criminal cases.
Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Stephanie Katz on Tuesday argued for Leonard to be placed on indefinite pretrial detention, to no avail. She said the state considered him to be at risk for failure to appear in court and also said the state believed Leonard would put the community in danger if he was released from jail pretrial, but the judge was not convinced by her arguments in the least.