Judge refuses Yaede request for immediate dismissal
TRENTON >> Boy, someone is in a rush.
Mayor Kelly Yaede’s attorney wants to get a disorderly persons charge behind her before the November election. But a municipal judge didn’t exactly go along with her.
Attorney Robin Lord asked Ewing Municipal Court Judge Roger Haley to hear her dismissal motion on Wednesday, two days after filing for the immediate dismissal.
Haley said no. And now Lord has asked a higher court to get involved, filing an interlocutory appeal of Haley’s decision that’s before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw.
The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office has opposed the emergency appeal saying the mayor shouldn’t expect special treatment because she is a public official.
“The defendant’s sole basis for requesting that the motion to dismiss be heard on an emergent basis is that her ability to run for reelection will be hampered by these allegations,” Mercer County assistant prosecutor Kathleen Petrucci wrote Tuesday in a letter to the court. “The Hamilton Township election does not take precedence over this or any other criminal matter, and I find it portentous that the defendant would ask to be treated differently than any other criminal defendant simply because of her status as mayor of Hamilton Township.”
Petrucci added she hasn’t even had enough time to “effectively prepare” for the dismissal motion. She said she’ll be ready to go by the time of a scheduled Sept. 19
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