Paterson man, 18, pleads not guilty in September fatal shooting
January 12, 2016, 6:33 PM Last updated: Tuesday, January 12, 2016, 6:40 PM
By KIBRET MARKOS
staff writer |
The Record
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Justin Ruiz in court on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016, with attorney Harley Breite.
Mitsu Yasukawa/Staff Photographer
Justin Ruiz in court on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016, with attorney Harley Breite.
An 18-year-old Paterson man pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that he shot a man to death in September, as his lawyer warned that the teen has received death threats and urged authorities to protect him.
“My client categorically denies these allegations,” the lawyer, Harley Breite said about Justin Ruiz, as he was arraigned on murder and weapons charges in Superior Court in Paterson.
Passaic County prosecutors said in a Monday press release that Ruiz was being charged with the shooting death of Zahmir Hayes, 21, of Paterson on Sept. 1, 2015. They declined to provide a motive for the killing.
Breite said Ruiz has received death threats on social media since Monday, when authorities announced that they are charging him with Hayes’ murder.
“I would like the state to be on notice of that,” Breite said at the hearing. “I am alerting the state right now that there is a security issue.” Eileen Kane, a Passaic County senior assistant prosecutor, said she will relay Breite’s concern to her supervisors.
Breite also said he will contact officials at the Passaic County Jail, where Ruiz is being held on $1 million bail.
Ruiz showed no emotion at the hearing Monday. A woman who said she was his mother wept as she sat in the back of the courtroom behind Ruiz. Relatives of Hayes sat quietly on the other side of the courtroom.
Breite said after the hearing that he does not know who made the threats against Ruiz but that he will investigate to determine what type of security his client needs.
Hayes was fatally shot while he was sitting in a BMW X3 near the corner of East 22nd Street and 10th Avenue. A witness told The Record at the time that he looked out his window when he heard a gunshot and saw a car with three or four occupants speeding away from the scene, leaving Hayes’ car idling in the middle of the roadway.
Hayes was free on bail at the time and was awaiting trial on attempted murder charges. He was accused of firing a shotgun at three brothers on North Fourth Street in August 2013 and gravely wounding one of them.
Shortly before his killing, however, Hayes was one of nearly two dozen men who were invited as VIP guests to a Fetty Wap concert in Paterson in appreciation for their effort to maintain a truce that reduced shootings among the city’s rival street gangs.
Paterson saw a series of shootings in 2014 and 2015, many of which were the result of a violent rivalry between street gangs in the city’s 1st and 4th wards. There were no killings in the city from mid-July until Hayes’ killing in September, in part because of the truce, officials said.
At the hearing Tuesday, Judge Joseph Portelli kept Ruiz’s bail at $1 million as the case now proceeds to a grand jury for indictment.
Breite said later that he will seek a reduction of the bail. He also said Ruiz has suffered from bipolar disorder since he was diagnosed at the age of 4, and was unable to finish high school because of his psychological condition.
Email: markos@northjersey.com
