He’s accused of killing a Newark cop, but if convicted, he won’t be tried in public and is unlikely to serve the full 20-year sentence.
That’s because the suspected triggerman is a 14-year-old boy, and in New Jersey, courts won’t send kids that young to criminal court, no matter how heinous their crimes.
“The state statute requires somebody to be 15 years old to treat it as an adult case,” Laura Sutnick, a criminal defense lawyer and president of the Bergen County Bar Association, told The Post on Sunday.
“But if you’re 14, you can’t be waived to adult court.”
One year of age may not seem like much, but it will mean a lot to the unidentified teen who was charged with murder for allegedly shooting 26-year-old Detective Joseph Azcona with an automatic weapon on a Brick City street corner Friday night.
For starters, the case will be handled in secret by a family-court judge, who will then render the verdict — no juries are permitted, according to Sutnick.
The potential sentence would also be significantly different.
If the alleged shooter was tried as an adult, a jury could sentence him to 30 years to life in prison for killing a cop.
However, as a juvenile, the maximum sentence a suspect could face is 20 years, and he would most likely not serve the entire sentence because there is no mandatory minimum for minors, according to the expert.
After the trial, his case would be sealed, and he would have no public criminal record.
“That’s really the most significant piece of having a juvenile case — your records are sealed,” Sutnick told reporters.
“Practically speaking, his case is in the newspaper, and everybody’s gonna know he was charged,” she told me. “But if someone asks him at a job interview, ‘Have you ever been arrested?’…” His case has been sealed, so the answer is no.
“It’s really a separate track for the justice system, and it’s designed that way.”
Cops across the Garden State are outraged by what they see as a failure of justice.
“He was old enough to acquire a gun, and he was apparently old enough to engage the police in a shootout, but now you’re going to say he’s not old enough to be the tough guy in court that he was on the street?” A police officer in New Jersey was incredulous.
“That is infuriating! “What message does that send to the next aspiring thug?” The officer said. “He killed a cop — treat him like the cop-killer he is.”
A retired Brooklyn detective raged: “Age has nothing to do with his charges.
“He intentionally shot a great man doing his job protecting innocent people.”
A Bergen County cop added, “It’s a lot of bullshit.”
“I understand, they’re 14 years old, and their brains haven’t developed. But if you’re going to charge this kid as a juvenile, you better f-king charge the person who put that gun in his hands with accessory to murder — and then sentence him to life.
“They assassinated him—this was a coordinated attack,” the officer stated. “They realized it was an unmarked vehicle. They were attempting to send a message to law enforcement, stating, ‘Hey, you’re on our turf.
“All I know is that a cop was killed.” You’d better put them away for life.”
According to Essex County officials, Azcona, a five-year police officer working a gun investigation with federal authorities, had no chance during the ambush, which left him mortally wounded after the kiddie shooter allegedly fired 29 bullets.
Azcona and his partner were in Newark’s Broadway neighborhood, near the Passaic River, when the deadly gunfire erupted around 6:30 p.m. near the intersection of Carteret Street and Broadway, according to officials.
“Based on criminal intelligence, the [officers] were investigating the possibility that these individuals had illegal firearms,” Essex County Prosecutor Theodore Stephens stated in a Saturday morning news conference.
“Shots were exchanged upon the interaction with the police and those individuals, and unfortunately two officers and one suspect were hit by gunfire.”
Both Azcona’s partner and the suspect were shot, but they are expected to survive.
Azcona wasn’t so lucky. He died at University Hospital around 2:30 a.m. Saturday, surrounded by his mother, father, and several brothers in mourning.
Stephens stated that Azcona was “shot before he even had the opportunity to leave his police car.”
“We need to focus laser-sharp on trying to find the reason why this 14-year-old was in the situation that he was — had a gun, felt he could use it against police,” said Stephens.
“That is a crazy situation.” That’s one that cannot be ignored.”
Cops recovered the teen’s automatic weapon, according to the prosecutor. About five people who were on the scene have also been detained for questioning.
“The officers involved are heroes,” Stephens stated.
Azcona’s heartbroken family is reeling from his unexpected death.
“That was my baby,” mother Martha Vargas, 56, told The Post on Saturday. “He always said he wanted to be a cop when he was little, and when he grew up, he took the test.”
“I thought it was something simple,” she said, recalling the moment cops summoned her to the hospital. “[But] they shot him in the head.”
Authorities have also charged her son’s alleged killer with attempted murder for shooting his partner, according to officials and sources.
