Van Cleve Ashley, 46, should have had his entire plea deal rejected when a Superior Court Judge in Monmouth County dismissed two charges but opted to keep a third, a three-judge appellate panel ruled on Wednesday.
TRENTON --An alleged henchman in a vicious attack on a Red Bank attorney had his conviction reversed and his 10-year-prison sentence thrown out after an appellate court said he should have been allowed to withdraw his guilty plea six years ago.
Van Cleve Ashley, 46. (New Jersey Department of Corrections) Van Cleve Ashley, 46, should have had his entire plea deal rejected when a Superior Court Judge in Monmouth County dismissed two charges but opted to keep a third, a three-judge appellate panel ruled on Wednesday.
Additionally, Judges Marianne Espinosa, Jerome St. John and Garry Rothstadt said Van Cleve's 10-year prison sentence was excessive because the term was based on the two more serious charges against him that the sentencing judge ultimately rejected.
Ashley in 2009 pleaded guilty to attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and aggravated assault in connection with a 2002 attack on Red Bank attorney Peter Paras. At the time, prosecutors claimed Paras' client, Nicholas Lucarella hired Ashley to kill Paras because the attorney did not win Lucarella custody of his children during a bitter divorce from his wife.
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During his plea hearing, Ashley said he was hired by Roger Caruso on behalf of Lucarella to have Paras "straightened out," according to the decision. In turn, Ashley hired Ramaine York to carry out the attack, the court papers said.
Ashley said he told York to "beat" Paras, but York instead hit Paras with a car as the attorney was leaving his office on June 21, 2002.
Paras suffered a broken back, a broken pelvis and several broken ribs.
At Ashley's sentencing before a new judge and with a new defense attorney, the judge dismissed the attempted murder and conspiracy charges because Ashley's account of the incident did not support the gravity of the offenses, according to the court documents. But the judge kept the remaining aggravated assault charge and imposed the same 10-year prison sentence considered before the dismissal of the two more serious charges.
The appellate judges said a plea agreement is "all or nothing."
"The plea must be vacated regardless of whether a defendant gave a factual basis for all of he charges to which he pled guilty, or lass than all of the charges, if there is a material change to the reason why he pled in the first instance," Rothstadt wrote for the panel.
The court rejected prosecutors' arguments that the case should be left intact because the deal that was ultimately accepted was not a formal offer from their office.
"The fact that the state did not participate in the plea is of no consequence," Rothstadt wrote. "The requirement that the entire plea be vacated is equally applicable whenever the defendant's exposure to prison time is dramatically reduced from what it was when a defendant entered the plea."
Charlie Webster, spokesman for acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Gramiccioni, said his office is reviewing the appellate court's decision.
The reversal doesn't mean Ashley will be released from prison any time soon.
In 2007, Ashley, who also goes by the name Qawee Ali, was sentenced to 34 years in prison for helping to arrange for the killing of a witness in a federal drug trial in Baltimore. He is being held in Northern State Prison in Newark with a anticipated release date of June 18, 2019. He was already serving a 15-year sentence, imposed in 2004, for robbery and tampering convictions from Middlesex County.
Lucarella, formerly of Millstone, was charged in the attack on Paras, but the prosecutor's office withdrew the indictment in 2011 after jurors deadlocked in his 2009 trial.
MaryAnn Spoto may be reached at mspoto@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
