Appeal denied for Sussex man who killed 3 people in Wayne crash while high
The state Appellate Court was not “persuaded” by the arguments of a Sussex County man convicted of slamming into a gas station while high and killing three people after he sought to have his plea appealed.
In March 2022, Jason Vanderee was sentenced to 30 years in prison[1], 10 years consecutively for each victim. Vanderee got high on fentanyl-laced heroin and veered into the Route 23 Delta gas station in Wayne in 2019, killing 50-year-old Jon Warbeck of Fair Lawn, his 17-old-son Luke, and attendant Lovedeep Fatra, 22, of Pequannock. He pleaded guilty in November 2021[2] to three counts of aggravated manslaughter.
Vanderee filed to appeal the sentence in April[3], with Public Defender Taylor Napolitano arguing the court did not take the years of addiction and three years of sobriety while in jail as a major mitigating factor and that police didn’t have a warrant when they searched Vanderee’s clothing while he was in the hospital following the crash.
The defense looked to suppress the drug evidence found in Vanderee’s clothing, which was denied.
There were years of rehabilitation and relapse over the years, something Passaic County Superior Court Judge Marilyn Clark outlined in her sentencing. Vanderee left rehab a week before the crash and in 2016, he had to be revived with Narcan following an overdose while driving and crashing. That crash didn’t injure anyone.
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“We are not persuaded by either of the defendant’s arguments,” the three-judge panel said in their opinion.
The opinion said it wasn’t clear what Vanderee thought to gain by suppressing the evidence seized from his clothes and there was plenty of other evidence to show he was under the influence of multiple drugs at the time of the crash.
The appellate judges said that when police got to the scene, Vanderee wasn’t fully conscious and required medical treatment. Police sought to arrest him but couldn’t “reasonably search him until he was at the hospital,” which took place less than a half-hour after police had gotten to the crash scene and there was enough “objective suspicion” that Vanderee was high and his clothes could have drugs or syringes, the opinion stated.
Napolitano further argued the deaths were a single incident, not three separate ones thus there shouldn’t be three consecutive sentencing. The opinion said the record doesn’t support that argument.
The panel said the court weighed the fact that while it was one incident, it was a “highly reckless incident.”
The opinion stated the panel of judges did not see a reversible error in the suppression motion.
“[Vanderee’s] reckless actions cut short three lives and adversely affected many more lives of the victims’ families and friends,” the opinion stated. “His convictions and sentence were just.”
Vanderee must serve 85% of his sentence before he is eligible for parole.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Jason Vanderee appeal denied in fatal Wayne NJ crash[4]
References
- ^ Jason Vanderee was sentenced to 30 years in prison (www.northjersey.com)
- ^ He pleaded guilty in November 2021 (www.northjersey.com)
- ^ appeal the sentence in April (www.northjersey.com)
- ^ Jason Vanderee appeal denied in fatal Wayne NJ crash (www.northjersey.com)