Kevin Trejo, 21, of Westwood, New Jersey has been arrested for the disgusting alleged act of spitting into the coffee of a police officer at Starbucks. What is interesting is the array of the charges fired against the now former barista. In an interview on Fox, Park Ridge, New Jersey Lt. James Babcock said that they confirmed that the act occurred and that they were told that Trejo had done it repeatedly with officers. Babcock said that Trejo claimed to have only done it once.
Presumably, someone spotted the act given the open preparation area of Starbucks.
According to the police press release, the police hit Trejo with three charges for subjecting a law enforcement officer to bodily fluid, purposely tampering with a law enforcement officer’s drink and creating a hazardous environment. Those charges seem completely overlapping in charging the same act three times.
The tampering charge is relatively straight forward.
2C:40-17 Tampering, degree of offense; sentencing requirements.
2. a. Except as provided in subsection b. of this section, a person who knowingly tampers with a cosmetic, drug or food product is guilty of a crime of the third degree, except that nothing herein shall be deemed to preclude a charge for a greater crime under any other provision of Title 2C of the New Jersey Statutes.
Then however they hit him with another charge for the same act by treating his spitting as “throwing bodily fluids.”
2C:12-13 Throwing bodily fluid at certain law enforcement officers deemed aggravated assault; grading, sentence.
2.A person who throws a bodily fluid at a Department of Corrections employee, county corrections officer, juvenile corrections officer, State juvenile facility employee, juvenile detention staff member, probation officer, any sheriff, undersheriff or sheriff’s officer or any municipal, county or State law enforcement officer while in the performance of his duties or otherwise purposely subjects such employee to contact with a bodily fluid commits an aggravated assault. If the victim suffers bodily injury, this shall be a crime of the third degree. Otherwise, this shall be a crime of the fourth degree. A term of imprisonment imposed for this offense shall run consecutively to any term of imprisonment currently being served and to any other term imposed for another offense committed at the time of the assault. Nothing herein shall be deemed to preclude, if the evidence so warrants, an indictment and conviction for a violation or attempted violation of chapter 11 of Title 2C of the New Jersey Statutes or subsection b. of N.J.S.2C:12-1 or any other provision of the criminal laws.
L.1997,c.182,s.2; amended 1999, c.429; 2003, c.283.
That would seem a double tap but still defensible. However, then they reframed the act a third time as the creation of the hazardous environment charge was brought under 2C:33-2:
2C:33-2. Disorderly conduct
a. Improper behavior. A person is guilty of a petty disorderly persons offense, if with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof he(1) Engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; or
(2) Creates a hazardous or physically dangerous condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor.
…
“Public” means affecting or likely to affect persons in a place to which the public or a substantial group has access; among the places included are highways, transport facilities, schools, prisons, apartment houses, places of business or amusement, or any neighborhood.
I admit I tend to view such cases from the perspective of a criminal defense attorney.I have no sympathy for Trejo if he committed this act and Starbucks appears to believe that he did. However, the charges are an example of how prosecutors can count stack by reframing the same act in a myriad of different ways. Spitting was tampering and then throwing fluids and then creating hazards.
This is obviously a barista that the police desperately wants behind bars.
Did the police officer drink the tampered beverage? The article mentions that this cretin has spat in other officers’ drinks. How was this ascertained? Did the other baristas know about this?
Spitting in a drink can transmit Herpes, mononucleosis, Covid-19, Hepatitis B and C, and various other diseases. It is a form of physical assault that may have permanent, lifelong consequences on the cops AND their families. If any cops unwittingly drank beverages contaminated with his bodily fluids, they could pass on diseases like oral herpes to their spouses, or even their children.
Throw the book at him, and make sure it’s heavy.
If you speed through a stop sign, you will be charged with speeding, and running a stop sign – different charges for the same act. I will leave it to the lawyers if this is just rephrasing the same exact crime 3 different ways, or 3 separate crimes committed by one act.
Cops: Do not eat out in any restaurant without a proven support for law enforcement, down to the busboys. The people who prepare your food have the power to make you ill, on purpose. Anti-cop prejudice and malevolence is at a high. Brown bag it or find a safe place to eat. Starbucks is infamously Liberal.
It is time the Left admits it has hate and lawlessness issues.
Karen S – I think we can assume that the officer drank it. The ex-employee was found out when he boasted about his exploits on social media.
Hi!,
I’m hardly done with this story that’s effecting everyone now in the nation on every road. People are being shot dead just because they are white by those commie/fascist Nuts!
Now I feel foolish traveling even to the Post Office Unarmed, but it’s just to risky, now I’ve got to come up with a plan I feel.
Finely the Tulsa DA realized the people are behind him for putting down these Fascist Antfa & Black Lies Matter Azzholes & I sense he’s rightfully going after these Domestic Terrorist like any selfrespect police dog would. (Count my 110 # male Sheperd out, he seems more a lover & just likes to play, but his female buddy I’m not sure & wouldn’t push one’s luck inside her fence. LOL;)
Anyway, one of the Best DA’s in the USA so far this year I’ve seen
https://www.newson6.com/story/5f1b97b0a717d00d80c3e8d3/district-attorney-explains-decision-to-not-pursue-charges-against-truck-driver-
reRead your post & realize that this Bio-Weapon, Wuhan Flu, cooked up by Dr Fauci/NIH/Bill Gates UNC Chapel Hill/Harvard/ transferred to Wuhan China out of a Bio level 3 or 4 that has no other propose then to make ILLEGAL BIO-WEAPONS that some how was turned loose on our world!!! It’s all documented!! (Dr Francis Boyle & others)
And they’ve not been in front of a court, sentenced & hung/shot yet? Why !!!
What are we to do when they release their next Bio-Weapon, or the one after that. They’re Evil, they/ their friends haven’t stopped the last 100 plus years & they won’t stop until someone stops them!
Oops, it’s late.
Spitting in anyone’s drink is rotten as all hell IE: releasing a Bio-Weapon on the gen pop of the world is much worst.
Police are not the only ones who want this genius behind bars. Someone who spits into someone else’s coffee is not just going to stop at cops and he’s not just going to stop at spit. This is what always needs to be explained in words of one syllable to great and small alike on the left. Curtailing free speech for conservatives will ultimately lead to curtailing your own free speech. Closing one eye to a creep who spits in coffee at Starbucks because the victim happens to be someone you don’t like (until you need to call 911) will eventually lead to that creep spitting in your coffee or that of someone you care about. When there are no cops in whose coffee to spit, how do you suppose this bleary-eyed flower of American malehood will while away the long hours at Starbucks? By knitting booties for orphans? He will find some other customer who strikes him the wrong way and I have no doubt he has already done so. Throw the book at him.
Are the laws simultaneously applicable? If so, then is your complaint with the prosecutor at all?
If I break in to set a building on fire, killing six, can I be charged simultaneously with arson, six counts of murder, and trespassing?
Starbucks has been burning their coffies make more money.
Try buying Lavazza Red and and taste a fine coffee.
I just thought a of a possible defense. He spit because some of the burnt coffee was still burning.
“If he did it…”
He admitted he did it
Cops have body cams.
Food service facilities must have kitchen cams.
“Trejo claimed to have only done it once.”
Well, I guess that makes it OK then.
Dear stupid attorney: spitting during Coronavirus is hazardous and doing it to a place is a crime against authorities and police. I consider that a hate crime.
Hardly “stupid”! Professor Turley is one of THE foremost legal minds in the country! Btw, I agree that COVID makes it more serious but, then again, I’m not a legal expert and I doubt you ate, either. Had COVID been acknowledged at the time of the alleged attack?
Like that one time in summer camp, I presume…