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Clayton L. Robinson, 26, moved his lips rapidly, perhaps talking to himself, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other as Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Danielle Grootenboer presented two sets of charges against him.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Danielle Grootenboer (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
There were those involving attempted murder after his sometimes Hackensack roommate, Paul Calli, was found beaten, cut up and semi-conscious in a closet of his First Street apartment on March 6. He had been there nearly 13 hours, authorities said.
Then there’s murder and other counts that were brought when the 41-year-old Calli died a week later.
Robinson didn’t yet have a lawyer, so defense attorney Robert N. Kalisch of the state Public Defender’s Office represented him, entering a “not guilty” plea, before Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi.
The judge sent the case to a grand jury and Robinson back to the Bergen County Jail.
As CLIFFVIEW PILOT reported exclusively, he was brought there yesterday from the Bronx, where police arrested him hours after finding Calli.
Robinson and his girlfriend got into an argument after she came to the apartment the night before, Hackensack Detective Capt. Thomas Salcedo told CLIFFVIEW PILOT at the time.
“Calli “tried to intervene on her behalf and was beaten,” he said.
Robinson also attacked Calli with pieces of a mirror that fell off the wall and broke during the struggle, he said.
He then stole Calli’s car and drove to a Bronx apartment where he’d also been living, Salcedo said.
Family members hadn’t heard from Calli in more than a day, When he didn’t show up for work, one of them called police.
Officers were let into his apartment by the building management company and found him.
“We couldn’t really interview him,” Salcedo said. “He was in and out of consciousness.”
Calli remained in critical condition at Hackensack University Medical Center after sustaining blunt-force trauma to his head and several cuts and bruises on his head and neck.
He died last Wednesday night, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said Thursday, in announcing the upgraded charges.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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