New Rochelle Man Pleads Guilty in Shoplifting that Led to Police Chase
By Mary K. Miraglia
HACKENSACK (March 13, 2017) — A man who drove with a friend to the Garden State Plaza to shoplift pleaded guilty today to eluding police in return for a sentence recommendation of four years flat.
Dwayne Hardy, 43 , pleaded guilty Monday, March 13 before Presiding Judge Susan J. Steele to a single count of eluding police, a second degree crime. In return, he gets consideration on sentencing and two other criminal charges were dropped.
Steele told Hardy he can argue for 364 days, considered non-incarceration for the purposes of a criminal records; 365 days, three or four years flat. But the recommendation offered by Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Joseph Torre is four flat, meaning he’ll serve about 11 months in state prison.
was spotted inside the mall with his co defendant, Michael Wallace, by security officers who tipped off Paramus police that the two men were stealing. That is how PO Anthony Mordaga spotted them coming out of the mall and getting into a white Nissan Maxima.
When Mordaga pulled behind Hardy’s Nissan, he rolled down his window and asked the officer where he should pull over. Then he pulled into a parking space as if to comply, but quickly sped out and attempted escape. But it apparently slipped his mind that he’d had a flat tire on the way to the mall, and changed to a “donut” spare The donut impeded his escape.
Hardy headed out of the mall, nearly striking a passenger car and sideswiping the passenger side of the police cruiser, hit the patrol car a second time and then hit another passenger car. Mordaga collided with him 1/4 mile from the mall and smashed him into a guardrail.
Mordaga approached the stopped vehicle with his weapon drawn and arrested Hardy. At this point Michael Wallace, Hardy’s accomplice, climbed into the driver’s seat and tried to get away in the disabled car, attempting to strike the officer when he did. Mordaga used pepper spray to subdue Wallace and police pulled him out of the car at gunpoint and put him on the ground.
Defense attorney Ron Bar-Nadav of Hackensack said Hardy was driving “really quite hazardously, into oncoming traffic. His conduct could have had serious consequences if the officer hadn’t been able to top him.”
Inside the Nissan, police founds thousands of dollars in stolen merchandise from stores throughout the mall.
Bar-Nadav said Wallace suggested the shoplifting spree to Hardy, and he foolishly agreed.
“It was a bad decision,” Bar-Nadav said. His client has turned his life around and is looking forward to a better future. However, some habitual shoplifters can make as much as $10,000 a month.
Wallace, aka David Reall, faced fewer charges and pleaded guilty earlier this year and was sentenced for three years flat.
Hardy will be sentenced June 9 on the eluding charge. The following motor vehicle charges against him were dismissed: Reckless driving, failure to obey a police signal, careless driving, unsafe operation of a motor vehicle, failure to observe a traffic control device, failure to give proper signal, no driver’s license or registration, no car insurance, speeding, false address, fictitious license plates, improper display or unclear license plates, obstruction of the windshield, safety glass violation, and failure to wear a seatbelt.
