JERSEY CITY — The cache of guns found in a truck adorned with pro-Second Amendment rights messages after it was pulled over outside the Holland Tunnel last year can be used as evidence in the case against the three Pennsylvania residents who were in the car, a judge ruled Monday.
Judge Mitzy Galis-Menendez announced the decision in Superior Court in Hudson County after attorneys for the trio argued the evidence should be suppressed because they were pulled over unlawfully.
James Lisa, an attorney representing John Cramsey, who was driving the car on June 29, 2016, when it was pulled over, said Monday that he understood the judge’s decision, given the testimony of Port Authority police Officer John Bastile.
Bastile said in a January hearing that he stopped the trio’s Dodge pickup because of a crack in the windshield and objects hanging from the rear view mirror that were obstructing the driver’s view.
Lawyers say stop was unconstitutional
“I think that the judge made the correct decision under the circumstances,” Lisa told a group of reporters after the hearing. “Do I think the officer was forthright in his testimony? No.”
Cramsey declined to comment Monday.
The decision comes nearly eight months after Cramsey, 51, of East Greenville, Pa., Dean Smith, 53, Upper Milford Township, Pa., and Kimberly Arendt, 29, of Lehighton, Pa., were arrested outside the Holland Tunnel.
During the traffic stop, Bastile found five loaded handguns, a shotgun, an assault rifle, body armor, three bags of marijuana and a pipe inside the car.
All three were indicted in October on a total of 63 counts of weapons and drug possession. They remain free on bail.
The Dodge SUV authorities say the three people allegedly found with a cache of guns and body armor drove outside the Holland Tunnel on Tuesday sits in a Port Authority of New York & New Jersey impound lot. (Luke Nozicka | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
Attorneys for the trio have argued that truck was stopped was because it was decorated with a large set of cross-hairs, the words “Higher Ground Tactical,” and “We the People.” The markings, the lawyers said, suggested to police that the occupants were gun-rights advocates who might be carrying weapons.
The judge disagreed with the lawyers’ assertion that making the stop was a violation of search and seizure laws.
Bastile said Cramsey told him that the trio was on the way to New York City, to rescue the teenage daughter of a Pennsylvania friend who was in a house where heroin was being abused. Bastile said Cramsey also told him that his daughter had died of an overdose, and that his son was an addict.
The girl the trio was on its way to save was 18-year-old Jenea Patterson, who later died of an apparent drug overdose at a hospital near Wilkes-Barre, Pa., according to her father, James Patterson.
At Monday’s hearing, Cramsey wore a black suit with a purple ribbon pinned to his lapel in memory of Patterson.
Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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