BY ERIKA NORTON
WEST MILFORD — Former West Milford Department of Public Works superintendent and Byram councilman Carlos Luaces, pleaded guilty Monday to killing two baby birds with weed killer in July 2015.
Luaces accepted a plea bargain before Judge Scott Bennion in Superior Court in Paterson, allowing him to avoid trial. He was indicted on a single count of animal cruelty in the third degree, a crime punishable by a maximum fine of $15,000 and/or three to five years in prison.
The charge was reduced from a criminal charge to a disorderly persons offense, and Luaces was sentenced to seven days of community service and a $500 fine.
Luaces served on the Byram township council from January 2012 to February 2014, and was appointed the West Milford DPW Superintendent in April 2015. When the animal cruelty allegations first surfaced in August, he was placed on paid administrative leave, and when the charges were filed, Luaces was dismissed from his post as DPW superintendent.
He was was accused of spraying Ranger PRO Herbicide around the West Milford DPW yard near a post outside the DPW’s garage, where a robin’s nest was perched allegedly containing three eggs and one small hatched bird.
The day after, DPW workers said they noticed a dead bird in the nest along with the other unhatched eggs. Three weeks later, two DPW employees complained about the incident to West Milford police, who then went to investigate and found the nest, but no eggs, birds or mother robin.
Luaces’ attorney Gary Kraemer said he thought the plea offer recommended by the state was fair, and that the state recognized that there was going to be a lot of difficulty in terms of proving the elements of the indictment beyond a reasonable doubt.
“Once we get to trial,” Kraemer said, “it's much harder for the state to sustain the elements, in other words, the spray that was used for the weed killer, whether that was actually harmful to birds, would be a significant issue in the case.”
He also said that since there was no physical evidence of any dead birds, not even a photograph, that proving that any birds died as alleged would have also been difficult. Kraemer filed a motion to dismiss the indictment of Luaces, which similarly said there was no physical evidence that any birds died, but the motion was denied by the judge two months ago in January.
According to Kraemer, the plea bargain recognized that there was no intentional conduct by Luaces, charging him with reckless conduct, as opposed to criminally intentional conduct.
“All in all,” he said, “I think it fairly addressed the issues that were raised by what happened.”