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After making his first appearance in Superior Court on July 2, Shawn Custis is walked to a van by Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura, Sgt. Marco Vulpi and Officer Curtis Jones. Custis is accused of beating a Millburn woman during a brutal home invasion that was captured on video.

(Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger)

By Ted Sherman and Christopher Baxter/The Star-Ledger

NEWARK — Shawn Custis is a bad guy. That's impossible to argue, given his long rap sheet.

A muscular man at 216 pounds — a scar between his eyes, his name tattooed on his chest, and "Cathy-Joy" inked on his left forearm — Custis, 42, has been sentenced to prison eight times.

Shawn Custis is walked to a van by (L-R) Essex County Sheriff Armando B. Fontoura, Sgt. Marco Vulpi and Officer Curtis Jones, after his arrest last month in the brutal home invasion of a Millburn woman.

First convicted as an adult two months after his 18th birthday, he has done time for burglary, possession of a gun, robbery, assault, resisting arrest, theft and forgery. He has escaped at least once from a halfway house and boasts multiple parole revocations.

When he sought parole last year after pleading guilty to a string of burglaries, his request was denied by the State Parole Board. Citing his long criminal history, the board determined there was a "reasonable expectation" he would violate the conditions of his release. The board, in its March 2012 decision, noted Custis’ criminal record was "extensive and repetitive," and that prison had failed to deter his behavior.

It concluded that inmate #543494B appeared "committed to a life of crime."

So how did Custis — charged last month in the notorious "Nanny Cam" home invasion that graphically captured the assault of a Millburn woman on surveillance video — get out of prison last December, three days before Christmas?

MILLBURN SUSPECT'S LONG RAP SHEET

He made a deal.

Court records show Custis bargained down the time he was facing for burglaries he committed in Essex, Mercer, Union and Middlesex counties to three years on each case, serving those sentences concurrently. With time he spent in jail before his case adjudicated, and credits for good behavior, he was out in 21 months.

Put another way, Custis has been convicted of at least a dozen felonies since 1988. Yet he has never spent more than five years at any one stretch in state prison, according to state corrections department records. Most times — with parole — he’s been out in less than two. And in some cases, he did no jail time at all.

A new and detailed review of Custis’ criminal past reveals a man with a penchant for violence, an appetite for drugs, and a willingness to kick down someone’s door for nothing more than whatever cash and jewelry he could stuff into his pockets or carry under his arm. Those records show a career criminal who has avoided the toughest penalties most of his life by sticking mostly to home burglaries that carry little prison exposure — crimes that kept him never far from a favorable deal when caught, regardless of how often he was locked up.

For example, in 2010, Custis pleaded guilty to burglarizing a home in Nutley. Facing five years, the court records revealed, he was sentenced to five years probation on condition he enter a drug treatment program. Authorities say he ultimately got scooped up on other charges in another county and never did any jail time for that particular crime.

In 2008 he was arrested for burglary in Bloomfield. Never indicted, he was released from jail and committed three other burglaries in the same town a year later, with all the cases later wrapped up into a single plea deal.

In 2005, he was sentenced to four years for forgery. He only served three.

His is not an uncommon story.

Mug shot of Custis at the Essex County jail

Overcrowding in the courts and the prison system encourages plea deals, as well as parole. While the Administrative Office of the Courts does not track negotiated pleas by specific crime, nearly 70 percent of all criminal indictments are resolved through a guilty plea that typically benefits a defendant with less prison time.

"It’s almost impossible to imagine a criminal justice system without plea agreements — especially Essex County," said Todd Clear, dean of the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University. "They are scratching for resources."

But critics say the pleas typically include the dismissal of some charges and the downgrading of others, giving a free ride to frequent offenders. At the same time, burglary is a property crime that does not carry the presumption of a prison sentence.

"They do a couple of years and then they are out," complained Bloomfield Police Chief Christopher Goul, who has arrested Custis twice — once in 2008, and then in 2009 for a string of burglaries in the suburban township while he was out on bail for the first case.

On Dec. 4, 2008, Bloomfield detectives on a stakeout in the southern end of town saw Custis carrying a suitcase that appeared to be empty. He swung it back and forth as he walked. Later, they spotted him dragging the suitcase on its wheels. They stopped him and found jewelry and other household items inside. About 20 minutes later, Goul said, a homeowner on Grace Street reported that her front door had been kicked in. She identified the contents of the suitcase as being stolen from her house.

Although Custis was arrested and charged with burglary, he was never indicted in the case. Jailed for a few months, he was released in February 2009 on bail.

Less than a year later, Custis was again caught in Bloomfield. According to Goul, a woman on Bellevue Terrace called police after a man identified as Custis came to her door, first ringing the bell, then jiggling the knob as if to see if it were unlocked.

"She questioned him and he mumbled something about being a landscaper, there to trim the trees," said Goul.

Sending him away, the woman then telephoned police who arrested him some time later, several blocks away. By then, he was carrying two laptop computers, jewelry and a camera. One of the computers was marked MBPD — Mendham Borough Police Department — and the detectives called the police chief there, John Taylor.

"You guys missing a laptop?" they asked. "We picked up a guy with a computer that looks like it belongs to your department."

Taylor checked. "No," he replied. "Where did you grab him?"

"Broad Street."

Taylor, who lived in Bloomfield and is now retired, recalls the conversation with humor, but did not find it funny at the time. "Broad Street? I live a block away," he said. "Check my house!"

It had been broken into as well.

"He had taken my computer, my son’s computer, and my wife’s jewelry, all in our pillowcases," Taylor recalled. "We recovered everything except for her engagement ring. He must have tossed it."

Custis pleaded guilty the next year to all the Bloomfield burglaries, in a plea deal that wrapped up the Essex cases with other burglaries in Mercer, Middlesex and Burlington. When his name surfaced again in the news in Millburn last month, Taylor assumed it was not the same person.

"My guy was supposed to be in jail," he said.

He was not. Even with the denial of parole, his terms for the burglaries he committed in Essex, Mercer, Middlesex and Burlington counties ran concurrently and his sentence, with time served awaiting trial, maxed out in December.

Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray, whose office negotiated the plea agreement with Custis, said the cases were not handled differently from anyone else facing similar charges.

"It’s typically what we would do," she said. "We offered a three-year term and he was willing to plead. It was an appropriate and efficient use of time and resources."

But state Sen. Richard Codey (D-Essex), questioned why any deals were made with Custis, given his history, and called for an investigation by the state Attorney General’s Office.

"Did they think for one second he was not going to go back to what he was doing since he was a kid?" he asked, noting that Curtis had committed assault in one previous case under circumstances very similar to what he is charged with doing in Millburn.

"This is a serial home invader, who when he invades a house is prone to assaulting, and obviously if he’s been doing it since he was almost a teenager, nothing was going to stop him," said Codey, whose legislative district includes Millburn.

A spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office declined comment.

Murray would not respond to Codey’s remarks, but said her options were severely limited by state statute. She pointed out that even had Custis gone to trial for the most recent burglaries he committed, the maximum time he faced was five years.

"They were all third-degree offenses," she explained.

The state’s criminal statutes do not allow for more than three to five years for a third-degree criminal offense.

The incident in Millburn, though, is now sparking new efforts to increase the penalties for breaking into a person’s home.

"It’s insane," argued state Sen. Kevin O’Toole (R-Essex), the sponsor of one measure that would make a home burglary a second-degree offense, carrying a five- to 10-year prison term, while mandating no early release provisions if there was someone at home when the burglary took place.

"The odds of something going badly if someone breaks into a home are pretty high, but the penalties for breaking into a person’s car are the same as breaking into a home," said O’Toole. "There has to be consequences."

But the Statehouse has been reluctant to act, repeatedly killing similar legislation over the past decade by letting it die in committee.

"Under the current law, there is no way to get the bad guys into jail," said Assemblyman Anthony Bucco (R-Morris), one of the primary sponsors of A1035, which would also upgrade burglary of a residence to a crime of the second degree, and also make it a crime of the first degree if committed while armed.

Another sponsor of the same measure, Asssemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Essex), said the incident in Millburn should serve as a wake-up call.

"These bills grow out of problems. They don’t grow on their own. You view that video and you can understand why we need to change the law," Caputo said. "I don’t think there is any wiggle room here."

After sailing through the Assembly in March 2012 by a 69-8 vote with two abstentions, the bill was sent to the upper house, which has not taken up the measure. Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has been sitting on the bill, did not return calls for comment.

Through a spokesman, Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said he agrees with the concept of increasing the penalties for home burglaries, but has yet to review the legislation.

"The Senate will be in during the summer and we plan on reviewing many pieces of legislation," said the spokesman, Chris Donnelly.

Custis, whose roots are in South Jersey, has a criminal history dating to December 1988, when he pleaded guilty to burglary. Records show he received four years’ probation. Two years later, he was arrested for unlawful possession of a gun, and sentenced to five years’ probation. In 1991, he was again charged with burglary and sentenced to five years’ probation.

His fourth conviction came while he was still on probation, when he broke into a home in Burlington County and was surprised by a homeowner as he rifled through a jewelry box in the bedroom.

Repeat Offender Shawn Custis 11 Gallery: Repeat Offender Shawn Custis

Authorities said he punched the young mother before pushing her and her child down a flight of stairs. Custis was arrested the next day attempting to sell the woman’s stolen Ford station wagon. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Paroled in 1998, he was arrested again in 1999 for eluding police, got hit with another pair of burglary charges in Burlington and Gloucester in 2000, and was charged with forgery in 2005. In 2010, there were the additional burglary charges in Union, Mercer, Middlesex and Essex counties.

Members of his family could not be reached for comment. His attorney, a state public defender, did not return calls to his office.

Custis is now facing far more serious charges of attempted murder, burglary and two counts of child endangerment, in connection with the June 21 incident in a Millburn home caught on a hidden surveillance camera.

On a tape released to the public to help identify the suspect, an assailant believed to be Custis is seen breaking into a home where a mother and her daughter were watching cartoons. The man is seen pummeling the woman, repeatedly punching her, kicking her and yanking her by the hair as her 3-year-old sat frozen on the couch, just inches away.

The intruder is seen going upstairs three times, returning each time to continue beating the woman, throwing her down the basement stairs before leaving through the front door. The woman, who has not been identified, suffered a concussion, chipped teeth, an injured lip, facial swelling and leg injuries.

Detectives from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office quickly recognized the suspect once the tape came to light. A three-day manhunt ended in Custis’ arrest in Manhattan on June 28.

Authorities say it appears that particular home was targeted purely by chance. According to a law enforcement source who was not authorized to comment, new evidence from another video surveillance camera at a Millburn Avenue business shows a man, who appears to be Custis, walking in the vicinity of an NJ Transit bus stop toward Cyprus Street, where the attack occurred.

The source said the assailant knocked on the front door of the home, and when there was no answer, kicked down the side door and entered the house. A short time later, the surveillance tape authorities obtained from the business showed the same man returning to the area of the bus stop.

Custis is currently being held in Cell 326 in the Essex County Jail in lieu of $750,000 bail. Officials say he is in a single cell, in protective custody, because of the notoriety of the case. He has a sink, a bed, a toilet and access to recreational facilities. They would not say if he has received any visitors.

"He’s been quiet and cooperative," said Essex County Department of Corrections Director Alfaro Ortiz.

He knows the routine. This is the fourth time he’s been there.

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