Bayonne man found guilty of throwing rocks with threatening messages at judge's law office

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A Bayonne man found guilty of throwing rocks with threatening inscriptions through the windows of the Bayonne law office of Hudson County’s top municipal judge is slated to be sentenced next month.

Dennis Sabol, 47, of Bayonne, was charged after the rocks smashed the windows of Judge Frank T. Carpenter’s office on Broadway, after Carpenter found two men not guilty of assaulting Sabol in March of 2011.

Inscribed on the rocks in magic marker was “Carpenter you gonna pay,” “You better in hell than in courtroom,” “Lier (sic),” “Die soon,” “watch your back,” “Carpenter wrong side of law,” and “not honest, you evel (sic),” Carpenter said yesterday.

“It was a little intimidating, but I’ve had credible threats before,” said Carpenter. “This concerned me a little, primarily because initially I couldn’t figure out who did it.”

The whole thing started in October 2010 when Sabol got into a scuffle with two men at a Bayonne fishing pier, Carpenter said. Sabol wound up with stitches to his head and he filed an assault complaint in Bayonne Municipal Court and the two men filed one against him, Carpenter said.

Carpenter presided at the trial on March 17, 2011, and said he did not find Sabol’s testimony credible and did not find the other men had proven Sabol assaulted them. When the judge dropped all charges, “Sabol became incensed to the point he screamed at the top of his lungs, ‘F you!’ ” Carpenter said.

Carpenter had already fined Sabol $100 for outbursts in court, and after Sabol cursed at him, Carpenter sentenced him to five days in jail, but dropped the sentence after Sabol apologized.

“I was upset,” said Sabol, who feels he suffered an injustice in court.

Sabol said yesterday the scuffle stemmed from a prior incident in which a man followed him in a vehicle and then struck him with the vehicle. He said at the pier a man said to him “You punched my uncle,” and when Sabol denied it, the man kicked Sabol’s car. Sabol said that when he took a swing at the man, the man and his friend assaulted Sabol.

A few weeks later, the rocks smashed the law office windows. That day, Carpenter, who oversees municipal courts in the county, went to court and told two court officials what happened and “My bailiff said ‘You know who it was, that guy Dennis Sabol,’ and as soon as he said his name I thought, yeah that guy is capable of it,” the judge said.

Carpenter and the court officials looked at a form filled out by Sabol and found the handwriting was similar. Then Carpenter’s bailiff said, “You are never going to guess who is at the violations window paying a ticket,” Carpenter said.

They called police, who questioned Sabol, and when they had him write what was written on the rocks, he misspelled “evil” and “liar” in the same way they were misspelled on the rocks, Carpenter said.

After police found a black magic marker in his car, Sabol was arrested and later indicted on the charge of retaliation for past official action against a judge and other offenses, Carpenter said.

The venue was moved to Essex County Superior Court and on Feb. 26 a judge reduced the charges to the disorderly persons offenses of harassment and criminal mischief and found Sabol guilty.

“I took them to court and Carpenter threw the case out and then someone threw a rock through Carpenter’s window and he comes after me,” Sabol said, adding that his legal and medical bills tally $19,000.