A Margate man who pleaded guilty in the sexual assault of a Linwood girl in 2010 may have been misled by his attorney.
Paul Campo, now 44, was arrested in 2010, after he lured a then-10-year-old girl on her way to school and then exposed himself to her. When he pulled down the girl’s skirt, she was able to get on her bike and ride to school.
Campo accepts responsibility for his actions, and has been getting needed treatment at the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Avenel, Middlesex County, his new attorney told the judge Thursday.
But, the time he was given was not what he was led to believe by his former attorney.
Campo pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault and attempting to lure a child and was sentenced in 2013.
The sentence was seven years for the assault with a mandatory 85 percent under the No Early Release Act.
He was given an addition six years with no minimum for the luring charge.
But Campo’s then-attorney told him that — even though the sentencing judge said the counts would be served consecutively — the sentences would be concurrent.
Assistant Prosecutor John Santoliquido acknowledged that a letter the attorney sent to Campo said that the sentences were meant to be concurrent.
“Why in the world would an effective attorney write a letter like that?” Superior Court Judge Patricia Wild asked Thursday.
She granted a hearing set for May 22 to argue the case.
Campo’s new attorney — Leah McGarry Morris — told the judge she worries for Campo’s safety.
The first part of his sentence has been served in Avenel, where sex offenders are housed and receive treatment. But once he is deemed done there, the other sentence is supposed to be served in state prison, where he would be put there “without treatment in general population, McGarry Morris said.
His other option would be to request protective custody, which his attorney said makes things difficult.
She said she hopes the hearing comes before the transfer to state prison.
Wild noted that one of the key witnesses in the case will be Judge Pam D’Arcy, who was the prosecutor in the case at the time.
McGarry Morris is to have her witness list to the court by May 8. The hearing is expected to last one day.
Campo pleaded guilty in 2008 to a similar incident in Boynton Beach, Florida.
At that time, a 12-year-old girl told police that the man had been watching her and her 8-year-old sister play in their driveway for more than two hours, then called her over to the car and told her to meet him around the corner at an empty church, according to the affidavit.
He introduced himself as "Paul from New Jersey" and tried to get the girl to lift her skirt, she told police.
Still inside his sport utility vehicle with New Jersey plates, Campos exposed and touched himself.
He was sentenced to 12 months’ probation and ordered to pay restitution, records in Florida show.
