Judge keeps Mount Laurel man hurling racial slurs jailed after hearing
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. - The Mount Laurel man caught on camera hurling racial slurs at a neighbor will stay behind bars for now. That is the word coming from a judge today.
Judge Terrence Cook called 45-year-old Edward Cagney Mathews, the man hurling racial slurs in the video, a threat to the community. Aliya Robison and her daughter Jazmyn Suszynski say they now feel a sense of safety.
"It brought me to tears because i’m happy in one sense," said Aliya Robinson, whose daughter filed a complaint against Mathews.
Mathews stood silent, appearing from jail, during Wednesday’s virtual detention hearing, his first since he was arrested on charges related to the viral video and following a search of his home, where investigators say they found drugs, a sling shot, and multiple ball bearings.
Assistant prosecutor Jamie Hutchinson also unpacked his criminal record of 20 prior convictions dating back to 1995, and detailed nearly a dozen police reports over the past year, alleging Mathews terrorized neighbors of color and Homeowners Association board members.
"He was shooting up cars this entire time, he was throwing rocks at cars, he was smearing feces on cars. The ammunition confirms this and it's not a leap to assume that it would escalate his behavior if he was in fact released and that ammunition could be aimed at a person next time," she said.
Hutchinson says over the past year mount laurel police got the FBI involved and they confirmed Mathews’ handwriting on at least one threatening letter sent to neighbors. They expect more charges to come from that as they continue to investigate other previous incidents involving mathews.
Suszynski says she filed a complaint in municipal court in 2017 after she says she dealt with more than a year of harassment but a judge said there wasn’t enough probable cause to sustain the charges.
"Worst part of it was I did what the system says to do reported it," she said.
Aliya Robinson says she feels hopeful because now the county is involved.