On June 3, 2024, a three-judge appellate panel decided the Monmouth County case of State v. Jeffrey Walker. The principal issue under N.J.S.A. 2C:44-2 concerned whether a restitution order can be extinguished when victims cannot be located.
Judge Chase wrote for the Appellate Division in relevant part: Defendant cites no authority to support his request to reduce the amount of restitution he agreed to pay because some of the scores of victims he defrauded have yet to be located. We do not give our imprimatur to defendant’s proposal to reach out directly to victims to essentially renegotiate individual restitution settlements with them. Criminal courts should not facilitate, much less authorize, contact between convicted offenders and their victims except through the probation department or the prosecutor’s office victim advocate. Importantly, moreover, we deem a private settlement agreement to extinguish or reduce a restitution award to be contrary to public policy. See State v. DeAngelis (App. Div. 2000). We reiterate and emphasize the restitution amount and framework was part of the plea agreement negotiated with the State and approved by the trial court.
The legislative purpose of restitution is not merely remunerative but encompasses rehabilitative, deterrence, and punitive goals as well.” Felicioni v. Admin. Off. of the Cts. (App. Div. 2008) (citing State v. Pulasty (App. Div. 1994)); see also State v. Newman (1992) (noting the statutory preconditions for restitution are plainly satisfied where a defendant derived a pecuniary gain from the offense). To extinguish defendant’s obligation to pay the full restitution would unjustly reward defendant for his failure to timely pay the full restitution amount within his negotiated five years. Having failed to comply with the agreed-upon payment scheduled negotiated with the prosecutor, defendant is hard pressed to seek to renegotiate his restitution exposure with individual victims. Moreover, his proposal would allow him to keep the fruits of his offense and deprive his victims of compensation for the losses suffered because of his crime. Such an outcome would run counter to the remunerative, rehabilitative, deterrence, and punitive goals of restitution.
An additional point in support of the Court’s decision is that agreeing to make restitution is a mitigating factor at sentencing. Thus, the defendant was entitled to have his promise considered in arguing for a lesser sentence than the maximum that could have been imposed. Now that the sentence is served, it would be unfair to allow him to backtrack on the promise from which he already derived a benefit.
