STATE OF NEW JERSEY v. J.W.G.

RECORD IMPOUNDED

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-0

STATE OF NEW JERSEY,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

J.W.G.,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________________________

October 2, 2013

Submitted September 24, 2013 Decided

Before Judges Reisner and Ostrer.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Camden County, Indictment Nos. 02-11-3935 and 03-08-2815.

J.W.G., appellant pro se.

Warren W. Faulk, Camden County Prosecutor, attorney for respondent (Robin A. Hamett, Assistant Prosecutor, of counsel and on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Defendant J.W.G.1 appeals from a March 23, 2011 order denying a motion to withdraw his guilty plea. We affirm, substantially for the reasons stated by Judge Edward J. McBride, Jr., in his letter opinion dated March 23, 2011.

The background of this case was discussed at length in our prior opinion affirming the denial of defendant's first petition for post-conviction relief (PCR). State v. J.W.G., Docket No. A-0302-09 (App. Div. May 12, 2011). To summarize, in 2003, defendant pled guilty to first-degree aggravated sexual assault, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2a(1), and was sentenced to twelve years in prison, subject to the No Early Release Act, N.J.S.A. 2C:43-7.2. He also pled guilty to bail jumping and received a four-year term, to be served consecutive to the sexual assault sentence.

Defendant filed his first PCR petition in 2007, raising a variety of issues including a challenge to his sentence. The trial court denied the petition and we affirmed. See J.W.G., supra, slip op. at 7-9. In "correspondence" dated March 8, 2011, defendant contended that his sentence was "illegal" because his plea allocution was insufficient to establish a factual basis to convict him of first-degree aggravated sexual assault.2 Judge McBride treated defendant's filing as an application to withdraw his guilty plea. He concluded that defendant pled guilty to forcing the child victim to perform fellatio on him, which established a sufficient factual basis for the conviction. See N.J.S.A. 2C:14-1c; N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2a(1). He found no basis to permit defendant to withdraw his guilty plea.

On this appeal, defendant states that he does not want to withdraw his guilty plea. Rather, he seeks to be re-sentenced to a lesser prison term, arguing that his plea allocution would only support a conviction of second-degree sexual assault or third-degree sexual contact. This argument is without sufficient merit to warrant discussion in a written opinion. R. 2:11-3(e)(2). As previously noted, we affirm for the reasons stated by Judge McBride.

Affirmed.

1 We use defendant's initials to protect the identity of the victim, an eight-year old relative whom he sexually molested.

2 Neither party has provided us with a copy of defendant's March 8, 2011 application. Our description is drawn from Judge McBride's March 23, 2011 letter opinion denying the application.