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“There is no plea offer right now” for Darion Benbow, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Yomara Castro told Superior Court Judge James J. Guida in Hackensack on Dec. 7.
Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said Benbow, 26, picked up the girl in April 2014 at the Rochelle Park ShopRite and brought her to his Clinton Place apartment, where he gave her alcohol and then had “sexual activity with her against her will.”
A grand jury indictment returned in October charges Benbow with forcing the girl to submit to sexual intercourse, sodomy, touching her breasts, and child endangerment through sexual conduct. He’s also charged with destroying evidence by deleting text messages from his cellphone during the investigation.
Benbow has remained free on $150,000 bail posted soon after his arrest.
The 6-foot-7-inch, 170-pound Benbow — a former honors students at St. Raymond High School for Boys in the Bronx — played small forward for Lafayette University in Pennsylvania from 2007-2011. He averaged just under five points and three rebounds a game his senior year at the school, which only began offering athletic scholarships a year before he applied.
At St. Ray’s, he averaged 10 points and seven rebounds a game playing center his senior year.
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