TOMS RIVER, NJ – Former Toms River Councilman Terrance Turnbach, one of the driving forces behind the Democrat party’s political campaign against Republican councilman Dan Rodrick, is fighting hard to secure the release of a violent criminal who murdered an elderly man riding his bicycle.
In Seaside Heights, in September, Anthony Collins punched a 70-year-old man who was riding his bicycle and left him in a pool of blood on the sidewalk in grave condition.
Several days later, he died in the hospital after being placed on a ventilator in a medically induced state of sedation.
Turnbach, representing Collins as his attorney and one of the leaders of the Toms River Democrat party, said 70-year-old Robert May had it coming to him. He said his client, with a record of violent crime, only gave the man what he deserved: death.
Turnbach, in court, argued that May had called his client a ‘n-word’ on multiple occasions, and for that, his death was justified, and he should be released.
Turnbach pleaded in court this week to get Collins out of jail on pre-trial release, saying he’s not a bad guy, just somebody who was pushed too far by a 70-year-old man who called him names.
“Nobody deserves to be called the N-word,” Turnbach said at trial this week, arguing Collins was defending himself.
Fortunately, Judge Guy Ryan disagreed and denied Collins’s release. He was ordered to sit in the Ocean County Jail until his trial.
According to court records, Collins has an extensive criminal history that includes a domestic violence charge and restraining order with his wife and multiple violent criminal offenses.
But according to Turnbach, he should be released from jail and set back out on the streets.
Turnbach has been a key player in the Democrat party of Toms River. He was voted out of office by voters two years after his opponent Dan Rodrick let the townspeople know that when Turnbach wasn’t taking a holier-than-thou stance in the town hall, he was representing sex offenders, child predators, and violent criminals, often using shaming tactics against victims.
Now, Turnbach is pushing the charge to return Democrats back to power from behind the scenes in Toms River, when he’s not trying to set career criminals on trial for murder put back onto the streets of Toms River.