Page 41 - Michael Bates News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Doing time behind the walls of the bergen county jail in hackensack, new jersey, is the last place michael bates wanted to be today. not only did he recently complete a nine-year prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter, he's now awaiting trial on two new counts of aggravated assault. if that's not bad enough, today is his birthday and all he has is a gift from another inmate. >> he told me happy birthday and gave me toilet tissue with my name on it and gave me some of these. >> having served time before, bates knows this is no random collection of items. they're to make a device known in ...

Cell, leave when i want to go. >> mr. cruz likes to think he can dictate where he goes and how he moves in this building, but we move him around a lot so he kind of gets the idea that he can pick and choose where he goes, which is not the case. >> cruz says that he came to the unit on assignment to investigate bates and has no problem saying so right in front of bates. >> one of my pups had a complaint against this gentleman here. yeah. said that he was not living right. so i came here to speak to the pups' og. after speaking with him and confirming that that other individual is a liar, now i ...

44-year-old, 6'1", 220-pound cruz. >> as soon as i walked in the cell i turned around and he decided to punch me in the face. cruz has this idea he is still 25 in his head and he can hurt people and stuff, but his punches were bouncing right off my head. >> boom, boom. just one hit. he was all over the place. he couldn't stand up. >> he hit me first, and yes, after three or four times of him punching me in the face, i realized i wasn't able to calm him down. i hit him with an uppercut. saw his dentures fall to the ground. brought him to the ground and that's when we both got maced. >> were you...

Tonight i will be gone. >> a couple of days later -- >> you're going to s-7. >> better. >> though cruz often boasts that he controls his housing assignments, his transfer is actually prompted by a plea agreement on his drug charge. >> he came back from court. his maximum security status was changed based on his sentence, so he went to medium. he is going to be transferred there tonight. >> thank you. i appreciate that. >> cruz's plea deal will result in a maximum of four years in prison on his charge of drug possession with intent to distribute in a school zone. his final sentence will be issu...

Something wrong. the paperwork is going to come to me. >> he's the minister of new jersey and all this got to come across his desk. what desk? what's got to come across -- who are you? >> damn, i like this cell, this view. this is what i like. >> bates says he's playing it cool until he has accurate information on who cruz really is. >> i think he's retarded, kind of slow. i think something is wrong with him. something is wrong with this guy. >> all day, blood like that, five, all day. recognize real when you see real. you know? ain't nothing hidden about this. this is straight blood love. you...