Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office

25 Kirkpatrick Street, 3^rd Floor, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 08901 (732) 745-3300

*News Release* Date: May 9, 2011

Probation imposed for endangerment, hindering

Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce J. Kaplan announced that a New Brunswick woman was placed on probation today for five years for helping an Edison man abandon his 20-month-old daughter at a gas station restroom, and then trying to protect him from police before they charged him with murdering the toddler’s mother.

Ritu Loi, (DOB 11/19/83) also was ordered to undergo mental health counseling as part of an agreement in which she pleaded guilty on November 3, 2010, to endangering the welfare of the child, Hannah Belizaire Jackson, and hindering the apprehension of Dwayne Jackson (DOB 10/28/84).

Superior Court Judge Bradley Ferencz imposed the sentence today during a hearing at the Middlesex County Courthouse in New Brunswick.

Loi’s plea agreement was reached with Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Sheree Pitchford, who also had required Loi to testify truthfully against Jackson at trial.

Jackson subsequently pleaded guilty on April 14, 2011, to counts of murder and endangering the welfare of the child, admitting he choked the child’s mother, Patricia Belizaire, 25, in her apartment in North Brunswick.

He also said the couple’s daughter was at home at the time of the attack on February 21, 2010, and said that after he killed Belizaire, he took the child to Newark, Del., where he abandoned her in a gas station restroom.

Jackson will be sentenced to 30 years in prison on May 19, 2011.

When she pleaded guilty last November, Loi said she was with Jackson when he drove her car to Newark, Del., and left the child in the restroom.

Loi also told the court she hindered the apprehension of Jackson when she initially told police on February 24, 2010, that she did not have any information about the homicide of the toddler’s mother.

Loi, who has no previous criminal record, was not charged with murder after it was determined she had no role in Ms. Belizaire’s death.

Loi and Jackson were arrested and charged after an investigation by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office and the North Brunswick Police Department determined that Jackson killed Ms. Belizaire on February 21, 2010 and drove the victim to Ramapo, N.Y., where her body was set on fire in a park shortly before 5:22 a.m. on February 22, 2010.

The cause of death was asphyxiation. The woman was dead before her body was set on fire.

Jackson is being held at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick in lieu of $2.75 million bail.