FEBRUARY 3, 2016, 4:58 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2016, 7:57 AM
BY JOHN SEASLY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Six young men have been arrested in connection with a string of armed robberies of gas stations and convenience stores throughout Bergen County, the acting county prosecutor announced on Wednesday.
The robberies happened between March 2014 and January. In one of the holdups, a gunman shot a gas station attendant with a 9-millimeter handgun and two other robberies involved “brutal assaults,” said Gurbir Grewal, the acting Bergen County prosecutor.
The prosecutor’s Special Investigations Squad began looking into the robberies in April 2014. Between March and June of that year, a pattern began to emerge as six Delta Gas Stations in five towns were targeted.
In each case, a gunman asked the gas station attendant for change for a $20 or a $50 bill, and as the attendant counted the change, the gunman pulled out a handgun and demanded the money, Grewal said.
On May 12, 2014 in Teaneck, an assailant pistol-whipped an attendant. On June 9 that year in Ridgefield Park, the gunman shot the attendant in the chest with a 9-millimeter handgun, then reached into his pocket and took the money, Grewal said. The attendant underwent surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center and survived.
In November 2015, in a joint investigation of two Lodi robberies by local police and the Special Investigations Squad, police identified David Thomas Jr., 21, of Lodi, as the gunman responsible for the Lodi robberies as well as those throughout Bergen County in 2014, Grewal said.
Paramus NJ, A high speed overnight police pursuit that began in Paramus ended when the fleeing driver crashed into a concrete divider on Route 17 northbound in Waldwick. The crash occurred just after 1 AM on Thursday, 02/04 near the on ramp to Route 17 northbound from East Prospect Street, Waldwick. Police officers from Waldwick, HoHoKus, and Ridgewood assisted Paramus officers at the scene.
At least one (1) individual was taken into custody. No police officers were injured in the chase. However, an ambulance was dispatched to the scene and it transported a crash victim, believed to have been the crashed vehicle’s driver, to the Bergen Regional Medical Center. A police officer was observed riding in the back of the ambulance with the victim. A flatbed tow truck removed the wrecked car from the roadway. Two (2) lanes of Route 17 northbound were shut while the investigation and debris clean up took place.
Eleven cities in New Jersey, and two counties, have a higher proportion of young children with dangerous lead levels than Flint, Mich., does, according to New Jersey and Michigan statistics cited by a community advocacy group. Ben Horowitz, NJ.comRead more
BCIA votes today at 1pm. If you have not already sent them an email, please send them an email. Our council members are so close to bond it within Ridgewood. We should keep the control of the garage and not bond it through BCIA.
This link can auto-populate an email form for you to edit and send. Don’t forget to sign your name in the email.
FEBRUARY 3, 2016, 9:11 AM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2016, 9:12 AM
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF AND STEFANIE DAZIO
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
A 25-year-old Somerset County woman who survived a jump off the George Washington Bridge Wednesday evening was rescued in the Hudson River by a Rutherford volunteer firefighter with his personal boat.
A witness saw the woman, whose name was not released, jump off the bridge around 5 p.m. Wednesday, Port Authority spokesman Joe Pentangelo said. Her car was found on Fort Washington Avenue in Manhattan.
She was conscious when she arrived at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital, Pentangelo said. The boat’s name is the Michael P. Murphy, he said.
Scott Koen, 58, said he happened to be on the river helping a volunteer group search for the body of a Rockland County man who recently jumped from the bridge when a member of his crew saw the woman fall into the river.
Koen said he jumped into the water to tie a rope around her so that she could be hauled aboard his boat, a 46-foot buoy tender. She had told him that she was unable to climb a ladder onto the boat.
Real estate agent and Soap Star Terri Peck seeks Freeholder bid as BCRO Extends Filing Deadline for Candidates
February 3,2016
staff of the Ridgewood blog
Hackensack Nj, Bergen County Republican Organization (BCRO) Chairman Bob Yudin has confirmed that the county organization has extended the filing deadline for candidates who wish to be considered by the county convention and run for Freeholder. The deadline normally, February 1 has been extended to midnight on March 1.The filing change will extend the deadline for all county open offices including freeholder, sheriff, county clerk and surrogate.
Yudin made the decision or some say was forced to make the decision to extend the deadline following a depressing few weeks for the County GOP. First there was last month’s high profile defection of Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino switching parties to pursue reelection as a Democrat and then Freeholder John Felice announced that he would not be pursuing reelection.
According to the BCRO, seven Republican candidates have registered to run for freeholder so far including incumbent Maura DeNicola. Other freeholder candidates include former freeholder John Driscoll, former congressional/assembly candidate Dierdre Paul, Closter councilman Robert DiDio and real estate agent and Soap Star Terri Peck.
The BCRO convention will be on March 15. and will select two out of the remaining six candidates to join DeNicola on the ballot for Felice’s seat and to challenge Democrat Tom Sullivan.
FEBRUARY 2, 2016 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2016, 5:25 PM
BY RICHARD NEWMAN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Following the lead of angry Uber drivers in New York City, the ride-hailing service’s contract drivers in New Jersey are planning a work stoppage and demonstration next week to protest recent fare cuts, the head of a new statewide trade association said Tuesday.
Patrick J. McManus, president of the fledgling New Jersey App-Based Drivers Association, said Tuesday the trade group will meet Wednesday in Woodbridge to discuss plans to protest “probably on Monday,” at Uber’s New Jersey office in Hoboken. There are 13,000 Uber drivers in New Jersey.
If they do it would be the second such action in the New York metropolitan area this month. Hundreds of Uber drivers demonstrated this Monday in front of Uber’s New York City headquarters in Queens to protest the recent 15-percent rate cuts.
Rates paid to drivers who provide UberX service were cut 15 percent to 85 cents a mile throughout most of New Jersey Jan. 9 and drivers are very unhappy about it, said McManus. The Edison resident drives as an independent contractor for both Uber Technologies and its largest rival, Lyft.
“This is the third or fourth rate cut that [Uber’s] done,” McManus said Tuesday in a phone interview. “It’s a chase to the bottom. They are cheapening the job.”
Mahwah firefighters battled a multiple alarm fire rescue child
February 2,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Mahwah NJ, Mahwah firefighters battled a multiple alarm fire in a condominium complex located on Juniper Way late Tuesday afternoon, 02/02. The fire was reported shortly before 4 PM by a neighborhood resident who saw smoke emanating from the roof of a residential building.
Mahwah units were assisted at the scene by Suffern and Ramsey FD personnel. The fire reportedly started on the 3rd floor of 917-928 Juniper Way and spread to the attic. A female child was rescued from a 3rd floor balcony by police officers who convinced her to jump into their open arms. No injuries were reported. Mahwah mayor Bill Laforet was observed at the scene comforting residents who were affected by the blaze.
By Susan K. Livio | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 30, 2016 at 3:45 PM, updated January 31, 2016 at 2:22 AM
TRENTON — Angry Cuban exiles in New Jersey are demanding state Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto condemn a trip 10 state lawmakers quietly made to Cuba this week, an action they say legitimizes that government’s oppressive regime.
Woodcliff Lake Mayor Carlos Rendo said Friday that American tourism “props up a murderous regime with every penny they spend in Cuba.”
“I would like to see every Cuban American legislator come out strongly and condemn this trip,” said Rendo, who was born in the communist country.
Menendez, Sires at odds with Obama on Cuba
Normally two of Obama’s most loyal supporters, Sen. Robert Menendez and Albio Sires are among his most strident critics on this issue
Prieto (D-Hudson), who fled the island with his mother when he was 10 years old, told NJ Advance Media he was reluctant to criticize his colleagues for making the trip on their own time. But he wanted to be clear they did not go representing the state.
“I did not sanction the trip,” Prieto said. “They never went as a delegation representing the Assembly of New Jersey.”
Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer), said he and the nine other legislators had good reason to make the four-day trip that ended Friday.
“After Obama said he wanted to ease the (diplomatic) restrictions, we wanted to see for ourselves what Cuba is all about,” Gusciora told NJ Advance Media Saturday. “We wanted to see how we can make things better in both of our countries.”
Gusciora said it isn’t fair for anyone to implicate Prieto. Everyone paid their own way and made arrangements directly with the tour company run by the Cuban government, he stressed. The trip cost $2,000, he said.
“It’s disappointing some people in the Cuban-American community want to stifle our rights of free speech and free association,” he said.
Besides Gusciora, the lawmakers on the trip included Assemblymen Gordon Johnson (D-Bergen), Tim Eustace (D-Bergen), Paul Moriarity (D-Gloucester), John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester), Assemblywomen Holly Schepisi (R-Bergen), Cleopatra Tucker (D-Essex), and Sheila Oliver (D-Essex), and state Sens. Shirley Turner (D-Mercer) and Nia Gill (D-Essex).
The Senate Majority Office “did not pay for the trip, nor did it make arrangements,” spokesman Luke Margolis said.
Prieto said that in December, Johnson asked whether the Assembly Majority Office would pay for the trip. The speaker said he refused. He said on Friday that he learned that the lawmakers had actually made the trip from Rendo and other Cuban leaders who saw a story about it in a government-owned news website, Diario de Cuba on Thursday.
Like other Cuban-American leaders who have been critical of the Obama administration’s decision to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, Prieto said he explained to Johnson he did not want to do anything that could be perceived as supportive of the Castro government, which unilaterally seized property and jobs and jailed dissidents in 1959.
“For me it’s an emotional thing because I lived it,” Prieto said.
“In a a three-day trip, you will not be able to understand the struggles of the people,” he added.
Cuba’s decision to continue harboring fugitive Joanne Chesimard is another reason he could not sanction the visit, Prieto said. Chesimard broke out of prison in 1979 after she was convicted in the shooting death of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973.
While he isn’t pleased by the trip, Prieto said he was stopping short of condemning it.
“As I said I would not authorize them going as a delegation but I cannot say anything about them going as U.S. citizens. That is one of the freedoms we have here that is not available to the Cubans in Cuba.”
During the trip, the New Jersey lawmakers repeatedly pushed Cuban officials to turn over Chesimard and other American fugitives, Gusciora said. “They seemed to ignore it,” he said.
JANUARY 31, 2016 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2016, 1:21 AM
BY ROBERT FELDBERG
RECORD COLUMNIST |
THE RECORD
Tony-winning actor Robert Sean Leonard is experiencing not one, but two homecomings.
The more literal is his return from California – where he played Dr. James Wilson in eight seasons of “House” — to Ridgewood, where he was raised.
“My brother, who’s a cop in Ho-Ho-Kus, called about two years ago to tell me that he heard that this lovely old Victorian house near where we grew up was for sale. So I just called the owners, cold, and asked if they were thinking of moving,” Leonard said, with a brief look of mortification on his face as he recalled his audacity. “They said they weren’t, but I told them that if they ever did want to sell, to give me a call.”
A year ago they did, and last month Leonard, his wife Gabriella and their two daughters, Eleanor, 7, and Claudia, 3, moved in.
In the midst of unpacking boxes, though, Leonard was often absent, because of his other homecoming – his first role on the New York stage since returning from Los Angeles.
He’s appearing in “Prodigal Son,” which was written and is being directed by John Patrick Shanley, the author of “Doubt.” Now in previews, the drama opens Feb. 9 at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s off-Broadway space at the New York City Center.
With a kind of full-circle neatness, Leonard, whose breakout role was a prep-school student in the 1989 film “Dead Poets Society,” portrays a prep-school teacher in the play, which is based on Shanley’s own experience as a working-class Bronx boy attending a New England private school.
“I was told that Shanley was interested in me,” Leonard said. “I read the script and I liked it; it’s a very unique play, very surprising. Kind of like a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode.”
Leonard, who started out as a child actor, is known for his enthusiasm for stage acting, and he’s built an impressive list of Broadway successes.
He made his debut replacing Matthew Broderick in Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” and his subsequent plays have included “Arcadia,” “The Iceman Cometh,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” and “The Invention of Love,” for which he won his Tony. During a break from “House,” he came to New York to do “Born Yesterday.”
Many of the plays he’s done, on Broadway and elsewhere, are revivals of classics, which, he said, made “Prodigal Son” a different kind of challenge.
“Working with an author who’s breathing is an unusual experience for me,” he said,
At 46, Leonard still has an enormously engaging boy-next-door quality. He’s unstintingly praising of other actors, enthusiastic, good-humored and unassuming — he kept apologizing for being late for our interview at the theater (he hadn’t seen the message moving the start time up a half-hour), and he good-naturedly posed for a photographer right after walking in, without even a glance at a mirror.
Ruptured Gas Main Closes Route 4 in both Directions
January 30,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Paramus NJ, A construction company performing work on Route 4 westbound under Forest Avenue in Paramus accidentally struck and ruptured a 6 inch high pressure natural gas main shortly before 1 AM on Saturday, 01/30 causing the complete closure of Route 4 in both directions near the incident site.
As of 2 AM on Saturday, PSE&G supervisors on the scene anticipated the leak would not be stopped and repaired until at least 5 AM or 6 AM on Saturday. Paramus PD, FD, and Rescue Squad personnel are all on the scene. Traffic control assistance is being provided by numerous Bergen County law enforcement agencies along with NJDOT personnel. No incident related injuries have thus far been reported.
JANUARY 29, 2016, 5:19 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2016, 5:27 PM
BY KIM LUEDDEKE
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
An Indian national was sentenced to probation Friday and will likely be deported for her role in an IRS scam that authorities said netted thousands of dollars from unwitting victims.
Nikita Patel, a slight, girlish-looking 25-year-old who wore her hair pulled back in a long ponytail, did not address the court Friday. Her attorney, Rajinderpal Singh Sandher, said she had no prior criminal history and was willing to cooperate with any further investigation.
Frauds like the one perpetrated by Patel seem to be an “endemic problem,” said Superior Court Judge Susan J. Steele. She ordered Patel, who is in the United States on an expired visa, to serve three years’ probation for a charge of money laundering.
JANUARY 29, 2016, 12:18 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2016, 12:33 PM
BY PETER J. SAMPSON
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Joseph A. Ferriero, the former leader of the Bergen County Democratic Organization, has been given another two weeks of freedom as a judge considers whether to grant him bail pending appeal of his racketeering conviction.
The 58-year-old Hackensack lawyer had been scheduled to report to prison authorities next Tuesday to begin serving a nearly three-year sentence imposed last month by U.S. District Judge Esther Salas.
But Salas on Thursday pushed back Ferriero’s surrender date to Feb. 16 as she continues to review his motion to remain free on bail while he challenges his conviction for racketeering and fraud.
Shock waves traveling faster than the speed of sound were likely caused by nearby aircraft
By
ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS
Tremors felt in parts of the northeastern U.S. on Thursday, including New York’s Long Island area and southern New Jersey, were the result of a series of sonic booms, a regional seismologist said.
