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You again?! Port Authority Police arrest same alleged auto thief for 2nd time in 3 months

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Man charged with swiping Ford Mustangs from Newark Airport car rental facility

carthief.jpgFor the second time in three months, Eric Bradley of Newark has been arrested by Port Authority police on charges that he tried to steal a Ford Mustang from the Hertz rental car facility at Newark Liberty International Airport. 

Port Authority Police detectives and Eric Bradley, an alleged auto thief with a taste for Ford Mustang rental cars, are getting to know each other on a first-name basis.

Police say that for the second time in three months, they have arrested to same man on theft charges for trying to steal the same make of auto from the Hertz rental car facility at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Here’s what police said happened:

On Monday, they arrested Bradley, 22, of Newark, for trying to steal a current-year
Mustang out of the airport rental car facility on Sept. 21 — just 16 days after he was arrested by Port Authority police on theft charges for stealing the same make of auto at the same location.

Posing as a Hertz employee on Sept. 21, Bradley tried to remove the auto, but bolted from the car and ran away after being questioned by other Hertz workers, authorities said.

Learning that Bradley was scheduled to appear Monday in a Newark courthouse on an unrelated matter, detectives — carrying a photo of the suspect — waited outside the courtroom and arrested Bradley without incident once he exited.

He was charged with burglary and theft and his bail was set at $35,000.

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NJ Transit supervisor allegedly got a promise of cash, a clean house — and a bribery charge

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NJ Transit supervisor allegedly greased the wheels for snow removal bid

snow-plow-noreaster.JPGAn NJ Transit supervisor is accused of taking an $8,000 bribe - and a powerwashing of her house - in exchange for helping a Lakewood company secure a transit station snow removal contract. 

For an $8,000 bribe and a powerwashing of her house, an NJ Transit supervisor agreed to help a Lakewood company get a snow removal contract at the Trenton Transit Center, federal officials said today.

Donna Schiereck, 56, of Jackson, allegedly got a promise of cash, a clean house — and a bribery charge.

According to the complaint unsealed today, Schiereck agreed to accept $8,000 last October in exchange for helping to secure the snow removal contract, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said.

Schiereck, who appeared today in Newark federal court, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on a charge of agreeing to accept a bribe.

Her bail was set at $10,000 and she was released, authorities said.

Schiereck was hired in October 1980 and last year made $79,354, according to the DataUniverse public government data website of the Asbury Park Press.

NJ Transit spokesman John Durso Jr. said Schiereck retired from her position as a manager of station terminals last Tuesday.

"She is no longer serving with, or affiliated with NJ Transit," he said, adding the agency will cooperate fully with the U.S. Attorney's office in conjunction with the ongoing investigation.

Here’s what federal officials said happened:

On Oct. 10, 2012, after a federal informant who worked for NJ Transit was told by Schiereck that the Trenton snow removal contract was likely not going to the Lakewood company, the informant told Schiereck the company offered $16,000 to secure the contract, which could be split between Schiereck and the informant.

The next day, the Lakewood company had the snow removal contract.

“You owe me eight grand,” Schiereck told the informant.

“You got it?” the informant said of the contract

“Uh huh,” Schiereck replied.

Given how easy it was to secure the snow removal contract, the informant told
Schiereck she should get $5,000 instead.

Schiereck replied that she should get $10,000 because the Lakewood company would have received nothing if she didn’t help get the contract, and also said she wanted her house powerwashed.

Using a code phrase, the informant told the vice president of the Lakewood company in a recorded conversation on Oct. 11, 2012, that they “got the snow in Trenton” and that the informant “promised somebody eight grand.”

The vice president said that after the company got the first payment for snow removal, the vice president would give the informant $8,000, then later another $12,000.

On Oct. 25, 2012, two weeks after helping to get the snow removal contract, Schiereck told the informant she was waiting for “our guys” to powerwash the front of her house.

“That and eight grand’ll get you a job,” she told the informant.

The powerwashers arrived the same day, according to law enforcement surveillance.

On Nov. 5, 2012, the Lakewood company removed snow from the Trenton station, then billed NJ Transit.

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Credit card scam targeting N.Y. train riders prompts NJ Transit to re-check ticket machines

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Thousands of bank cards have been compromised in Nassau, Queens, and Westchester counties

ticket.jpgA credit card scam involving Long Island Rail Road at Metro-North ticket vending machines has prompted NJ Transit to re-inspect its own machines. New Jersey's statewide transportation agency found no foreign devices on its machines. 

A frightening scam targeting New York MTA train commuters who used debit or credit cards at ticket vending machines has prompted NJ Transit to closely examine its own machines for foreign devices.

“We inspected all of our ticket vending machines,” NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder said. “No devices were found.”

Earlier this month, four people, including a husband and wife, were arrested in connection with a devious ruse that used hidden cameras and “skimmers” to steal bank card numbers from thousands of Long Island Rail Road customers using ticket vending machines in Nassau and Queens counties, according to the MTA.

The foreign devices also were found on three Metro-North Railroad ticket vending machines in Westchester County, and one bank reported thousands of dollars of losses on over 50 accounts, according to the MTA.

NJ Transit’s Snyder said the statewide transportation agency’s 670 ticket vending machines at 240 locations were inspected, with no problems found, and that NJ Transit Police regularly confers with MTA Police.

Unaware that MTA Police had been secretly watching the Sea Cliff LIRR station in Nassau County, a husband and wife were arrested after they retrieved a pair of skimmer devices and hidden cameras from ticket vending machines, according to the MTA.

The investigation led police to an apartment in Queens, where they arrested two men believed to be masterminds of the technological scam.

MTA Police urge anyone who used a bank card at an LIRR or Metro-North ticket vending machine between Aug. 1 and Nov. 1 to check for unauthorized activity on their accounts.

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East Orange girl bruised, battered and scarred when dream birthday trip becomes a nightmare

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The 11-year-old girl was allegedly beaten and tortured for months by a 48-year-old Florida woman, who had been a friend of the girl's mother.

east-orange-fort-pierce.jpgFor three months this summer, a mother in East Orange wondered and worried about the well-being of her 11-year-old daughter, who had gone to visit a friend of the mother for what was supposed to be a three-week trip in Fort Pierce, Fla. 

The woman was already crying when she arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Anxiously, she waited for her 11-year-old daughter to step off a plane after a trip to Florida that was supposed to last three weeks but was now almost three months.

Before she left, the rail-thin girl had spent days bragging about the vacation to classmates at her East Orange school, about spending her 11th birthday in Florida, even skipping her sixth-grade graduation for the trip.

But as the child exited the jetway, the mother’s sobs turned from elation to grief and horror. Black chemical scars framed her daughter’s mouth. Her eyes were nearly swollen shut by deep bruises, her front teeth chipped so badly they looked like fangs. A long bandage covered her left cheek, hiding pink abrasions and cuts flecked with blood.

"I didn’t even recognize her," her mother recalls.

The little girl (we will call her "J") left New Jersey on July 17 as a guest of Patricia Williams, a 48-year-old Florida woman and longtime friend of her mother. But authorities say she quickly became Williams’ prisoner and punching bag.

For weeks at a time, and for no apparent reason, Patricia Williams allegedly beat the girl with fists, belts and cords.

Some nights, Williams left J locked on a porch in the Florida heat with no food and amid a swarm of mosquitoes, police said. At times, police allege, Williams would swap pain for humiliation, gagging J with a sock or soaking her clothes in bleach, then forcing the girl to mop the floor with the garments.

For three months, J’s mother lay awake each night more than 1,100 miles away, concerned about her daughter, but completely unaware that the girl was going through the summer vacation from hell.

J’s story is one of alleged torture and betrayal at the hands of a woman introduced to her as a friend, and it’s a tale she is unlikely to forget. As the length of the trip dragged on, J’s mother said grew worried, repeatedly calling Williams to ask when the girl was coming home. Every time, J would pick up the phone and soothe her mother.

But Williams, according to the girl, was standing over the girl, coaching each conversation, threatening J if she didn’t play along.

Williams was arrested the day after the mother first laid eyes on J’s battered frame, charged with aggravated child abuse, battery and neglect, according to Florida authorities.

Florida courts will have to decide what, if any, punishment Williams will face for the horrors she allegedly visited on J. But for the victim’s mother, the story isn’t about crime and punishment, but about a mounting fear that her little girl has lost a child’s sense of safety and trust in the world.

The J that left New Jersey in June isn’t there anymore, her mother said. During interviews, J’s eyes dart around the room and she fiddles nervously with her hands. Her mother says she sometimes picks through her food, like she’s afraid something was slipped into it.

"She’s never going to forget this summer. She’s never going to forget her 11th birthday," the woman said. "Her life is just destroyed."

IT STARTED WITH A DANCE

It was praise dance — a form of religious expression that involves dancing to up-tempo music related to scripture — that brought the mother and Williams together again earlier this year.

Williams, who grew up in Newark and was a mentor to J’s mother before she moved to Florida, returned to New Jersey in June to arrange a memorial for her own mother, who died in 2012.

The affection for praise dance carried from mother to daughter. J began performing when she was only 7 years old, and her talent for the art form led her to Williams, who wanted the girl to perform at her mother’s memorial.

The days leading up to the ceremony marked the first sign of trouble. During a rehearsal, the girls said Williams grew incensed when J stumbled over a dance step.

"I’d never been yelled at like that before," the little girl said, adding that she cried as Williams lectured her.

Despite the tears, J performed well at the memorial. Afterward, Williams invited her to a "praise dance" convention in Alabama, and then a multiweek vacation at her home in Fort Pierce, Fla.

J had never been to Florida, and she was quick to tell friends about the trip.

She left June 17, and she was supposed to be home in time for her 11th birthday on July 9.

PUNISHMENT BEGINS

J offers little detail about the trip until someone mentions July 8, the day before her birthday.

"That’s when it got bad," she whispers.

J was excited, like any other 10-year-old. She bounded around Williams’ home, repeatedly quizzing her about birthday plans.

"I was asking what are we gonna do, and I got in trouble because she was very busy," she said.

The first punishment seemed simple. J says she was ordered to stand up straight, and not move until Williams woke the next morning. But J grew weary, eventually slinking into sleep on a nearby couch.

She was awoken by Williams, who demanded the little girl run laps through the home’s hallways, then perform 200 jumping jacks, J said.

When the girl grew tired and slowed, J says Williams began to pummel her.

For weeks, the beatings were almost daily, sometimes with a belt, others with an electrical cord, according to J’s family. The girl wasn’t allowed to sleep on the couch, forced to curl up on a hardwood floor and then clean the spot where she lay with bleach, using her own clothing as a mop.

She was gagged with a dirty sock for hours and forbidden from cleaning herself after using the bathroom, relatives said. In one instance, police allege, Williams threw the girl with such force that she chipped two teeth.

WORRYING CALLS

Week after week, the mother would call Williams, asking why J hadn’t come home. The excuses varied, the mother said, but near the end of every conversation, Williams would hand the phone to the girl, to put her mother’s mind at ease.

The mother started worrying when she noticed a change in her daughter’s voice. During the phone calls, J answered nearly every question with a "yes, ma’am" or "no, ma’am."

"(She) didn’t talk like that," her mother said.

But apparently, Williams was standing guard during each call.

"I didn’t tell Mommy because when we got on the phone, first (Williams) told me what to say before I got on the phone, and then on the phone, she had it on speaker," J adds.

Williams told J that she would never let her see her mother again if she didn’t cooperate, that she had security guards monitoring the house in case she tried to run.

After leaving the airport, J’s mother called police. The girl was taken to a hospital, where her mother saw the extent of the havoc wreaked upon her daughter for the first time.

east-orange-police.JPGA report taken by the East Orange police about the girl's wounds reads: "This officer observed severe scars which appeared to have gotten infected and did not heal properly. There were also open wounds all over her body and she appeared to have been burned over most of the entire portion of her mouth area with some sort of chemical, possibly bleach." 

"She looked like she’d been freaking tortured. They started to examine her and take off her shirt … and I couldn’t’ stay in the room," the mother said, shaking as she spoke. "That was the first time I saw her body. All I could see was pink marks."

The report drafted by East Orange Police after they first spoke with J sums up the damage in one painful paragraph.

"This officer observed severe scars which appeared to have gotten infected and did not heal properly. There were also open wounds all over her body and she appeared to have been burned over most of the entire portion of her mouth area with some sort of chemical, possibly bleach," the report reads.

LEGAL CASE

The case was turned over to Fort Pierce, Fla., police, who immediately interviewed Williams, Sgt. James Gagliano said.

"She denied ever abusing the child, and said the child came to her with all those marks several months ago," Gagliano said. "She said she never brought her to a doctor because she did not want to be accused of beating the child."

J’s relatives were ruled out as suspects early in the investigation, according to Gagliano, because pictures of the girl taken days before the trip show her smiling and unharmed.

Williams was charged on Sept. 1 and jailed in lieu of $90,000. She was free on bail the next day.

She faces up to 75 years in prison if convicted on all counts and served with consecutive sentences, according to Robyn Stone, the assistant state’s attorney in Florida who is prosecuting the case.

"You’ve seen the photos," she said. "When someone brings us a case with those photos, the bottom line is we take them very seriously."

A message left at Williams’ home was not returned, and Stone said she does not have an attorney.

Some of J’s wounds have healed, but the fading black scars around her mouth are still visible. She is attending school again and visiting a therapist.

Despite all the damage done to her daughter, and the fear that J will have to relive it all if she testifies at Williams’ trial, the mother lulls herself to sleep with one thought.

At least her daughter is home again.

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Ex-DJ Dave Herman will appear in federal court in NJ tomorrow, lawyer says

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Dave Herman, who ruled the rock airwaves at WNEW-FM for years with his calm, smooth demeanor on the famous “Dave Herman Rock and Roll Morning Show,” will not contest at tomorrow's hearing his ongoing detention, his lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said.

dj-dave-herman-square-shot-2.jpgFederal authorities charged former New York City DJ Dave Herman with trying to transport a 7-year-old Bergen County girl to the U.S. Virgin Islands to sexually abuse her. Herman, pictured in this Getty photo, never worked in any capacity for SiriusXM Radio.

Dave Herman, the ex-DJ from New York’s legendary rock station WNEW-FM who last month was arrested on charges of trying to transport a 7-year-old Bergen County girl to the U.S. Virgin Islands to sexually abuse her, will appear in federal court in Newark tomorrow for the first time, his lawyer said today.

Herman, 77, who was detained by authorities on Oct. 24 at the St. Croix airport, where he’d reportedly shown up with a sutffed animal expecting to meet the girl, has been moved through federal custody from St. Croix to Puerto Rico to Oklahoma and now to New Jersey, in advance of tomorrow’s hearing, said Marc Agnifilo, his New York-based attorney.

Herman will make an initial appearance at 1 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Falk, Agnifilo said, in what he expects to be a brief hearing that will mostly consist of Falk reading out the formal charge against Herman. He also expects his client to enter a not guilty plea.

Herman, who ruled the rock airwaves at WNEW-FM for years with his calm, smooth demeanor on the famous “Dave Herman Rock and Roll Morning Show,” will not contest tomorrow his ongoing detention, Agnifilo said.

He is currently being held without bail.

But Agnifilo said he will soon sit down with Herman to put together a “substantial,” bail package that he hopes will be approved by the judge in the next two weeks, if not sooner.

“He understands the reality of it,” Agnifilo said when asked if Herman is okay with waiting until a follow-up hearing to make his motion for bail.

“It’s a substantial case, so the bail package would have to be substantial,” possibly including, he said, some equity or realty property, a sizeable personal recognizance bond, travel restrictions, and perhaps other conditions.

Agnifilo said that while Herman has been held in the Virgin Islands and at other locations, he has only met with him once in person, and had limited phone contact with his client.

He also said he expects that government prosecutors may ask for full detention of Herman, right up until trial in the case.

“I’ve been really mostly concerned about his health,” Agnifilo also said. “I think he’s tired, sort of run down” from being held in detention in various federal facilities.

“It’s a lot of traveling – no phone privileges – it’s just an unsettled environment,” he said.

Herman, who authorities say has properties in both Airmont, N.Y., and St. Croix, was snared in a computer-investigation headed by an officer from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office who chatted with him online, saying she was a 36-year-old single mother from Bergen County with a young daughter named “Lexi,” authorities have said. “Lexi” was the officer’s creation.

As online chats between Herman and the officer continued from 2012 into this year, Herman allegedly tried multiple times to set up meetings with the girl so he could have sex with her, authorities say.

After learning in November 2012 that Lexi was 6 years old, Herman allegedly wrote back that “age 6 is the perfect time to start her being loved that way,” according to the federal complaint filed against him in Newark.

Then, in a Dec. 17, 2012, instant-message chat Herman allegedly had with the female officer, Herman promised he would not hurt Lexi though he might have to be “forceful” with her, the complaint says.

On Sept. 30 of this year, authorities allege, Herman booked and paid for flights from LaGuardia Airport to St. Croix for both the woman and child with the purpose of engaging in sex in St. Croix with the girl.

Agnifilo, after meeting with Herman at the St. Croix jail in late October, described the famous disc jockey as sitting alone, despondent and scared, a man with emphysema trapped in a stifling "bare bones" St. Croix jail.

He also said that Herman may ultimately use an entrapment defense in the case, because Herman believes he was set up by the undercover officer.

Herman made an initial appearance in St. Croix federal court the day after he was arrested at the airport, but he did not enter a plea at that brief hearing, the A.P. reported. The official charge against him is attempting to transport a minor in interstate commerce with the intent that the minor engage in sexual activity.

If convicted, Herman faces mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life, authorities have said.

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Ex-DJ Dave Herman appears in court on attempted sexual abuse charge

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Marc Agnifilo, Herman's lawyer, said his client would remain in federal custody until they could put together a bail package for the judge.

dj-dave-herman-square-shot-2.jpgFederal authorities charged former New York City DJ Dave Herman with trying to transport a 7-year-old Bergen County girl to the U.S. Virgin Islands to sexually abuse her. Herman, pictured in this Getty photo, never worked in any capacity for SiriusXM Radio.

NEWARK — Renowned ex-DJ Dave Herman appeared in federal court in Newark this afternoon, listening to the attempted sexual abuse charge against him and consenting to his ongoing detention.

But his lawyer also told the judge that Herman will appear in court again soon to propose a bail package, hoping to win his release then.

Herman, 77, has been in federal custody since he was arrested on Oct. 24 at the St. Croix airport on charges of attempting to transport a 7-year-old Bergen County girl to the U.S. Virgin Islands to sexually abuse her there. Reports have said that Herman brought a stuffed animal with him to airport, and his lawyer confirmed that fact today. Authorities allege that Herman, who has a home in St. Croix, went to the airport with the intent of meeting the girl and her mother there, so he could then bring the girl to his house and abuse her.

If convicted, Herman faces a minimum penalty of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life, authorities have said.

Wearing a yellow jail-issued jumpsuit and appearing thin and tired in court today, Herman said only the word "yes" one time, while answering a question from the judge. Before the hearing, he grew emotional, tearing up, frowning and hunching over at one point as he sat in a courtroom chair. During the hearing, he stood for several minutes behind the defense table and looked composed, even as he remained shackled in handcuffs with a heavy metal chain wrapped around his back.

Herman did not enter a plea at the brief hearing. But Agnifilo made clear to reporters afterwards that Herman considers himself to be not guilty and intends to fight the federal charge against him vigorously.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Falk told Agnifilo during the hearing that Herman could come back to court on "short notice" to propose his bail package. Meanwhile, prosecutor Francisco J. Navarro told the judge that he intends to argue Herman should be detained until trial because "he is a severe danger to the community and he is a risk of flight.”

Herman's sister and two of his friends sat in the gallery during the hearing. His sister, crying softly for several minutes, alternately stared at Herman and looked downward, a tissue balled in her hands. Herman looked back at her often, nearly crying himself as he mouthed the words "I love you" to her, at one point.

Herman was a famous disc jockey for decades at the now-legendary New York rock station WNEW-FM. Today, he still has legions of fans in the New Jersey and New York region, many of whom remember him ruling the rock airwaves during the 1970s with his calm, smooth demeanor on the “Dave Herman Rock and Roll Morning Show,”

In an interview yesterday, Agnifilo said he'd only had one chance to meet with Herman since he was arrested in St. Croix. But, he said, now that authorities had transported Herman to New Jersey, he will speak with him in the forthcoming days and work with his client on putting together the bail package.

“I’ve been really mostly concerned about his health,” Agnifilo also said yesterday. “I think he’s tired, sort of run down” from being held in detention in various federal facilities since his arrest.

“It’s a lot of traveling – no phone privileges – it’s just an unsettled environment,” he said.

Herman, who authorities say lives in both Airmont, N.Y., and St. Croix, was snared in a computer-investigation headed by an officer from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office who chatted with him online, saying she was a 36-year-old single mother from Bergen County with a young daughter named “Lexi,” authorities have said. “Lexi” was the officer’s creation.

As online chats between Herman and the officer continued from 2012 into this year, Herman allegedly tried multiple times to set up meetings with the girl so he could have sex with her, authorities say.

After learning in November 2012 that Lexi was 6 years old, Herman allegedly wrote back that “age 6 is the perfect time to start her being loved that way,” according to the federal complaint filed against him in Newark.

Then, in a Dec. 17, 2012, instant-message chat Herman allegedly had with the female officer, Herman promised he would not hurt Lexi though he might have to be “forceful” with her, the complaint says.

On Sept. 30 of this year, authorities allege, Herman booked and paid for flights from LaGuardia Airport to St. Croix for both the woman and child with the purpose of engaging in sex in St. Croix with the girl.

Agnifilo, after meeting with Herman at the St. Croix jail in late October, described the famous disc jockey as sitting alone, despondent and scared, a man with emphysema trapped in a stifling "bare bones" St. Croix jail.

He also said that Herman may ultimately use an entrapment defense in the case, because Herman believes he was set up by the undercover officer.

Herman made an initial appearance in St. Croix federal court the day after he was arrested at the airport. The official charge against him is attempting to transport a minor in interstate commerce with the intent that the minor engage in sexual activity.

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Judge lifts bail restrictions on couple accused of abusing adopted and foster children

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U.S. District Judge Katherine Hayden ruled that in light of a recent family court decision, the restrictions would appear to do little to keep the Jacksons from influencing future testimony in their case.

A federal judge yesterday lifted the bail restrictions of home confinement and GPS monitoring against Army Maj. John Jackson and his wife, Carolyn — each charged with abusing their adopted and foster children for years.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Hayden ruled that in light of a recent family court decision, the restrictions would appear to do little to keep the Jacksons from influencing future testimony in their case.

But Hayden sternly warned both Jacksons — seated next to each other with stoic expressions in a Newark courtroom — "not to discuss" the case with their three biological children, who prosecutors claim were forced to take part in the abuse.

As she leveled that warning, Hayden also said, "I’m looking them (John and Carolyn Jackson) right in the eye."

Yesterday’s hearing was the second held in five weeks on the Jacksons’ bail-related restrictions before trial. In November, Hayden ruled the Jacksons could see their biological children on certain occasions during the holiday season, despite "strong" objections from prosecutor Melissa Jampol who laid out concerns the couple would try to influence the children’s testimony.

Rubin Sinins, John Jackson’s lawyer, noted yesterday a state family court judge had recently granted the Jacksons more "liberal" visitation with their biological children, including once-a-week overnight supervised visits at the home of the children’s current guardian. Especially given that decision, Hayden said, keeping the Jacksons under GPS monitoring or home detention appeared to do little to mitigate the "risk" of them influencing the children’s testimony.

"We have to honor what everybody knows is the bond these people have with their (biological) children," Hayden said, noting that lifting the two bail restrictions might help the Jacksons spend productive time with their biological children since they’ll be able to do more.

The judge also pointed out, "For the Jacksons to go out and create a fresh record of non-compliance (by influencing future testimony) would be a form of suicide (to) their ongoing efforts to defend themselves."

The Jacksons lost custody of children they fostered and adopted between 2005 and 2010, authorities have said. (The names of the children are not public.)

Wearing full military dress, John Jackson, 37, sat calmly in court and did not speak. Nor did his wife, Carolyn, 35. They left quickly afterwards, saying they had no comment. Their attorneys declined to comment, too.

On April 30, federal prosecutors announced a 17-count indictment against the Jacksons that accused them of beating their adopted and foster children with a "deadly weapon," breaking bones, failing to get them medical help and training their biological kids to take part in mistreatment. The document alleged the Jacksons force-fed children red pepper flakes. It also said they blocked a child from drinking water, then made an older biological child "watch over to prevent (the child) from drinking out of sinks and toilet bowls."

Both Jacksons face a maximum of 10 years in prison on each count — which include endangering the welfare of a child and assault — if convicted. The abuse allegedly happened when the Jacksons lived at the Picatinny Arsenal, a federal Army installation in Morris County.

Several friends of the Jacksons, including some who’d said they had seen the parents with their foster and adopted children, have defended the Jacksons publicly.

Jampol yesterday accused the Jacksons of "repeatedly refus(ing) to follow the dictates of the family court" by visiting biological children alone — and she said "the defendants have a long history of making misleading statements." Hayden pointed out that she "consider(s) the family court to be the arbitrar" of the children’s best interests. The judge also noted "this case is unusual … stand(ing) for the intersection between bail in the federal (criminal) system and (a) family court matter," which is concerned with the best interests of children.

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Seafood company and owner admit to overharvesting sea scallops off N.J. coast

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The Maine-based seafood wholesaler handed over documents showing it failed to report about 79,666 pounds of scallops that were harvested off the New Jersey coast and Cape Cod in Massachusetts, authorities said.

scallop-boats.JPGScallop boats, unrelated to this case, sit off the coast of Cape May in this 2010 file photo. 

A Maine seafood company and one of its owners admitted in federal court in Newark today to conspiring to falsify records and obstruct justice in an effort to conceal overfishing of Atlantic sea scallops in 2007 and 2008, authorities said.

In admitting its guilt, D.C. Air & Seafood Inc., the Maine seafood wholesaler, handed over documents showing it failed to report about 79,666 pounds of scallops that were harvested off the New Jersey coast and Cape Cod in Massachusetts, authorities said.

Six fishing boat operators who conspired with D.C. Air & Seafood, authorities said, hauled in the scallops from a fishing ground off the mid-Atlantic Coast that was regulated in order to help keep its scallop population at proper levels.

Today, D.C. Air & Seafood and owner, Christopher Byers, 41, of Maine, pleaded guilty to separate charging documents alleging they’d conspired with each other and the six fishing boat operators to prepare false reports to hide the over-harvesting, said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman. Authorities said the six boat operators – several of whom are from Maine – have previously pleaded guilty to charges in the case and await sentencing.

An attorney for D.C. Air & Seafood did not return a telephone call this evening seeking comment.

Authorities, citing case documents and court statements, said D.C. Air & Seafood purchased Atlantic sea scallops harvested by federally permitted vessels in the Elephant Trunk Access Area. The area, authorities said, had once been closed, but was opened to scallop fishing for two-week periods in March 2007, July 2007 and March 2008, with restrictions that no more than 400 pounds of scallops could be harvested per vessel per trip.

According to a charging document, the company was alleged to have gone to the extent, in 2008, of constructing hidden compartments in boating vessels to hide over-harvested scallops.

As part of its plea agreement, D.C. Air & Seafood agreed to pay $520,371 in restitution to the United States, and to be placed on probation for five years. The company has also agreed not to participate in the scallop industry during that time.

Byers faces a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, when he is sentenced in March, authorities said.

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Car stop for inoperable headlight near GWB leads to pot bust of N.J. man

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NJ man also had open warrants, police say

carter.jpgNathaniel Carter of Westwood was arrested on drug charges following a stop for an inoperable headlight near the George Washington Bridge, police said. 

What began as a vehicle stop for an inoperable headlight near the George Washington Bridge on Thursday night ended with the arrest of a New Jersey man who had a quarter-pound of marijuana, police said today.

At about 7:40 p.m. Thursday, in the area of Bruce Reynolds Boulevard and Lemoine Avenue in Fort Lee, 20-year Port Authority Police veteran Frank Emblem stopped a car that had one headlight out, police said.

After noticing a strong smell of marijuana from inside the car, the officer received permission from 25-year-old Nathaniel Carter of Westwood to search the sedan, police said.

Emblem found a jar containing about 90 grams of marijuana, a sealed plastic bag containing about 30 grams of marijuana and a small electronic scale with marijuana residue, police said.

Carter, who also had numerous open warrants, was arrested on controlled substance charges and had numerous traffic infractions, police said.

He was arraigned today at the George Washington Bridge police facility and scheduled to go to the Bergen County jail in lieu of $5,000 bail, police said.

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Three men sentenced for conspiring to possess and sell stolen prescription medication

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The three men were arrested in May 2012 as part of multi-state federal sweep, spanning from New Jersey to Texas, targeting a Miami-based stolen goods ring

paul-fishman-drug-ring-arrests.JPGU.S. Attorney General for New Jersey Paul Fishman is pictured in this 2011 file photo. Fishman's office charged about dozen defendants in New Jersey tied to a massive cargo theft case that spanned multiple states. Three of the defendants were sentended today.

NEWARK — Three Florida men were sentenced today in Newark federal court to years in prison for conspiring to possess and sell thousands of dollars of stolen prescription respiratory medicine, at least some of which was brought into New Jersey in an attempt to sell it to an undercover government source, authorities said.

The men were charged in May 2012 as part of a multi-state federal sweep that targeted a major Miami-based stolen goods ring. At the time of the sweep, authorities called it the biggest cargo theft takedown in U.S. history, allegedly including more than $100 million in goods.

Criminal complaints in the case were filed in federal court in New Jersey, Florida, Connecticut and Illinois detailing an operation that stole and sold an eclectic litany of products including pharmaceuticals, hair care products and boxes of respiratory medicine. Ring members made off with millions of dollars in cancer drugs and antidepressants, and carried away loads of whiskey, inflatable boats and cigarettes.

Federal law enforcement sources have said the operation was penetrated by an FBI cargo theft task force in New Jersey after a buy-and-bust sting involving a load of pharmaceuticals stolen in Georgia led investigators to Florida.

In New Jersey, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman charged about a dozen defendants, nine of whom have now been sentenced, authorities said.

Earlier today, U.S. District Judge William Martini in Newark sentenced Ernesto Romero-Vidal, 48, to more than 6 ½ years in prison; Rocke R. Lopez-Batista, 28, to more than three years in prison; and Ariel Garcia, 40, to a year and a half in prison, authorities said. Each defendant must also pay $264,900 in restitution. Lopez-Batista’s and Romero-Vidal’s sentences will run concurrently with other sentences they are already serving, authorities said.

All three defendants previously pleaded guilty to separate charges of conspiracy to possess stolen prescription medicine, authorities said. Romero-Vidal also pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiring to receive and sell stolen goods, including pharmaceuticals belonging to drugmakers Bayer, Perrigo and Sandoz Inc., authorities added.

Authorities, citing case documents and court statements, said Romero-Vidal, Lopez-Batista and Garcia have admitted that between September 2009 and October 2009 they conspired with others to possess prescription respiratory medicine made by Mylan Inc. that was taken from a stolen tractor-trailer in Tampa, Fla., on Sept. 8, 2009. On Oct. 20, 2009, certain conspirators in the criminal operation allegedly delivered samples of the stolen prescription medicine to an undercover government source in Elizabeth, N.J., authorities said. Nine days later, Garcia and a co-conspirator allegedly delivered a tractor-trailer containing stolen medicine to a government source. Later that day, Lopez-Batista, Garcia and another co-conspirator attended a meeting in Garcia’s Florida home during which a confidential source gave them $140,000 for the stolen medicine, authorities also say.

Standing in dark green jail scrubs, both Lopez-Batista and Romero-Vidal expressed contrition at their sentencing hearings today. Lopez-Batista said, "I’m very sorry for what I did in the past. Since I gave my life over to God, I’ve changed my life, to be a better citizen. I’m sorry."

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Major rhino horn smuggler pleads guilty; officials cite 'unprecedented levels' of poaching

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Zhifei Li, a 29-year-old from China's Shandong Province, admitted in a Newark courtroom to being the boss of an operation that in recent years smuggled $4.6 million worth of rhinoceros horns

SOUTH AFRICA FEATURE PA(2).JPGA white rhino and her calf on a game farm in the Waterberg District, some 350km north-west of Johannesburg, South Africa. 

NEWARK — Shortly after the leader of an international ring of rhino horn smugglers pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey and other federal officials raised an alarm about the damage being done to one of the largest animals still roaming the earth.

Rhinos, they said, have no known predators other than humans.

But it is humans, according to U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman and other officials, who are increasing their poaching and killing of rhinoceroses and other endangered species to "unprecedented levels," making it possible that all rhino sub-species will become extinct in our lifetimes. The killing is fueled, Fishman said, by an incredibly lucrative black market for wildlife parts such as rhino horns, which are immensely valued in cultures like China’s as ornamental carvings and good luck charms.

On Thursday, Zhifei Li, 29, from China’s Shandong Province, admitted in a Newark courtroom to being the boss of an operation that in recent years smuggled $4.6 million worth of rhinoceros horns and numerous objects made from rhino horns and elephant tusks from the United States to China.

After the hearing, Fishman said Li, a thin, quiet man who was chained and handcuffed in court, sat "at the top" of "the pantheon of those (wildlife smugglers) prosecuted by the Department of Justice."

In a post-hearing media conference call, Fishman and officials in Washington also said the arrest and conviction of Li was "one of the most significant prosecutions" ever done in the wildlife smuggling arena. And they said it was meant to serve as a major warning to other wildlife smugglers and traffickers.

They also said that it helped give more teeth to a President Obama-issued executive order from this summer that called on agencies to coordinate and do more to combat wildlife trafficking, which Obama reportedly called a "an international crisis."

"The brutality of animal poaching, wherever it occurs, feeds the demand of a multibillion-dollar illegal international market," Fishman said on Thursday in a statement.

"As a major hub of international commerce through our ports and busy airports," he said, "the District of New Jersey plays an important role in curbing the escalation of this devastating trade. Zhifei Li’s conviction is a warning to those who would be lured by the profits of dealing in cruelty."

rhino-horn.jpgView full sizeDefendant Li buying raw rhino horns from covert federal agent with cash on the table at a Miami Beach hotel.  

Added Wifredo A. Ferrer, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, where Li had also faced federal charges, "The illegal trade in rhino horn has devastated the wild population of these magnificent animals; with the real possibility emerging that all sub-species will be extinct. Additionally, the poaching activities have cost the lives of enforcement rangers and wardens as the traffickers have resorted to greater levels of violence to feed the black market."

Authorities also noted that in China, trafficked rhino horns rake in about $17,500 a pound. And Dan Ashe, the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said on the conference call that this year in South Africa alone, more than 940 rhinos have been killed.

Li, the owner of an antiques business in Shandong, China, called Overseas Treasure Finding, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Esther Salas to 11 criminal counts: one count of conspiracy to smuggle and violate the Lacey Act; seven counts of smuggling; one count of illegal wildlife trafficking in violation of the Lacey Act; and two counts of making false wildlife documents.

At his sentencing on April 1, he will face up to 10 years in prison on each of the seven smuggling counts, and up to five years on each other count, authorities said. He has also agreed to forfeit $3.5 million in proceeds of his criminal activity as well as several Asian artifacts, they added.

Li was arrested in January, authorities said, after he came to Miami from China and quickly bought two black rhino horns. But the federal investigation of Li began in November 2011, authorities noted, after a government confidential informant sold two raw rhino horns to a middleman at the Vince Lombardi rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. Those horns were, in turn, sold to a Long Island City antiques dealer who was working for Li, authorities said.

In court papers filed in Newark, authorities said, Li admitted that he was the "boss" of three antiques dealers in the United States whom he paid to help obtain wildlife items and smuggle them to him in China. Fishman said that, in total, Li sent hundreds of thousands of dollars into the United States for the purchase and then shipping of rhino horns and elephant tusks and items made from those animal parts.

According to authorities, Li admitted that he sold 30 smuggled, raw rhinoceros horns worth approximately $3 million to factories in China where raw rhinoceros horns are carved into fake antiques known as Zuo Jiu (which means "to make it as old" in Mandarin). In China, authorities said, there is a centuries old tradition of drinking from an intricately carved "libation cup" made from a rhinoceros horn. Owning or drinking from such a cup is believed by some to bring good health, and true antiques are highly prized by collectors.

The leftover rhino horn pieces from the fake antique carving process were sold for alleged "medicinal" purposes even though rhino horn is made of compressed keratin, the same material in human hair and nails and has no proven medical efficacy, authorities said.

After Thursday’s hearing, Li’s attorney said he and Li had no comment.

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Christmas Day killing of two teens, 13 and 15, caps spasm of holiday violence in Essex County

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The Christmas Day killings of two teenagers in Newark pushes the city's homicide total to a six-year high and follows several high-profile acts of violence across Essex County.

mormon.jpgFacebook images of Kasson Mormon, 15, who was shot to death Christmas Day in Newark. The shooting also killed a 13-year-old girl and injured Kasson's friend, 14-year-old Abdul "Scooter" Frazier. 

A violent holiday season in Essex County has grown even bloodier with the Christmas Day killings of a 15-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl, who was struck by a stray bullet as she threw out the trash in front of her Newark home.

The shooting on Schley Street, in the city’s South Ward, killed Zainee Hailey, a seventh-grader at a nearby elementary school and a singer in her church choir, and Kasson Morman, who attended Central High School.

Kasson’s close friend — 14-year-old Abdul "Scooter" Frazier, a freshman at Weequahic High School — was shot in the neck and seriously injured.

Authorities released no motive for the attack, but two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation said it appeared one of the boys had been targeted as the pair stood on the porch of a three-story home in the 100 block of Schley Street. Abdul lived on the home’s first floor, a relative said.

Zainee, who lived on the third floor, simply stumbled into the gunfire as she and her 7-year-old brother carried trash to the street that night, police said. The brother was not injured.

The shooting pushed Newark’s 2013 homicide total to 102 — the highest since 2007 — and marked the latest in a series of high-profile slayings that have rocked communities around Essex County over the past two weeks.

The spasm of violence includes the shooting death of Hoboken lawyer Dustin Friedland, 30, during a carjacking at the upscale Mall at Short Hills; the killing of college freshman Reginald Terry, 18, at a party in Newark; and the spray of gunfire that left three people dead and two others injured outside an Irvington go-go bar shortly after midnight on Christmas Day.

slicks.JPGThree people were killed and two were wounded in a shooting early Christmas morning at Slick's Go-Go Bar in Irvington. 

By late last night, no arrests had been made in either of the Christmas killings.

In a statement, Newark Mayor Luis Quintana urged anyone with information about the shooting on Schley Street to contact police.

"Our entire city is in mourning over the tragic death of two Newark youths, and the near-fatal injury of another," Quintana said. "I would like to extend my sincerest condolences and heartfelt prayers to all of the families who are being affected by this senseless act of violence."

Relatives and friends of the surviving teen gathered last night at Newark’s University Hospital, where the youth was breathing with the aid of a ventilator, said Charco Marrow, 16, who described himself as Abdul’s "godbrother."

He said Abdul regained consciousness after undergoing surgery and was able to nod his head. He said doctors expected him to survive.

Abdul had recently become a father, and Kasson, the slain 15-year-old, was about to become a father as well, the friend said.

Another relative, a woman who described herself as Abdul’s aunt but who declined to give her name, said family members don’t yet know what was behind the shooting.

Abdul, she said, was just "minding his own business" and opening the door for Kasson when the gunfire erupted.

The killer or killers struck about 10 p.m., when many in the neighborhood were still up and about. Junior Clark, who lives around the corner on Bragaw Street, said he first heard a shot near the corner of Bragaw and Schley streets. Then, he saw three young men pass by.

"I heard them say, ‘Let’s go back, let’s go back’ and they turned around and passed me," Clark said.

Minutes later, he heard more shots fired outside 102 Schley St., where all three victims were hit.

newark-schley-street-shooting-teenagers.JPGTwo teens were killed and another youth was wounded in a shooting Christmas night on Schley Street in Newark. 
Another resident said he saw a single shooter, wearing a mask and a black jacket, running down Schley Street before cutting through yards to a neighboring street.

"All you could see was his eyes," the witness said. The man asked that his name be withheld, saying he feared he would be targeted for death if he were identified.

Relatives of the slain girl could not be reached for comment. Her grandfather, Michael Peterson, told the New York Post that Zainee and her family had been at his house for Christmas dinner shortly before the shooting.

"She was in great spirits," Peterson told the newspaper.

He described his granddaughter as a well-spoken child who was active in her church choir and who portrayed the Virgin Mary last Christmas in a youth ministry play.

Zainee loved to read, he said, and was especially excited about one of her Christmas gifts, a Kindle Fire. It was her first electronic gadget, and the girl looked "the happiest I’ve ever seen her," Peterson told the newspaper.

"I was just sitting here wondering, trying to put it all together. How? Why?" Peterson asked. "Another … angel gone. It’s like a dream."

Neighbors said Zainee, a student at Bragaw Avenue School, was a cheerleader and could sometimes be seen practicing her routines outside her home.

Yesterday, those neighbors mourned the girl and worried for their own children, noting that violence has become increasingly common in the neighborhood. Since 2011, at least two men have been killed and several other injured in the three-block section of Schley that runs north of Route 78. Everyone wonders who’s next.

"These days, bullets don’t have names on them," said Ida Johnson, who has lived on the street for about three years with her daughter and grandchildren.

Abdul and Kasson grew up together in the Seth Boyden housing project off Frelinghuysen Avenue in Newark, according to their Facebook pages. They moved out when the project, blighted by crime and poverty, was shut down last year.

Abdul knew the dangers of the streets and told others he was working to avoid them, said Bashir Akinyele, his history teacher at Weequahic High and a founder of the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition.

"I can only vouch for what happens at school, but as far as I know, he’s never been in trouble," Akinyele said. "To hear he got shot, I’m just heartbroken over that."

Staff writers Seth Augenstein, Kelly Heyboer, Naomi Nix, Mark Di Ionno and James Queally contributed to this report.

Editor's note: The spelling of Kasson Morman's last name has been corrected.

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Grandfather of Christmas Day shooting victim: 'We can't let this young lady's death be in vain'

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Zainee Hailey's grandfather said the kind of violence that claimed the 13-year-old girl 'has to stop somewhere'

The grandfather of the 13-year-old Newark girl gunned down while taking out the trash on Christmas night said he hopes the child’s death will serve as a wakeup call about the violence rippling through the community.

“We can’t let this young lady’s death be in vain,” Michael Peterson, 54, said in the living room of his Elizabeth home. “It has to stop somewhere.”

Peterson paused.

“It has to start somewhere.”

Peterson’s granddaughter, Zainee Hailey, was struck by a stray bullet at about 10 p.m. Christmas night outside her family’s home on Schley Street in Newark. Zainee, a seventh-grader at Bragaw Avenue Elementary School, was bringing out the trash with her 7-year-old brother. The younger child was unharmed.

Also killed in the shooting was Kasson Morman, 15, a student at Central High School. Morman’s friend, Abdul “Scooter” Frazier, was seriously injured and remained hospitalized today. Abdul lived on the home’s first floor.

Peterson and his wife, Vivian, gave their granddaughter a Kindle on Christmas Eve. The girl was an avid reader, and her family had big plans for her.

“She was smiling from ear to ear,” Peterson said. “College — that was the goal.”

A typical day for Zainee would involve school, homework and chores, then reading and watching movies in her free time, Peterson said.

On Christmas night, there was no school or homework. But there were the chores, Peterson said.

“That’s why it was so tragic - she was just doing chores,” the grandfather said.

Zainee lived in the Schley street apartment with her mother and father, two sisters and a brother. The youngest sister, Adriana, was born Nov. 27, Peterson said. That in and of itself was a recent source of pride for Zainee.

“Pop pop , I fed the baby,” he recalls her telling him on Christmas Eve.

Today, Peterson said, he remains dumbfounded by the senselessness of his granddaughter’s death.

“We’re talking kids,” he said.

Peterson paused again.

“On Christmas.”

Star-Ledger staff writer Mark Mueller contributed to this report.

In Christmas Day killings, a search for meaning, a call for justice

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Zainee Hailey's grandfather said the kind of violence that claimed the 13-year-old girl 'has to stop somewhere'

By Lisa Rose and Seth Augenstein

In the teeth of ache and loss, Michael Peterson searched for meaning today.

Three days earlier, Peterson’s 13-year-old granddaughter had been part of a festive Christmas Eve gathering at his Elizabeth home. Zainee Hailey beamed as she opened presents and spoke with pride about feeding her new baby sister, not yet a month old.

A day later, Zainee was dead, struck in the torso by a stray bullet as she carried trash bags from her family’s Newark apartment to the street. The same spray of gunfire killed a 15-year-old boy and seriously injured a 14-year-old boy.

There had to be meaning, Peterson said, suggesting Zainee’s death serve as a wakeup call to residents and elected officials fed up with the violence rippling through New Jersey’s communities.

"We can’t let this young lady’s death be in vain," he said. "It has to stop somewhere."

Peterson paused.

"It has to start somewhere."

As the grandfather spoke, authorities continued the search for the killer or killers in the Newark shooting, one of two deadly but unrelated attacks on Christmas Day. In the other incident, a gunman opened fire outside an Irvington go-go bar, killing three men and wounding two others. That shooting, too, remained unsolved last night.

In both cases, the Essex County Crimestoppers program has put up a $10,000 reward for information that helps lead to arrests and convictions. The Crimestoppers hotline may be reached at (973) 877-8477. Callers have the option to remain anonymous.

Zainee’s death, particularly, has heightened outrage over violence in Newark. On Twitter and Facebook, residents began organizing a march on City Hall, scheduled for Monday. Protesters were asked to bring plastic trash bags to drive home the point that, in Newark, taking out the trash can get you killed.

Peterson, 54, said the funeral for his granddaughter will be held at 9 a.m. Tuesday at New Zion Baptist Church, where Zainee sang in the youth choir.

In a neighborhood increasingly gone to car theft and violence, where the number of vacant houses grows by the year, Zainee kept her focus on school, church and family, the grandfather said.

Zainee lived with her parents, a 7-year-old brother and two sisters on the top floor of a three-story home on Schley Street, adjacent to Route 78 in Newark’s South Ward.

She took special pride in her youngest sister, born Nov. 27.

"Pop pop, I fed the baby," Peterson recalled her telling him on Christmas Eve.

It was a happy night, he said, and Zainee was "smiling from ear to ear" over one of her presents, an electronic tablet, because she loved to read. He said he had no doubt she would go on to college.

A day later, on Christmas night, Zainee and her brother performed their Wednesday night ritual. They would bring the trash to the street, then race back up the stairs to see who could get back to the apartment first, Peterson said.

Only the 7-year-old returned.

Today, Peterson said he remained dumbfounded by the senselessness of his granddaughter’s death.

"We’re talking kids," he said.

Peterson paused again.

"On Christmas."

Two law enforcement officials previously told The Star-Ledger they suspect the gunman targeted one of the two other victims, close friends who grew up together.

Abdul Frazier, 14, known by the nickname "Scooter," lives on the first floor of the Schley Street home. Frazier, who family members said was shot in the neck, remained at University Hospital in Newark today.

Picture 29.pngKasson Morman, 15, of Newark, was killed on Christmas night in a triple shooting. 

Kasson Morman, the 15-year-old, was killed in the attack.

Authorities said the friends, who attended different high schools in Newark, were standing on the porch when the shots were fired. Witnesses reported seeing as many as three people, described as boys or young men, running away.

At the Morman home in the South Ward, family members recalled an idyllic Christmas morning, with holiday music playing as Kasson cooked breakfast, baking biscuits and stirring eggs, for his entire family.

Kasson lived at the home with his parents, his grandmother, three aunts, four uncles and two brothers, ages 19 and 13.

"He was a nice kid," the older brother, Shaquan Reeds, said this afternoon. "He wasn’t into the street life. He was a fun guy who liked to make jokes and loved to dance. He spent the day with us and then he said he was going to hang out with his friends. It seemed like he had just left when I got the call that my brother had been shot. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what’s going on."

Morman’s relatives said Kasson, a student at Central High School, played baseball and hoped to become a professional hip-hop dancer.

Kasson-Mormon-3.jpgAn undated photo of Kasson Morman, 15, who was shot to death Christmas night in Newark. 

"He had so much talent from such a young age," his uncle, Jalil McArthur, said. "He was a vibrant kid. When the beat came on, he was the one to move. I thought he was going to grow up to be famous. He was grounded in dance. He was known in the community for his dancing."

Kasson’s father, Richard Morman, said his son developed "The Boyden Dance," a series of sassy moves named for the Seth Boyden housing project in Newark, where the family once lived.

"He made his own little dance up," Richard Morman said. "All the little kids did that dance."

Richard Morman said he believes his son was the victim of a random act of violence.

"He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time," the father said. "He wasn’t a troublemaker. He wasn’t in gangs, anything like that."

Staff writers David Giambusso and Mark Mueller contributed to this report.

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In Edison P.D. eavesdropping probe, prosecutor seizes hard drives from police chief, other cops

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Authorities are trying to determine if members of the Edison Police Department illegally listened in on private conversations through hidden microphones

As it investigates allegations of illegal eavesdropping in the Edison Police Department, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office has seized the hard drives from a half-dozen police computers, including those used by the chief and the head of internal affairs.

Investigators plan to analyze the drives to determine if members of the department listened in on private conversations captured by audio-enabled surveillance cameras that were installed throughout headquarters in January, according to three law enforcement officials with knowledge of the probe.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying they feared they would be disciplined or fired for discussing the case without authorization.

The issue has spawned fresh anger and mistrust in a department that has been roiled by infighting and by high-profile episodes of misconduct for years. Both the Policemen’s Benevolent Association and the Superior Officers Association have threatened to file suit, saying the surveillance violates the rights of officers and the public alike.

At the time of the surveillance system’s installation, Chief Thomas Bryan assured the mayor and union officials that microphones attached to the cameras would be disabled everywhere but the cell block, where prisoners are held.

The Star-Ledger disclosed two weeks ago, however, that many of the microphones were active, recording conversations in hallways, in the watch commander’s office and in the lobby outside municipal court, where lawyers typically confer with clients.

thomas-bryan-edison-police-chief-suspended.JPGEdison Police Chief Thomas Bryan 

Under New Jersey’s wiretap statute, it is illegal to secretly record conversations unless at least one participant is aware of the recording or unless prominently placed signs warn of audio surveillance. Video recording, in most instances, is not held to the same strict legal standard.

The microphones were removed after an officer discovered multiple videos with sound earlier this month. A lawyer for the Superior Officers Association later said the union has evidence the secret recordings stretch back to at least October, and union leaders said they suspect the microphones have been active since they were installed 11 months ago.

Jim O’Neill, a spokesman for acting Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey, would neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.

Edison’s business administrator, Maureen Ruane, confirmed Monday the prosecutor’s office signed out six hard drives on Dec. 16. Investigators also removed 22 microphones, Ruane said.

She declined to say whose computers were targeted.

The law enforcement officials with knowledge of the probe said the confiscated hard drives included those used by Chief Bryan and Capt. Matthew Freeman, who heads the internal affairs division.

Others were used by Sgts. Brian Maurath and Thomas Duffy, both interal affairs investigators, and by Jeff Davids, a civilian information technology employee.

Matthew-Freeman.JPGEdison police Capt. Matthew Freeman, seen here in a 2007 file photo, was among those whose hard drives were seized by the prosecutor's office. 

The final hard drive, the officials said, had been used by Sgt. Alan Sciarrillo, who was tasked with monitoring the system and with providing video clips, if requested, by prosecutors or by superiors on the force.

It could not be determined whether the prosecutor’s office took officers’ home computers. With the proper username and password, videos can be monitored from remote locations, the law enforcement officials said.

Investigators previously seized several computer servers from headquarters, temporarily knocking out the department’s email system.

Bryan could not be reached for comment in recent days. He told The Star-Ledger two weeks ago he was unaware the microphones were enabled and ordered them removed as soon as he learned they were recording.

Bill Stephens, an aide to Mayor Antonia Ricigliano, said he fears the surreptitious recordings will result in a flood of costly litigation.

"This whole episode scares me more than anything we have seen so far," Stephens said, referring to the turmoil in the department and the lawsuits they have spurred. "Are we now going to see everyone who has talked inside the building file suit? It’s very disconcerting, and the police department has not been very forthcoming with information."

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N.J. homicides soared to seven-year high in 2013 after surges in Newark, Trenton

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N.J. saw 409 homicides in 2013, the most since 2007. Newark's 111 killings were the city's most since 1990, records show, and Trenton suffered a record-breaking 37 slayings.

Driven by unprecedented bloodshed in Trenton and the most violent 12-month stretch in Newark in nearly a quarter-century, homicides across New Jersey jumped to a seven-year high in 2013, a spike prosecutors and police officials tied to understaffed departments and a growing disregard for life.

A Star-Ledger survey of county prosecutors’ offices found at least 409 people died violently last year.

More than a quarter of those killings took place in Newark, where a spate of Christmas season slayings pushed the homicide total to 111, including one in the final hours of the year. The tally is the highest since 1990. In Trenton, the number of homicides soared to 37, the most in the state capital’s recorded history.

Both cities have been fighting crime with hundreds fewer police officers than they once had, the result of layoffs in 2010 and 2011. Law enforcement officials say they’re also confronting an increasing callousness, particularly among young people.

In Newark, where police Tuesday charged a 15-old-old boy with a Christmas Day shooting that left two teenagers dead and a third seriously injured, Police Director Samuel DeMaio called the case indicative of the culture of violence.

The alleged shooter, law enforcement sources told The Star-Ledger, opened fire because he felt "disrespected" by one of the victims in a dispute over a girl. A stray bullet struck 13-year-old Zainee Hailey, killing her, as she took out the trash.

"This new young generation is the most violent — and has the most disregard for life — that I’ve seen in my 28 years of law enforcement here in Newark," DeMaio said. "Every generation just seems to keep getting worse and worse and worse. These kids have no expectation to live past 25, and why should they?"

The Newark killings, along with a triple murder outside an Irvington go-go bar and the high-profile shooting death of a Hoboken attorney outside the Mall at Short Hills, contributed to a 20 percent increase in homicides in Essex County, the biggest jump of any county in the state.

Other cities that often rank among New Jersey’s most violent enjoyed progress in 2013.

Led by a 50 percent decrease in homicides in Elizabeth, Union County saw slayings drop for the second year in a row, and Atlantic City enjoyed its lowest homicide total in nearly 30 years.

In Camden, where the state’s first regional police force took over from city police this year, homicides fell to 57 from a record-high 67 in 2012.

OLD PROBLEMS

The refrain from law enforcement is familiar.

An influx of high-powered guns and former drug convicts looking to reclaim their turf, combined with a decrease in the number of police officers patrolling New Jersey’s streets, loomed large in the statewide spike.

Mercer County Prosecutor Joseph Bocchini said Trenton’s overwhelmed police force struggled to contain ongoing disputes between local drug crews as the city broke its prior record of 31 killings. That mark, set in 2005, came in the wake of brutal gang wars between the Nietas and Latin Kings street gangs and in the same year the Bloods took control of the drug trade in the state capital.

Now, Bocchini said, some of the names have changed, but the issues remain similar.

"Some of it’s gang, but it’s not gang the way it was back in 2005 when we initiated the county gang task force," he said. "A lot of it, they may be gang members, but they’re more like neighborhood disputes."

Bocchini said police department staffing has played a major role.

"Obviously, when you lose one third of your force, you’re going to have substantial problems," he said. "They are just so overloaded. You’re out, a crime is committed, you have a report to write, another crime is committed and you’ve gotta leave and go back out in the field."

The toll in Trenton might have been higher had a contingent of state troopers not been deployed there in mid-August, dramatically slowing the frequency of killings.

A CALL FOR GUN CONTROL

In Newark, DeMaio reported similar struggles. All too often, he said, drug convicts who returned to the streets wound up outgunned by younger, well-armed dealers who had crept onto their corners.

DeMaio said .45-caliber handguns — far more powerful than the 9 mm weapons once common in Newark — and the proliferation of assault weapons led to the city’s increased number of killings.

"If the federal government is really serious about gun control and the violence that’s taking place, not just in Newark, but in every city throughout this country, they will get strict and do the right thing with the gun laws," he said. "Make them consistent. … Take the guns out of the criminals’ hands."

While homicides and robberies surged, other crimes fell in Newark, DeMaio said. A new task force created to combat nonfatal shootings in the wake of a 2012 Star-Ledger report helped Newark decrease that crime by 23 percent, he said.

Other cities that suffered major layoffs in 2010 and 2011 made their first gains against violent crime in years.

With only three homicides in 2013, Atlantic City saw its lowest number of killings in nearly 30 years, records show.

Paul Loriquet, a spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office, said improved casino security, along with state- and federal-backed takedowns of two of Atlantic City’s largest gangs, played a key role in the dip.

In Camden, Police Chief Scott Thomson said he hopes to build on the success of the new regional police force as the department gains nearly 150 new officers in 2014.

"Considering the Metro (Camden Metro Police) launched on May 1 and did not surpass previous staffing levels until just last week, the progress made thus far has been outstanding by all accounts," Thomson said. "The community loves the engagement from the walking beat cops, and the officers have diligently responded with a 70 percent increase in seizures of illegal firearms."

Jersey City homicides increased last year for the first time since 2009, climbing from 13 to 20. First-year Mayor Steven Fulop blamed the surge on a gang war that left seven people dead in July. The dispute coincided with a mass retirement in the police department’s top ranks.

"We had 25 senior officers retire to take pension payouts," Fulop said. "A gang war ensued, so there was back and forth, and we had a really tough July. But we got our arms around it."

The increasing use of guns to settle petty disputes has played a significant role in the violence, police leaders say. Aware that many killings in Newark are targeted, and often perpetrated by several well-armed gunmen, DeMaio wondered how he is supposed to stem homicides in the city’s shadowy drug sub-culture.

"Those are the types of jobs where somebody makes a decision that they are going to kill Person A," DeMaio said, "and barring somebody calling us ... how do you stop that murder?"

Star-Ledger Staff Writer Mark Mueller contributed to this report.

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Man admits to conspiring to run multi-state prostitution business, including in NJ, feds say

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James Roy Smith pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler in Newark to conspiracy to transport women across state lines to work as prostitutes and transportation of a victim across state lines with the intent that the victim work as a prostitute, authorities said.

fishman.JPG U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman is pictured above in a file photo. James Roy Smith, of Lakewood, Colo., has admitted to conspiring to run a prostitution business in several states, including New Jersey, according to Fishman's office. .  

NEWARK — A Colorado man admitted in federal court today to conspiring to run a prostitution business in several states, including New Jersey, transporting women by plane and car across state lines for prostitution and advertising for customers on websites such as Craigslist and Backpage.com, authorities said.

James Roy Smith, 36, of Lakewood, Colo., admitted that in one instance in June 2010, he checked into an Econo Lodge in Elizabeth under the name “Mister Smith” and then conspired to transport six women in a black Cadillac Escalade from the motel to Philadelphia for prostitution, authorities also said.

Smith pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler in Newark to conspiracy to transport women across state lines to work as prostitutes and transportation of a victim across state lines with the intent that the victim work as a prostitute, according to U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.

On the conspiracy count, Smith faces up to five years in prison if convicted; he faces up to 10 years on the transportation count, authorities said. Sentencing is scheduled for April 29.

Brooke M. Barnett, Smith’s defense lawyer, said that her client “does have remorse” for what he did, and now “he wants to move on with his life.”

“This is something that he had been forthright about” from the beginning of the case, she said of Smith owning up to his guilt. She added that shortly before Smith started his criminal activity in 2009, he suffered through a bad divorce in Colorado and lost his drug-and-alcohol-testing business because of the poor economy.

“Desperate times called for desperate measures,” Barnett said. “Business was bad, the economy had changed.”

Authorities said that from February 2009 to June 27, 2010, Smith conspired with others to operate a prostitution business in locations around the United States, including New Jersey, New Mexico, Nebraska and Pennsylvania. According to a charging document in the case Smith and his co-conspirators, who are not named, placed ads for “adult entertainment:escort services” in various states on Craigslist and Backpage.com to attract customers.

Authorities added that Smith admitted that when he was checked into the Elizabeth Econo Lodge in late June 2010, he also caused a woman to be transported from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to work as a prostitute.

Court papers did not indicate which state or where the women hailed from or give any other information about them.

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Ukrainian man who ran international child porn website pleads guilty, accepts 30-year term

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U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman says the investigation of the website has led to convictions in 47 states of more than 600 American consumers of images of children being sexually assaulted and abused.

computer-porn-charges.JPGMaksym Shynkarenko, 35, pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge William Walls in Newark to one count of a 32-count indictment that accused him of operating a child-exploitation enterprise in connection with an international child porn website he founded.

NEWARK — A Ukrainian man admitted today in federal court in Newark to founding and running a website that for years allowed customers across the world to view images and videos of children — including infants and toddlers — being sexually abused, authorities said.

Officials have touted the case against 35-year-old Maksym Shynkarenko, of Kharkov, Ukraine, as leading to one of the largest and most successful child pornography investigations in U.S. history.

Shynkarenko pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge William Walls to one count of a 32-count indictment that was unsealed in 2012 after Shynkarenko was extradited from Thailand to the United States to face charges. The count to which he pleaded accused him of operating a child-exploitation enterprise in connection with the website, which he ran from 2005 to 2008, authorities say. As part his plea, he agreed to a 30-year prison sentence, they added.

Since Shynkarenko’s extradition, officials have hailed the massive investigation that grew out of discovering the website, which officials say they stumbled across in 2005, in part by reviewing emails found on the computer of a Long Branch man charged in a different case.

In a statement released today, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said the investigation of the Shynkarenko website known as Illegal.CP — and several related websites — has led to convictions in 47 states of more than 600 Americans — including 30 men in New Jersey — who accessed hardcore images and videos of children being sexually assaulted and abused. A 20-day access pass to Illegal.CP cost $79.99 and was billed to a user’s credit card as if merchandise had been ordered from a website, authorities have said.

"The guilty plea of Maksym Shynkarenko is the capstone to an operation that has led to the imprisonment of hundreds of offenders who traded in recorded images of horrific child abuse and torture," Fishman said. "Because of today’s technology, the images of that abuse will be available for years. It’s fitting that Shynkarenko will spend the next three decades of his life in a prison cell."

The long-running probe connected to Shynkarenko — who was arrested in 2009 while vacationing in Thailand — included the wiretapping of email accounts and tracking of credit card transactions to identify subscribers, Fishman has said. And those charged in the probe included sex offenders actively molesting children, the U.S. Attorney has added.

Earlier today, Arkady Bukh, Shynkarenko’s lawyer, noted after the plea hearing that his client had faced hundreds of years in prison on the many counts, which included charges of child exploitation enterprise, transporting and shipping child porn and money laundering, among others. The lawyer repeatedly said his client was a "technical administrator" of the Ukraine-based website only, and he added that Shynkarenko is "not a child pornographer" and not a pedophile.

"I don’t think he ever saw child pornography with his own eyes," Bukh said. "He understands what he did is wrong, he understands it’s a great mistake, and that’s why he took a plea."

The case against Shynkarenko grew out of an unrelated child porn and money laundering investigation involving Regpay, an internet billing company in Belarus that was charged in an international child pornography operation that reaped millions of dollars in fees charged back to credit cards.

That case led to the Long Branch man and his computer, authorities say.

Newark-based undercover agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who subscribed to the Illegal.CP site were warned upon signing in that "our site is considered to be illegal in all countries," authorities say. Authorities say a banner page featured more than a dozen images of minors engaged in sexual acts.

It also said, "you are in [sic] few minutes away from the best children porn site on the net!"

NEW JERSEY RESIDENTS CONVICTED

These are the New Jersey residents convicted and sentenced as a result of the wide-ranging investigation into people who accessed the websites operated by Maksym Shynkarenko, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

• Barks, Edward of Flemington - 78 months
• Bidwell, Richard of Bridgeton - 72 months
• Bogle, Michael of Lindenwald - 51 months
• Bracht, Layne of Matawan - 30 months
• Brown, Michael D. of Jersey City - 51 months
• Burke, Jonathan of Keyport - 33 months
• Cohen, Dr. Larry of Marlton - 55 months
• Dulak, Matthew of Marlton - 9 months house arrest
• Faccibene, Jason of Morganville - 34 months
• Fahey, Brian of Flemington - 41 months
• Fonseca, Francisco of Lodi - 51 months
• Gambale, Vincent of Deptford - 51 months
• Gardell, Jeffrey of Bayville - 46 months
• Hale, Gary of Egg Harbor - 51 months
• Harris, Cory of Vorhees - 26 months
• Knorr, Gene of Somerdale - 41 months
• Lasher, Stephen of Verona - 26 months
• Lutz, Mark of Pompton Plains - 30 months
• McCord, Terrance of Brick - 51 months
• McMichael, Sean of Vorhees - 47 months
• Montemayor, Albert of Pitman - 51 months
• Morales, Eric of South River - 12 months
• Morehouse, William of Kearney - 120 months
• Morgan, Charles of Willingboro - 57 months
• Payne, George of Hoboken - 60 months
• Reagor, Micah of Jersey City - 36 months
• Rigney, Robert of Lakewood - 21 months
• Rosenstein, Dr. Neil of Elizabeth - 51 months
• Santos, Domingo of Morristown - 51 months
• Walsh, Allen of Boonton - 84 months

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Vendor pleads guilty in snow-removal bribery case at Trenton train station

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Allegedly tried to pay $40,000 in bribes to NJ Transit employees for snow-removal contracts

snow-plow-noreaster.JPGA Lakewood vendor has pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe NJ Transit employees in return for snow-removal contracts at the Trenton Transit Center, authorities said.. 

What authorities say began as an attempt to get a snow removal contract at the Trenton Transit Center has ended with two contractors pleading guilty and an NJ Transit supervisor being charged.

Edward O’Neill, 53, president of PPW Contracting in Lakewood, is the third person in the last two months to either plead guilty or be charged in the bribery and conspiracy case, federal authorities said today.

Last month, his vice president, Thomas Braden, pleaded guilty to bribery for agreeing to pay $40,000 to two NJ Transit employees for their help in greasing the skids on the snow-removal contract at the Trenton train station, authorities said.

In November, NJ Transit supervisor Donna Schiereck, who agreed to take $8,000 — and a powerwashing of her house — was charged with agreeing to accept a bribe, authorities said. She retired that month from her position as a manager of station terminals.

In announcing the guilty plea of O’Neill today, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman supplied background materials that showed the bribery and conspiracy case might have gone back as far as September 2011.

Here’s what federal authorities said happened:

Between September 2011 and March 2012, O’Neill and Braden agreed to give an unnamed NJ Transit employee $20,000 for help in securing the 2011-12 winter season snow removal contract at the Trenton station. PPW then handled the snow removal services for the transit center that winter.

After being recorded participating in a bribery and mail fraud scheme, the NJ Transit employee started cooperating with federal authorities in April 2012.

On Oct. 10, 2012, after the federal informant was told by Schiereck that the Trenton snow removal contract for the 2012-13 winter season likely was not going to PPW Contracting, the informant told Schiereck the company offered $16,000 to secure the contract, to be split equally between Schiereck and the informant.

Federal officials said today the actual amount offered by PPW was $20,000.

Using a code phrase, the informant told Braden in a recorded conversation the next day that they “got the snow in Trenton.”

Braden, 55, who pleaded guilty in Newark federal court on Dec. 28, is scheduled to be sentenced on March 25. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

O’Neill faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced on April 22.

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Half of black men, 40 percent of white men arrested by age 23, study finds

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The data comes from self-reported statistics from an annual federal Bureau of Labor Statistics survey of about 7,000 young people who answered questions each year from 1997 to 2008 on a range of issues.

NEW YORK — Nearly 50 percent of black men and 40 percent of white men are arrested at least once on non-traffic-related crimes by the time they turn 23, according to a new study.

One of the authors of the study published this month in the journal "Crime & Delinquency" said the statistics could be useful in shaping policy so that people aren't haunted by arrests when they apply for jobs, schools or public housing.

"Many, many people are involved with the criminal justice system at this level," said Shawn Bushway, a University at Albany criminologist. "And treating them all as if they're hardened criminals is a serious mistake."

The peer-reviewed estimates didn't rely on arrest records but instead on an annual federal Bureau of Labor Statistics survey of about 7,000 young people who answered questions each year from 1997 to 2008 on a range of issues — including if they had ever been taken into custody for something other than a traffic offense. Self-reported crimes ranged from underage drinking to violent assaults.

The authors found that by age 18, 30 percent of black men, 26 percent of Hispanic men and 22 percent of white men have been arrested. By 23, those numbers climb to 49 percent for black men, 44 percent for Hispanic men and 38 percent for white men.

Among women, 20 percent of blacks, 18 percent of whites and 16 percent of Hispanics were arrested at least once by age 23.

Further research on the arrests themselves, convictions and recidivism rates are in the works, said the study's co-author, University of South Carolina criminology professor Robert Brame.

"Among criminologists, I don't think they're that surprised or alarmed by the findings," Brame said. "The alarm and concern is among people not as familiar with the patterns."

The last time a similar estimate was made was in 1967, when researchers using statistics reported to the FBI found that by age 23, 34 percent of all men would have been arrested at least once. Brame and Bushway's estimate for all men is 40 percent.

Overall, the 1967 estimate said 22 percent of all people were arrested at least once for a non-traffic offense by age 23; the new study's overall finding is 30 percent.

Jim Pasco, the executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Fraternal Order of Police, wasn't familiar with the study but said officers are focused on stopping crime as it happens — regardless of race or age.

Kai Smith, 44, who heads a New York City gang diversion group, said he was first arrested at age 12 or 13 for jumping a subway turnstile. He later went on to serve 16 years in state prison for drug possession.

"It's really damaging ... putting handcuffs on a child at 12, 13 or 14 years old," he said. "Even for something like jumping a turnstile, those acts have ripple effects that can be catastrophic."

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed raising the age when criminal suspects go to adult court from 16 to 18, saying he'll establish a commission to plan it and propose steps to protect the public from "a small number of young violent offenders."

Only one other state, North Carolina, treats juveniles this way. Advocates in both states want the age of criminal responsibility raised to 18, with younger teens sent to family court, where they can avoid the dangers of adult jails and prisons and have criminal records sealed.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Waterman, a pastor at Antioch Baptist Church in Brooklyn, said the high arrests rates for young black men create a troubling cycle, where criminal records lead to difficulties gaining lawful employment, which then results in criminal behavior and more arrests.

"It really takes a toll on them and their futures," he said. "Even the process of getting carried down to the police station — it becomes a custom or pattern that becomes part of their lives."

4 men indicted on offenses linked to sex trafficking, feds say

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In 2011, authorities say, the minor was forced into prostitution in upstate New York and then made to go to Philadelphia as her family’s safety was threatened. Watch video

fishman.JPG U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman is pictured above in a file photo. A grand jury today handed up a superseding indictment charging four men with offenses linked to forcing a minor female into prostitution and trafficking her across state lines, Fishman's office said. The superseding indictment added charges against the men. .  

A federal grand jury in Trenton today handed up a superseding indictment charging four men from New York and Pennsylvania with offenses linked to forcing a minor female into prostitution and trafficking her across state lines, federal authorities said.

In 2011, authorities say, the minor was forced into prostitution in upstate New York and then made to go to Philadelphia as her family’s safety was threatened. Once in Philadelphia, she was allegedly physically abused, forced to have sex for money and made to solicit sex at Philadelphia nightclubs. Next, she was driven to New Jersey where she was told she must have sex with a man in order to help blackmail him, authorities said.

Today’s indictment added charges against the four defendants named in it, each of whom were charged by complaint last July with related offenses and detained, said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.

The indicted men are Varian Charles, 29, of Philadelphia; Wilbur Senat, 24, of Haverstraw, N.Y.; Samuel Verrier, 35, of Philadelphia; and Karl Venord, 31, of Philadelphia. Senat and Charles are charged with multiple offenses including conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of children; Verrier and Venord are charged with multiple offenses inlcuding transportation of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity; all of the offenses in the indictment carry a maximum potential penalty of life in prison.

The names of the defendants’ attorneys were not provided in a statement released by Fishman’s office.

Citing case documents, authorities said Senat met the minor in 2011 in upstate New York. Soon he allegedly took her to a Nyack, N.Y., motel where he forced her to engage in sex acts with people who paid Senat. Senat then threatened the victim’s family and made her travel from New York to Philadelphia, authorities said. Once there, Charles and Senat allegedly made the minor stay at Charles’ house and have sex with people who paid the men. Charles and Senat also allegedly physically abused her. At some point, Verrier took over the victim, bringing her to Philadelphia clubs where she was told to solicit patrons for sex acts, authorities said.

In August 2011, Verrier and Venord drove the minor to New Jersey, authorities said, telling her she must have sex with a New Jersey man and take photographs of him, in order to blackmail him. The attempt was unsuccessful, authorities said.

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Former NJ man accused of raping Las Vegas escort spent 11 years in prison for kidapping, burglary

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Police say Mark Picozzi of Las Vegas was arrested Thursday after the employee told investigators she was called to meet a male client in a room at the Cosmopolitan Hotel and forced to have intercourse

picozzi.jpgMark Picozzi 

LAS VEGAS — A 48-year-old former Cherry Hill man has been arrested on suspicion of impersonating a police officer and sexually assaulting an escort service employee at a Las Vegas Strip resort.

Police say Mark Picozzi of Las Vegas was arrested Thursday after the employee told investigators she was called to meet a male client in a room at the Cosmopolitan Hotel and forced to have intercourse.

The woman said she and the man were about to leave the room when he identified himself as a Las Vegas Metro vice officer and offered to help her out if she helped him.

Police say the suspect has no known affiliation with any law enforcement agency, and has been convicted of robbery, kidnapping and impersonating an officer in New Jersey.

He had been sought on an arrest warrant out of New York on a robbery charge.

Picozzi was booked into the Clark County jail on various charges, including sexual assault and impersonating an officer.

Picozzi spent nearly 11 years in prison in New Jersey charges of kidnapping, burglary, aggravated assault, robbery and parole violation, according to a 2009 Press of Atlantic City report. He is a former Cherry Hill resident, according to the Press report.

Star-Ledger staff writer Jeff Goldman contributed to this report.

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NJ Supreme Court panel gets behind effort to deny bail to accused killers

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A panel of judges, lawyers and prosecutors appointed by the state's chief judge supports a proposal to amend the state constitution so that judges can deny bail to accused killers and others charged with first-degree crimes.

A committee appointed by New Jersey’s top judge is poised to recommend amending the state constitution so judges can deny bail to defendants accused of murder and other serious crimes, The Star-Ledger has learned.

Gone would be the eye-catching $2 million bails that have been set for defendants accused in some of the state’s high-profile killings through the years.

In their place, judges could order defendants who are deemed too dangerous to be held without bail in county lockups before trial.

If approved by the 26-member committee of judges, prosecutors and lawyers handpicked by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, the recommendation would lend urgency to measures pending in the state Legislature that would force a historic shift in the role money plays in determining which defendants go free and which remain locked up.

“These are the people who have a depth of experience on this issue,” said Roseanne Scotti, the state director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which has been pushing the state to give up its money-based bail system. “Having them back up what we have been talking about would be huge.”

Currently, judges cannot consider the safety of the community when setting a defendant’s bail. “Money bail may not be used to protect the community by preventing release,” the state Appellate Division declared in March in a decision reaffirming the practice.

Instead, judges can take into consideration the nature of the crime and whether the bail set would ensure that the defendant will show up for his next court appearance.

A resolution sponsored by state Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) would change that.
Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 36 calls for a constitutional amendment allowing judges to deny bail to defendants accused of committing first-degree crimes such as murder, carjacking, kidnapping and sexual assault. In earlier years, when the state still had a death penalty, judges could only deny bail for defendants accused of capital crimes.

The resolution would require voter approval.

It’s garnered broad support from some unlikely bedfellows.

Tough-on-crime politicians such as Gov. Chris Christie say the current system allows dangerous offenders to go free to commit other crimes without a judge having determined whether they pose a danger to the community.

Civil liberties advocates say the current system allows prosecutors to use pretrial detention as a billy club, forcing defendants who don’t have the financial resources to make bail to plead guilty just so they can get out of jail.

‘Irreparably damaged’

“In my conversations with people involved with all aspects of the criminal justice system, there is a consensus that the bail system is irreparably damaged and needs to be transformed into a system that focuses on risk instead of the defendant’s resources,” said Alexander Shalom, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.

Shalom serves on the chief justice’s committee but, like other members of the panel contacted by The Star-Ledger, declined to comment on its recent discussions or potential recommendations.

Privately, though, several committee members said there is a consensus building for the constitutional amendment as well as a shift away from money-based bail.
Still to be determined, they say, is the type of first-degree crimes that would be covered by the amendment.

It has the support of state lawmakers such as Assemblyman John Burzichelli, (D-Gloucester). Burzichelli shares the ACLU’s concern that defendants are being unfairly held before trial, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep them locked up.

“What happened to the right to a fair and speedy trial?” Burzichelli said. “Do we not do that anymore?”

Burzichelli said it’s “too early to tell” whether the amendment measure will pass in this year’s legislative session.

He’s sponsoring a bill that would create pretrial services units in state courthouses that would monitor the whereabouts of defendants released ahead of trial. They would function much like those in the federal system, tracking defendants with the aid of location-monitoring devices affixed to their ankles.

Burzichelli said he hopes the measure will get a hearing in the coming weeks. “I believe there is momentum to do something,” he said.

The chief justice’s committee report is scheduled for release the first week in March, said Winnie Comfort, a spokeswoman for the state courts. It will be followed by a public comment period after which the state Supreme Court will issue its recommendations and findings, she said.

Any changes are expected to be opposed by the state’s bail bond industry, which stands to lose millions of dollars in business if its role is limited.

“I’m not surprised by the recommendation since the panel was seeded in advance and not a single member of the bail industry was invited,” said Jack Furlong, an attorney who represents ABC Bail Bonds, one of the state’s largest bond agencies.

Furlong said that if the state goes ahead with a plan to hold defendants without bail it must be ready to go to trial quickly or risk infringing on an individual’s constitutional right to a speedy trial. And he said the state has never shown an ability to bring defendants to trial just a few months after arrest.

“New Jersey could no longer mount a trial in two months than I could scale Mount Everest,” Furlong said.

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Woman, 19, charged in Craigslist murder claims she's killed at least 22 others

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Miranda Barbour said in the interview she has killed at least 22 other people from Alaska to North Carolina in the last six years as part of her involvement in a satanic cult

SUNBURY, Pa. — A Pennsylvania woman charged along with her newlywed husband with killing a man they met through Craigslist admitted to the slaying in a jailhouse interview with a newspaper and said she has killed more than 20 other people across the country, claims police said they are investigating.

In an interview with The Daily Item in Sunbury, 19-year-old Miranda Barbour said she wants to plead guilty to killing Troy LaFerrara in November. She also said in the interview she has killed at least 22 other people from Alaska to North Carolina in the last six years as part of her involvement in a satanic cult.

"I feel it is time to get all of this out. I don't care if people believe me. I just want to get it out," Barbour told the newspaper for a story published Saturday night.

Sunbury police Chief Steve Mazzeo told the newspaper that investigators were aware of Miranda Barbour's claims of involvement in other murders. He said they are "''seriously concerned" and have contacted police in other jurisdictions.

In a statement issued Sunday, the FBI's Philadelphia division said it had been in contact with Sunbury police and "will offer any assistance requested in the case."

Miranda Barbour's lawyer did not immediately return messages from The Associated Press left at his office Sunday. Mazzeo did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment left at his office Sunday.

Attorneys for Barbour and her husband, 22-year-old Elytte Barbour, have both sought psychiatric evaluations for their clients.

Miranda Barbour's attorney also asked a judge last week to toss out statements she made before she was charged. Public defender Ed Greco said in the motion that Barbour wasn't afforded an attorney despite repeated requests during two police interviews.

Barbour said in the jailhouse interview that she wanted to plead guilty at her arraignment, but that Greco pleaded not guilty for her.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for both defendants in LaFerrara's killing.

Miranda Barbour, a petite woman with long brown hair, told investigators she met the 6-foot-2, 278-pound victim after he responded to her Craigslist ad offering companionship for money.

Elytte Barbour told investigators they committed the crime because they wanted to kill someone together, according to court papers. The couple, who were married in North Carolina and moved to Pennsylvania about three weeks before the crime, told police Miranda Barbour stabbed LaFerrara in the front seat of her car while her husband held a cord around his neck.

Miranda Barbour said in the interview that she doesn't want to get out of jail and that she would kill again if released. She said she had no remorse and killed only "bad people."

Miranda Barbour offered little detail on the murders she claimed to have participated in in Alaska, Texas, North Carolina and California.

She claims she joined a satanic cult in Alaska when she was 13 before moving to North Carolina. Online records for the woman that the newspaper identified as Barbour's mother show her as having lived in both Alaska and North Carolina.

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Sixty-nine fake ID arrests made with help of 'facial recognition technology'

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Brings the total to 107 arrests over the last 13 months


One man, whose driver's license was suspended after six DUI convictions, allegedly used the identity of a disabled relative to get a new license.

A 75-year-old man allegedly used the ID of a dead guy to try to hide a felony.

Still another man got a driver's license by allegedly using the identity of a brother who lives a coast away in California.

They were among 69 people charged by the state Attorney General's Office with obtaining false driver's licenses. The arrests were made with the help of "facial recognition technology" so precise that the distance between eyeballs on a photo can distinguish a person, officials said.

The Attorney General's office said most of the defendants got the fake licenses after their real ones had been suspended, but among the arrested were convicted felons who used aliases to cloak their past.

A year ago, the MVC announced the arrests of 38 New Jersey drivers as a result of facial recognition technology, including a trucker who had been able to get three commercial driver's licenses under three different names, despite having his license suspended 64 times and being convicted of six DUIs.

"Through the facial scrub program, we have charged more than 100 defendants with obtaining false driver's licenses, including truck and bus drivers whose licenses were suspended due to DUI convictions or other serious driving infractions, and sex offenders and other felons who tried to hide their criminal records," Acting Attorney General Hoffman John J. Hoffman said in a news release. "We are aggressively pursuing these cases to get dangerous drivers off our highways and ensure that criminals cannot use this powerful form of identification to commit further crimes."

They were charged with use of personal identifying information of another, tampering with public records or information and, in some instances, forgery, officials said.

"In addition to the obvious law enforcement component of the facial scrub program, having a clean motor vehicle database allows me to offer certain customer service conveniences like our 'Skip the Trip' program," MVC Chairman and Chief Administrator Ray Martinez said.

Since allowing drivers to mail in their license renewals about a year and a half ago, the MVC has received nearly 700,000 renewals in the mail through its "Skip the Trip" program, contributing to a significant cut in the lines and wait times at MVC offices.

The 69 new criminal cases include the following seven defendants, as listed and described by the Attorney General's Office.

• Michael Cuff, 54, of Runnemede, "allegedly used the identity of a disabled relative to obtain a driver's license after his license was suspended in connection with six DUI convictions."

• Neale M. Newenhouse, 75, of Passaic, "who has a felony record that includes a four-year prison term for receiving stolen property, allegedly used the identity of a man who was deceased, John Clifford, to hide his criminal past. He fraudulently obtained a driver's license in the name John Clifford and tried to use that alias when he was later arrested."

• William Gies, 55, of Blackwood, "allegedly used the identity of a brother who lives in California to obtain a driver's license after his license was suspended in connection with five DUI convictions and one refusal to submit to a breath test. He pleaded guilty to tampering with public records and faces a sentence of six months in jail and a term of probation."

• Carlos Shepard, 34, of Hammonton, "fraudulently obtained a driver's license in a false name after his license was suspended for writing bad checks. He has a criminal record that includes convictions for use of a fraudulent credit card and resisting arrest. Shepard pleaded guilty to tampering with public records in connection with the false driver's license and was sentenced to 364 days in jail and four years of probation."

• Dariusz Krzak, 29, of Lawrence, "allegedly obtained a driver's license using the identity of a relative after his license had been suspended in connection with four DUI convictions, including convictions in 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2012."

• Jose Camacho, 48, of Hopatcong, "changed his name and fraudulently obtained a license in order to avoid having his wages garnished for child support payments. Camacho pleaded guilty to tampering with public records and was sentenced to 90 days in jail and two years of probation."

• Ramon Rodriguez, 50, of Camden, "used the identity of a deceased relative of his wife to obtain a license because his license had been suspended as a result of numerous motor vehicle violations. He pleaded guilty to tampering with public records and was sentenced to 90 days in jail and two years of probation."

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Ex-DJ Dave Herman pleads not guilty to attempted sexual abuse charge

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Herman, 77, has been in federal custody since he was arrested on Oct. 24 of last year at the St. Croix airport on a charge of attempting to transport a 7-year-old Bergen County girl to the U.S. Virgin Islands to sexually abuse her there.

dj-dave-herman-square-shot-2.jpgFederal authorities charged former New York City DJ Dave Herman with trying to transport a 7-year-old Bergen County girl to the U.S. Virgin Islands to sexually abuse her. Herman, pictured in this Getty photo, never worked in any capacity for SiriusXM Radio.

NEWARK — Former radio personality Dave Herman was arraigned in federal court today and pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted sexual abuse, authorities said.

U.S. District Judge Faith Hochberg also set a June 30 trial date for Herman, who was immediately remanded back into custody.

Marc Agnifilo, Herman's defense attorney, said after the hearing that motions in the case are due in six weeks. He also said prosecutors from U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman's office have turned over to the defense "many" of the phone calls and internet chats that allegedly implicate Herman.

Herman, 77, has been in federal custody since he was arrested last Oct. 24 at the St. Croix airport on a charge of attempting to transport a 7-year-old Bergen County girl to the U.S. Virgin Islands to sexually abuse her there. Authorities allege Herman, who has a home in St. Croix, went to the airport with the intent of meeting the girl and her mother, so he could then bring the girl to his house and abuse her.

If convicted, Herman faces a minimum penalty of 10 years in prison and a maximum term of life, authorities have said.

Herman's lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, has said Herman maintains his innocence and intends to fight the federal charge.

Herman was a famous disc jockey for decades on New York’s WNEW-FM. He still has legions of fans in the New Jersey and New York region, many of whom remember him ruling the rock airwaves during the 1970s and after with his calm, smooth demeanor on the “Dave Herman Rock and Roll Morning Show,”

Herman, who authorities say lives in both Airmont, N.Y., and St. Croix, was snared in a computer investigation headed by an officer from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office who chatted with him online, saying she was a 36-year-old single mother with a young daughter named “Lexi,” authorities have said. “Lexi” was the officer’s creation.

As online chats between Herman and the officer continued, Herman allegedly tried multiple times to set up meetings with the girl so he could have sex with her, authorities say. After learning in November 2012 that Lexi was 6 years old, Herman allegedly wrote back that “age 6 is the perfect time to start her being loved that way,” according to the federal complaint filed against him in Newark.

On Sept. 30 of last year, authorities allege, Herman booked and paid for flights from LaGuardia Airport to St. Croix for both the woman and child with the purpose of engaging in sex in St. Croix with the girl.

Agnifilo has said that Herman may ultimately use an entrapment defense in the case, because Herman believes he was set up by the undercover officer. He then said that Herman was interested in meeting the mother, Kris, not the child -- and it was the undercover officer who had pushed the "banter" about the child during her internet chats with Herman.

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Religious leaders urge NJ lawmakers to pass bail reform

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Religious leaders from across the state urged New Jersey lawmakers to pass a measure that would allow non-violent offenders to be freed before trial without having to post a monetary bail.

john.mckeon.jpgAssembly Judiciary Committee Chairman John McKeon (D-Morris) held hearings today on a measure that would create a historic shift in how New Jersey courts deal with pretrial defendants.  

TRENTON — Religious leaders called upon New Jersey lawmakers today to reform the state’s money-based bail system so poor defendants aren’t stuck in jail for months at a time because they can’t come up with a few hundred dollars.

Church leaders from across the state used an Assembly judiciary committee hearing to express support for a measure that would shift much of the responsibility for monitoring defendants before trial away from bail bondsmen and onto court officials.

“When money is the primary mechanism for pretrial release, an unjust and dangerous system which punishes the poor and threatens public safety is established,” said the Rev. Vanessa Wilson of the Magnolia Road Church in Pemberton. “One stay in the county jail should not be based on money but based on risk and public safety. Scripture commands us not to take advantage of the poor or cheat them in court.”

Wilson was joined by Pastor Leroy Scott of the Trenton-based Faith Christian Counseling Center, the Rev. Kenneth Clayton of St. Luke Baptist Church in Paterson and the Rev. Doris Glaspy of Roseville Presbyterian Church in Newark, among others.

The measure pending before the committee would require a public vote to amend the state’s constitution so judges in New Jersey could, for the first time, take into account the safety of the community before deciding a defendant’s bail.

Those considered too dangerous to be released could be held without bail while defendants not considered a safety threat would be monitored by pretrial services departments in each county after an assessment of their risk.

Bail bondsmen predicted such a program would create a crushing financial burden for the state at a time of budget constraints.

“The bail industry runs at no cost to the taxpayers,” attorney Jack Furlong told the committee, which is chaired by Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Morris).

Furlong represents ABC Bail Bonds, one of the state’s largest. He has estimated a pretrial services program modeled on one used by the federal justice system could cost the state and counties $50 million. Others have pegged the figure even higher depending on whether the cost of existing court personnel are factored into the final equation.

A portion of the funding for the pretrial services units would come out of court fees charged to lawyers and the public, according to the latest version of a bill sponsored by Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester).

keith.davis.jpgPastor Keith Davis of the Evangelism Today Christian Church in Camden, listens to testimony during an Assembly Judiciary committee hearing on bail reform legislation.  

The first $15 million collected through the "21st Century Justice Improvement Fund" would go to pretrial services units while the rest would go to fund technological upgrades in court filing systems and Legal Services of New Jersey.

“It’s not going to be free,” Burzichelli said. “We’ve got to work out the arithmetic.”

But Burzichelli noted that there will be savings produced by releasing low-level offenders who don’t pose a threat to public safety instead of keeping them locked up before trial at taxpayer expense.

And, he said, under the current system pretrial defendants are being held for such extended periods of time they’re being denied their right to a speedy trial. “We have a significant number of people who are taking plea bargains just because they want to get out,” Burzichelli said.

Among the bill’s biggest proponents is the Drug Policy Alliance, which produced a report last year saying that in October 2012, some 1,500 inmates were being held in county jails because they couldn’t come up with the money to cover a bail of $2,500 or less.

“New Jersey’s bail system is irreparably broken,” Roseanne Scotti, the alliance’s state director, told the committee.

Furlong said the problem lies with the failure of judges and prosecutors to review pending cases so that non-violent offenders being held only because they can’t afford bail are set free before trial.

“If we’re going to reform the bail system can we start by reforming the criminal justice system?,” Furlong said.


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Attorney for Rachel Canning seeks legal guardian for NJ teen who sued parents

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Teen's attorney said says its is critical that if her client does dismiss the lawsuit against her parents, that it be done “of her own free will and not due to the extreme pressure of her parents and the media.”


MORRISTOWN — Hours after Rachel Canning returned home today, her attorney requested a court-appointed legal guardian for the 18-year-old who sued her parents for support.

The request for emergency relief was just as quickly denied by the judge in Morristown who has been handling the high-profile case.

In an application filed in the wake of Canning’s return to her parents, her attorney, Tanya Helfand of Whippany, asked the court to step in.

“Just a few days ago, Rachel Canning indicated she could not go back home with her parents and she required a promise of some financial assistance going forward," Helfand wrote. “Now, after speaking with her mother yesterday, she said she is waiving her complaint and is receiving no promises or consideration in return.”

She said it was critical that if her client does dismiss the matter, that it be done “of her own free will and not due to the extreme pressure of her parents and the media.”

Helfand, who specializes in family law, said the court never determined if Rachel was emancipated or not.

“A psychologist certified that the parents are abusive. School faculty certified that the parents abuse the child,” she wrote.

Tanya_Helfand.jpgRachel Canning last week in the courtroom with John Inglesino and her attorney, Tanya Helfand, who is seeking a legal guardian for the teenager who returned home last evening.  
She said the parents should be responsible for paying for a legal guardian for their daughter.

At the same time, she urged the judge to close the courtroom and put a gag order on all parties.

“All pressure is from defendant. It is critical that the courtroom be closed and that all parties, including counsel, be enjoined from speaking with media any further to avoid further manipulation of this legal matter,” she said.

Family Division Judge Peter Bogaard in Morris County denied the application.

Helfand did not return calls to her office.

Earlier today, Angelo Sarno, an attorney for the Sean and Elizabeth Canning, held a press conference to announce that Rachel had returned home, but did not offer any details as to what sparked the apparent reconciliation.

“There is a long road ahead. The healing needs to begin,” he told members of the media outside his Roseland office. Members of the family were not there.

Sarno said the lawsuit that generated so much attention is still pending, and her return home was not contingent on any financial or other considerations.

“We’re not going to talk about the merits of the case,” he said. “She’s home. Respect it. Let’s not figure out what the motivation was.”

Canning, an honor student and athlete at Morris Catholic High School, first left her parents’ home in October, moving in for two days with her boyfriend's family, and then with the family of her best friend, Jaime Inglesino. Her parents took swift retribution, refusing to pay her private school tuition.

In response, the young woman took her parents to court, in a lawsuit, with her legal fees fronted by her friend’s father, former Morris County freeholder John Inglesino. She sought child support from her parents, including the cost of her private school tuition, medical and related bills, college expenses and her legal fees.

In court papers, the girl said her mother complained about her weight, calling her “fat” and “porky.” By her junior year, she said, she was so concerned about her appearance she developed anorexia and bulimia, ultimately dropping to 92 pounds.

At the same time, she accused her father of being “inappropriately affectionate,” alleging he “constantly put his arm around me in public and would kiss me on the cheek.” At a wedding before her senior year, she said, her father gave her shots and mango martinis until she was drunk enough to black out. At the same time, Canning contends, her parents placed unreasonable limits on her, forbidding her from spending time with her boyfriend.

Sean Canning responded that his daughter's claim of inappropriate affection had fabricated.

Her parents said their daughter had refused to abide by household rules they considered liberal and spun further out of control, drinking to excess every weekend and cutting school. Rachel had been twice suspended from Morris Catholic, once on the suspicion that she was drunk at a homecoming dance, the second time for skipping classes.

The couple also said their daughter stole money from them, sneaked out of the house on a weeknight to attend a party until the early morning hours and used a credit card to buy clothes for herself without permission. They said she was especially verbally abusive to her mother.

Still, they said they wanted their daughter to come home.

Bogaard last week refused an emergency order to require the couple to pay private school and college tuition for the teenager.

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Seton Hall shooting trial: Ex-con says accused killer told him "get rid" of gun

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Isaac Muldrow told jurors that accused killer Nicholas Welch gave him the gun Welch allegedly used to fire into a crowded off-campus fraternity party in 2010, killing Seton Hall University sophomore Jessica Moore, 19.


nicholas.welchnotes.JPGNicholas Welch jots down notes during testimony in his murder trial in Newark. Welch is accused of firing into a crowded off-campus fraternity party in East Orange in 2010, killing a Seton Hall University sophomore.  

NEWARK — An ex convict told jurors today that the man accused of opening fire on an off-campus fraternity party, killing a Seton Hall University sophomore, gave him the gun authorities say was used in the attack.

Isaac Muldrow testified that he met Nicholas Welch in the backyard of Welch’s East Orange home in the early hours of Sept. 25, 2010, and that Welch gave him the .38-caliber revolver Essex County prosecutors say was used to kill Jessica Moore and injure four others.

“Get rid of it,” Muldrow said Welch told him.

Muldrow denied knowing the gun “had a body on it,” using street slang for a gun used to commit a killing.

The 29-year-old said he walked around with the gun in his pocket for several weeks until Oct. 12, 2010, when he was stopped by police near his Newark home.

Forensic tests indicated the gun had been used in the fraternity party shootings.

Welch has chaged in the killing of Moore and the attempted murder of four others.

At the time of the shooting, Muldrow had four prior convictions and was facing four pending criminal cases, which included charges of drug distribution and possessing a handgun, he testified. And three days after his Oct. 12, 2010, arrest, he escaped from a Newark police lockup, he said.

In all, he was facing nearly 80 years in prison, he admitted. But after cutting a deal with prosecutors in return for his testimony at Welch’s trial, he received a prison term of four years and ended up serving a year in jail, he said.

Welch’s attorney, Thomas Cataldo, accused Muldrow of lying on the witness stand to spare himself a lengthy prison stretch.

“You’ve led a life of lies, haven’t you?,” Cataldo said before Judge Robert Gardner cut him off. “Since you made a deal with the prosecutor, everything you’ve told me is true?”

Muldrow was not allowed to respond.

Cataldo then questioned why Muldrow would take such a risk for Welch, whom he had known for a short time.

“You were wiliing to do all that for somebody you knew for only a month on a casual basis?,” Cataldo asked. Again, the judge cut him off.

Assistant Prosecutor Romesh Sukhdeo told jurors last week that Welch, furious at having been turned away from a fraternity party across the street from his South Clinton Avenue home, returned with a gun handed him by his friend, Marcus Bascus.

Moments before, Welch had been punched in the nose by one of the partygoers when he refused to leave the party held by members of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. Police would later discover Welch’s own blood inside the house, Sukhdeo said.

Welch went back inside the party and began firing at the crowd. Moore, 19, an honors student from Disputanta. Va. was shot in the head.

Welch is facing a single charge of murder and four counts of attempted murder.

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Wife of Short Hills mall carjacking victim files lawsuit over husband's death

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The wife of Dustin Friedland, the victim of a fatal carjacking at the Short Hills mall in December, is suing the mall's owners for putting profits ahead of security.


friedland.JPGJamie Schare Friedland, the wife of carjacking victim Dustin Friedland, has filed a lawsuit against the owners of The Mall at Short Hills, claiming they put profits ahead of security at the mall. She is shown here with her husband in a Facebook photo. 

NEWARK — The widow of a Hoboken attorney who was shot and killed during a carjacking at The Mall at Short Hills in December has filed suit against the mall's owners, alleging the upscale shopping mecca put profits ahead of security when it sidelined off-duty police officers several years ago.

Jamie Schare Friedland, the widow of Dustin Friedland, filed the wrongful death lawsuit in Superior Court in Newark this week, requesting an unspecified amount in damages for the loss of her husband.

Friedland’s lawyers say the mall’s owners, Michigan-based Taubman Centers, knew the mall was ripe for carjackings since its assortment of luxury retailers – Saks, Bloomingdales and Nordstrom among them - attracts a high-end clientele who drive the expensive vehicles highly sought by car thieves.

Friedland, 30, had just let his wife into the passenger side of their 2012 Range Rover when, prosecutors say, he was shot in the head during a struggle. Three Newark men – Karif Ford, 31, Basim Henry, 32 and Kevin Roberts, 35, along with Hanif Thompson, 29, of Irvington, were arrested in the days after the Dec. 15, 2013, attack and are facing murder charges.

The lawsuit cites four previous carjackings at the mall of female shoppers, including a gunpoint robbery of two women driving a Jeep in 2006 and a knifepoint robbery of a 56-year-old woman in 2009.

“Despite these repeated incidents and the grave threat posed to its shoppers and patrons, several years ago, the Mall ceased hiring police officers to provide security at the mall, citing budgetary concerns,” Friedland’s lawyer, Bruce Nagel, writes in the complaint.

“In order to increase profits, the owners and operators of the Mall elected to provide reduced security for its shoppers, patrons and invitees,” Nagel wrote.

Nagel, of the Roseland law firm Nagel Rice, declined to comment further and a representative for Taubman Centers could not immediately be reached for comment.

Also named as defendants are Universal Protection Service, whose officers patol the mall and the Millburn-Short Hills Volunteer First Aid Squad.

The lawsuit claims emergency responders took too long to get to Friedland after the 911 call was made. “It took an extended and excessive period of time from the time the call was placed until an ambulance from the First Aid Squad responded to the scene,” the lawsuit says.

The response was further delayed when the ambulance was unable to fit underneath the parking deck, forcing emergency responders to wheel a stretcher up the ramp to retrieve Friedland and bring him back down to the ambulance, the lawsuit says.

The defendants “should have known that oversize rescue vehicles would not be able to access the parking garage and should have taken appropriate precautions and actions to address this,” the lawsuit adds.

Representatives for the first aid squad and Universal Protection Service could not be reached for comment.

The lawsuit ticks off state carjacking statistics for Essex County that, Friedland’s lawyers say, mall officials should have been aware of in laying out their security plan. Last year, the lawsuit says, there were 475 carjackings in Essex County, up from 271 in 2010. “The carjacking epidemic in Essex County was known to the defendants for years prior to the incident in this case,” it adds.

And, it claims, weekends in December were a particularly popular time for carjackers who liked the mall's easy access to major thoroughfares.

Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura told The Star-Ledger in December that the mall stopped paying his officers to patrol the mall “two or three years ago.”

He said the mall regularly used off-duty sheriff’s officers to patrol the parking deck and other areas. “I think that if there had been a highly visible, well-trained police officer there being vigilant, I think it prevents a lot of stuff,” Fontoura said at the time. “It doesn’t allow for murderous thugs to sit and lie in wait and to case the place for days.”

Michael McAvinue, the mall’s general manager, said at the time that Millburn police were on patrol the night of Friedland’s shooting. McAvinue, who is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment.

Emergency calls obtained by the Star-Ledger in January indicate that nearly 20 minutes passed between Jamie Schare Friedland’s harried call to a 911 operator and the arrival of an ambulance at the mall parking deck.

“We called an ambulance a half hour ago: Where is it?,” Friedland told a 911 dispatcher as her husband lay dying in the parking lot.

“Yes, this is an emergency,” she screamed. “I’m at the Short Hills mall parking lot. My husband has been shot.”

In January, Millburn Police Chief Gregory Weber confirmed the scenario laid out in the lawsuit – that the ambulance was unable to fit under the parking deck’s ceiling, forcing emergency workers to roll the stretcher up the ramp.

Friedland died nearly three hours after the shooting at Morristown Medical Center.

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Parents of Seton Hall student slain at off-campus party keep vigil at trial

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For the past two weeks, the parents of a Seton Hall student killed at an off-campus party in 2010 have watched as the last moments of their daughter’s life play out in an eighth-floor courtroom in Newark.

phyllis.tolliver.JPGPhyllis Tolliver wipes away tears during testimony in the trial of Nicholas Welch, the East Orange man accused of killer her daughter, Seton Hall University sophomore Jessica Moore. 

NEWARK — Three days a week, they take seats in an eighth-floor courtroom in Newark, steps away from the man accused of killing their daughter by firing into an off-campus party crowded with Seton Hall University students celebrating the end of the schoolweek with some dancing and loud music.

James Moore is a sturdy retired Army sergeant from Kentucky who served in the Gulf War. His ex-wife, Phyllis Moore-Tolliver, is a college professor who volunteers back home in Virginia — tutoring teenagers so they can earn their high school diploma.

They are here for their daughter, Jessica Moore, a Seton Hall sophomore honor student who aspired to put her degree to work one day counseling troops coping with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Nothing they can do in this courtroom is going to bring her back, but for me, there is never going to be any closure because even though you have other kids, there is just no replacing the loss of my daughter," James Moore said. "There’s just no replacing her."

Jessica Moore, 19, was shot in the head on Sept. 25, 2010, when, prosecutors say, Nicholas Welch, who had earlier been turned away at the door, returned with a .38-caliber revolver and started firing. In addition to Jessica, four others were struck by bullets.

Welch, now 29, lived down the block from the party on South Clinton Avenue in East Orange. The home had been rented by the Seton Hall chapter of Phi Beta Sigma.

"We’re students," a former fraternity brother, Cameron Marshall, stationed at the front door told Welch, according to his testimony. "We’re here to have fun. We didn’t want any trouble."

HEARTBREAKING CALL

Moore got the news from Jessica’s brother, Jerrod, who called him at his home in Madisonville, Ky. He drove the nearly two hours to the Nashville, Tenn., airport in tears.

"I sat there and looked at my baby laying in that bed and I stayed with her even after they had pronounced her gone," Moore said during a break in testimony earlier this month. "I stayed until they actually removed life support from her and I kissed my baby goodbye. There is just no healing. Jessica was a special child. You know, just not to me. Daddy is always going to say that. She was special to everybody."

According to some accounts, Jessica was rushing to the aid of her roommate, Nakeisha Vanterpool, when bullets started flying. Vanterpool, now 23, had been shot in the jaw by a bullet that passed through and struck her left arm.

Jessica’s family clings to this image of her helping others in her final moments.

"I’m a combat veteran and I’ve worked with soldiers who would have run away in that situation," Moore said. "But Jessica, she did the greatest thing anyone could ever ask."

At a memorial service held on campus days after the slaying, Jessica’s relatives donned T-shirts with a picture of Jessica and a biblical verse: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends," they read.

Back home in Disputanta, Va., Moore-Tolliver helps run the Jessica Moore Foundation, which, among other things, tutors teens and young adults. There is also a scholarship in Jessica’s name.

It’s work that Jessica became passionate about while shadowing her mother on community projects. "It was just something in her that made her want to help people," Moore-Tolliver said. "We worked on the planning together, so when she passed away I felt that I needed to carry it on."

LIKE SISTERS

On some days, Leslie Vanterpool — Nakeisha’s mother — sits a few seats away. She’s there, she said, to support the Moores and to see that justice is done.

"You want to go home every night and hug your children, knowing that another child lost her life," Vanterpool said.

Vanterpool watched last week as Nakeisha took the witness stand and recalled the shooting for jurors. She kept her composure even when she was shown a picture of Jessica, a friend and roommate she once called a "sister."

"You could see she drew in a breath and was able to continue," Vanterpool said. "She did good."

The two girls met as freshmen and became fast friends despite coming from different backgrounds. Nakeisha was from the Bronx and Jessica was a country girl who often sported a cowboy hat in a nod to her Southern roots, Vanterpool said.

"It’s not like they spent their time partying and drinking," Vanterpool said. "That wasn’t it. It was: ‘We’re coming to get our education. We’re going to make changes.’ "

The two volunteered for several organizations in Essex County.

THERE ARE NO WORDS

Nakeisha doesn’t talk about the shooting. Her mother said she’s not quite ready. "She has good days and bad days," her mother said. "The bad days aren’t as many, but she still has them."

The bullet left a scar on her chin, and she sometimes has trouble writing from the pain in her arm, her mother said.

Nakeisha’s twin sister, Nicole, was also at the party and was shoved behind a door when the shooting started, her mother said. She struggles with the randomness of the violence that her mother said took away her innocence.

"These were kids who went to church on Sunday," Vanterpool said. "They went to a Christian camp. When you get a call at 2 o’clock in the morning saying ‘Mommy, Nakeisha got shot … ’ It can happen anywhere, to anyone."

Nakeisha’s scheduled to graduate in May with a degree in sociology after taking a year off for rehabilitation. Her mother said she plans to work with young people.

"She’s getting them while they’re young so that this doesn’t happen," Vanterpool said, nodding back to the courtroom where Welch is on trial.

Moore-Tolliver spends her days in court taking notes. Like Vanterpool, she hasn’t been able to raise the subject with Nakeisha, but she hopes to one day soon.

"I do not feel that she has healed enough for me to talk to her about it," said Moore-Tolliver. "Maybe after the trial. I guess it’s not just Keisha, either. It’s probably partly me. I just don’t feel comfortable right now talking, being that I’m the mother. But I think I could be part of her healing process as well as she could be part of mine. I would tell her to hang in there and, for whatever reason, God spared her life that night. She has work to do."

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Three men indicted in international hacking scheme, U.S. customers targeted, authorities say

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After infiltrating bank accounts through computer hacking, authorities said, the defendants and other conspirators were able to divert customers’ money to bank accounts and pre-paid debit cards the defendants controlled.

Richard_Gundersen.jpgAbove is photo of Richard Gundersen, who is being held at Essex County jail. A federal grand jury has indicted three men, including Gundersen, of Brooklyn, for allegedly attempting to steal more than $15 million from American customers using an international hacking scheme aimed at banks and other institutions, authorities said. (Essex County jail)

 
A federal grand jury has indicted three men who allegedly attempted to steal more than $15 million in an international hacking scheme that authorities say penetrated customer accounts at more than a dozen U.S. banks, brokerage firms, payroll processing companies and government agencies.

Oleksiy Sharapka, 33, and Leonid Yanovitsky, 39, both of the Ukraine, and Richard Gundersen, 47, of Brooklyn, have been charged in the indictment with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit access device fraud and identity theft, and aggravated identity theft, said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.

The global financial institutions and businesses the defendants allegedly hacked while working with other conspirators included Aon Hewitt, Automatic Data Processing, Citibank, E-Trade, Electronic Payments, Fundtech Holdings, iPayment; JP Morgan Chase Bank, Nordstrom Bank, PayPal, TD Ameritrade, the U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Finance and Accounting Service, TIAA-CREF, USAA, and Veracity Payment Solutions, authorities said.

A defense lawyer for Gunderson could not be reached for comment. Sharapka and Yanovitsky remain at large, authorities said.

Authorities said Sharapka ran the hacking scheme with the help of Yanovitsky. Gunderson then worked to help move the stolen money, they said.

After infiltrating bank accounts through computer hacking, authorities said, the defendants and other conspirators were able to divert customers’ money to bank accounts and pre-paid debit cards the defendants controlled. The defendants and conspirators then put into effect a sophisticated “cash out” operation, authorities said, employing groups of people known as “cashers” who withdrew the money in various ways, including by making both ATM withdraws and fraudulent purchases in New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Georgia and elsewhere.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Fishman said in an interview today that some of the alleged “victim business,” such as Fundtech Holdings and Automatic Data Processing, are based in New Jersey.

As part of their scheme, the defendants and conspirators also stole the identities of some people in the U.S., authorities said. Then they allegedly used that information to facilitate the cash-out operation, including by transferring money to cards that bore the names of the stolen identities. The defendants and conspirators also used some of the identities to file fraudulent tax returns with the IRS seeking refunds, authorities added.

The defendants and conspirators laundered the money they got, authorities added, often by using international wire transfer services to get money to the leaders of the conspiracy who were overseas.

If convicted, Sharapka, Yanovitsky and Gundersen each face a maximum potential punishment of 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud count, five years in prison on the conspiracy to commit access device fraud and identity theft count, and a consecutive term of two years in prison on the aggravated identity theft counts, authorities said.

The bust of the scheme was first announced in June, as charges were brought in a federal complaint against Sharapka, Yanovitsky, Gundersen and five others. One of the defendants has had the charges against him dismissed, authorities said today, and another defendant, Andrey Yarmolitskiy, 41, of Atlanta, pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.

The other three alleged conspirators' cases are pending, authorities said. They are Oleg Pidtergerya, 49, of Brooklyn; Robert Dubuc, 40, of Malden, Mass.; and Lamar Taylor, 37, of Salem, Mass.

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Short Hills mall manager says there's 'no higher priority' than safety at the shopping center

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The general manager of The Mall at Short Hills defended the mall's commitment to customer safety, days after a lawsuit filed by attorneys for the widow of carjacking victim Dustin Friedland.


NEWARK — The general manager of the Short Hills mall defended his commitment to customer safety today, days after the widow of a Hoboken attorney gunned down in a mall parking lot filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the owners of the high-end shopping haven.

“There is no higher priority at the Mall at Short Hills than safety,” general manager Michael McAvinue wrote in an email.

McAvinue said the mall’s professional security force, complemented by off-duty Millburn police officers, were at work the night of Dec. 15, 2013 when Dustin Friedland was gunned down in a mall parking lot after letting his wife into the passenger side door of their 2012 Range Rover.

Those officers are in addition to the on-duty Millburn patrol officers who regularly patrol the mall and were on duty the night Friedland, 30, was shot, McAvinue said.

“Our thoughts are with the Friedland family and we continue to cooperate with law enforcement authorities working within our criminal justice system to bring the individuals responsible for this tragic incident to justice,” McAvinue said.

Four men were arrested in the days after Friedland’s slaying and are being held at the Essex County jail on murder charges.

The lawsuit filed Friday by lawyers for Jamie Schare Friedland accuse the mall’s owners – Michigan-based Taubman Centers – of cutting back on the hiring of off-duty police officers as a cost-cutting measure.

“In order to increase profits, the owners and operators of the mall elected to provide reduced security for its shoppers, patrons and invitees,” attorney Bruce Nagel writes in the lawsuit filed in state Superior Court in Newark.

Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura told the Star-Ledger in December that the mall stopped hiring his officers to patrol the mall while off duty about two or three years ago.

The lawsuit says mall officials should have been aware that their upscale mix of luxury retailers attracted a well-heeled clientele who drove the sorts of vehicles prized by carjackers.

It cited four previous carjackings at the mall dating back to 2006.

Also named as defendants in the lawsuit is the Millburn-Short Hills Volunteer First Aid Squad.

Nagel says emergency responders were delayed getting to Friedland because their ambulance was unable to fit underneath a parking deck. As a result, emergency workers had to wheel a stretcher up a ramp to get to Friedland, the lawsuit says.

In the 911 calls obtained by The Star-Ledger, Jamie Schare Friedland demands to know why help hasn’t arrived, as her husband lay dying. “We called an ambulance a half hour ago,” she said. “Where is it?”

Friedland died at Morristown Medical Center some three hours after the shooting.

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Stock broker from Colts Neck charged with another man in $5.6 million insider-trading scheme, authorities say

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The law firm managing clerk is Steven Metro, 40, of Katonah, N.Y.. The stock broker, who worked at the prominent Wall Street investment houses of Oppenheimer & Co. and Morgan Stanley, is Vladimir Eydelman, 42, of Colts Neck. Both are charged.

The managing clerk of a prominent New York law firm and a Wall Street stock broker from Colts Neck were arrested and charged today with running a brazen, four-year insider-trading scheme that netted them $5.6 million through investing $33 million in companies that planned mergers and acquisitions, authorities announced this morning.

The scheme hinged on the longtime clerk at the international law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett relaying confidential information about at least 12 upcoming mergers to another conspirator, who wrote down the tip on a piece of paper before meeting with the stock broker underneath the huge clock at Grand Central Station to give him the information, authorities said.

The third person in the insider trio, which began the scheme in 2009, was not named today. At some point during the fraud, he flipped for federal investigators and became a cooperating witness against his two criminal partners, said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman’s office. That third person has not been arrested or charged to date.

The managing clerk at Simpson Thacher is Steven Metro, 40, of Katonah, N.Y., authorities said. The stock broker, who worked at the prominent New York investment houses of Oppenheimer & Co. and Morgan Stanley, is Vladimir Eydelman, 42, of Colts Neck.

Both Metro and Eydelman have been charged in a federal complaint unsealed today in Newark with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and tender offer fraud, as well as multiple counts of securities fraud and tender offer fraud. In addition, Metro is charged with nine counts of securities fraud; Eydelman is charged with eight counts of securities fraud; and each defendant is charged with four counts of tender offer fraud, authorities said.

The two men are slated to make initial appearances this afternoon in federal court in Newark before U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo. FBI agents arrested Metro in Katonah and Eydelman in Colts Neck this morning.

“These defendants are charged with using confidential information that Metro stole from his employer to reap huge illegal profits,” Fishman said in a statement. “They allegedly rigged the system by exploiting sensitive information that was not available to other investors. This kind of activity undermines the integrity of our financial markets and weakens investor confidence.”

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Inside traders net $5.6 million, passing secret tips in public spaces, authorities say

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Officials announced the takedown of a brazen, four-year insider-trading scheme that netted $5.6 million through investments of $33 million in companies that planned lucrative mergers and acquisitions.

The alleged inside traders would meet at coffee shops in Manhattan, where one of them would quietly type the names of soon-to-merge companies into the other’s cellphone, authorities say.

The man with the cellphone — called the “middle man” by authorities — would later walk through the teeming crowds of Grand Central Terminal, where he would position himself near the giant clock in the center of the station. A third conspirator, a New York stockbroker, would approach and the middle man would flash a napkin or Post-it note with the company’s ticker symbol on it in front of the broker’s eyes, authorities said.

Still standing in the center of what is considered the busiest train terminal in the world, the middle man would then slip the paper into his mouth and chew it, sometimes “eating it” to destroy the evidence, authorities say.

On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman and other officials announced the takedown of a brazen, four-year insider-trading scheme that netted $5.6 million through investments of $33 million in companies that planned lucrative mergers and acquisitions.

Two men were arrested and charged in a complaint unsealed in federal court in Newark: Steven Metro, 40, of Katonah, N.Y., who allegedly used his position as managing clerk at the international law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett to gain information about planned mergers or deals involving companies such as Sirius XM Radio, Smithtown Bancorp and Officemax; and the stock broker, Vladimir Eydelman, 42, of Colts Neck, who authorities say worked at the prominent New York investment houses of Oppenheimer & Co. and Morgan Stanley.

Metro and Eydelman have both been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and tender offer fraud. In addition, Metro is charged with nine counts of securities fraud; Eydelman is charged with eight counts of securities fraud; and each defendant is charged with four counts of tender offer fraud, authorities said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Market Abuse Unit, which prosecutors said was integral in helping to find and take down the alleged conspirators, also filed its own civil complaint against Metro and Eydelman.

The third person — the “middle man” in the insider trio who began the scheme in 2009 — was not named or charged. At some point during the fraud, he flipped for federal investigators and became a cooperating witness against his two criminal partners, Fishman said in a statement. The federal complaint indicated it is expected he will plead guilty to a charge in the future and ask for a reduced sentence based on his cooperation.

Prosecutors and the SEC said the middle man was friends with both Metro and Eydelman. In addition, they allege Metro used the computer system of Simpson Thacher's New York office to access information about forthcoming deals that appeared likely to raise the value of a company’s stock.

The trio allegedly traded ahead of 13 planned corporate transactions, authorities said.

“These defendants are charged with using confidential information that Metro stole from his employer to reap huge illegal profits,” Fishman said. “They allegedly rigged the system by exploiting sensitive information that was not available to other investors. This kind of activity undermines the integrity of our financial markets and weakens investor confidence.”

Metro and Eydelman appeared in federal court in Newark on Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo. Standing in handcuffs and chains and looking tired, they quietly answered the judge’s questions, acknowledging they understood the charges against them, which, upon a conviction, would carry maximum potential penalties of more than 100 years in prison.

Arleo released the two men on $1 million bonds each, secured by their properties. Eydelman’s attorney declined comment after the hearing. Metro’s attorney said the charges are allegations and nothing has been proven.

In a statement on Wednesday, Simpson Thacher, a law firm authorities called one of the pre-eminent merger and acquisition firms in the nation, said, “We have zero tolerance for such behavior and hold ourselves to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct.

“We had no knowledge of either Mr. Metro’s actions or the charges until this morning. We terminated his employment today and will continue to cooperate fully with the authorities,” the statement said. “We have strong internal controls in place and will review our systems and procedures to determine if there are ways in which they could be further strengthened.”

Authorities said the unnamed middle man recorded discussions he had with Metro and Eydelman for the FBI. In one instance, authorities said, Eydelman complained about the chances he was taking and how hard it was to hide that their trades were based on inside information.

“It’s a lot of risk,” said Eydelman, according to the federal criminal complaint. “I lost my ability to get on every street research note, now. It’s hard to provide documentation for what you’re doing. Why you’re doing it?”

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NJ Supreme Court committee urges historic changes to state's bail system

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A committee appointed by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner is recommending historic changes in how New Jersey treats defendants before trial.

stuart.rabner.jpgA committee named by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner is urging historic changes in how New Jersey treats defendants before their trial. 

A committee appointed by the state’s chief judge today recommended a historic shift in how New Jersey treats defendants before trial, urging a greater focus on the safety of the community - and not money - in deciding who goes free and who remains locked up.

The recommendations are included in a 120-page report by the 26-member panel of judges, prosecutors and lawyers appointed by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner last year to study the state’s bail system and delays in bringing cases to trial.

Among the key recommendations:

— The state’s constitution should be amended so judges can consider the safety of the community before setting bail. Currently, judges can only take into consideration whether the bail that’s set would ensure the defendant appears in court and the nature of the crime.

— Defendants cannot be held in custody for more than six months after indictment without a trial or the state would be forced to release the defendant from custody. Defendants not in custody must go to trial within a year of the indictment or the case will be dismissed.

— The courts should set up a system for insuring defendants released before trial are monitored to insure that they are not violating the conditions of their release.

“Our criminal justice system stands on two bedrock principles: that individuals accused of a crime are innocent until proven guilty and that they are entitled to a speedy trial,” the committee wrote in outlining its mission. “Yet many defendants are detained in jail before and during trial - while they are presumed innocent - because they cannot post bail; and all too often defendants have to wait far more than a year to see their day in court.”

The recommendations have received broad support from a cross-section of those inside and outside the criminal justice system convinced the current setup is broken and needs to be changed.

“If the proposals that have been presented are enacted, we believe that they will make New Jersey’s system of criminal justice better, fairer and safer,” Rabner said during a conference call with reporters today.

Politicians including Gov. Chris Christie have pushed for a system that considers the dangerousness of defendants so that they don’t commit other crimes while they’re out on bail.

And civil liberties advocates prefer a pretrial release system that gauges a defendant’s risk so that those too poor to come up with bail are not held in county jails for extended periods of time simply because they can’t pay.

"Prosecutors, defense attorneys, civil libertarians, judges and court administrators have joined voices with representatives of the legislative and executive branches to say that the current system of bail and detention promotes neither justice nor public safety,” said Alexander Shalom, the senior staff attorney for the ACLU of New Jersey. “These seemingly strange bedfellows all recognize that a system where hundreds of people are jailed because they don't have a few hundred dollars to post bail unfairly jails the poorest among us not the most dangerous among us.”

The public will have a chance to weigh in on the recommendations before the state Supreme Court issues its final recommendations later this year.

Any changes will require additional funding for the hiring of judges, prosecutors and others to insure that they are carried out, the committee said.

Rabner could not estimate how much the system would cost but said taxpayer money will be saved by reducing by half the current pretrial jail population of 9,000 defendants.

“We would expect millions in savings at the county level as fewer defendants are housed pretrial,” Rabner said.

The report’s release comes as state lawmakers consider a number of bail reform measures.

State Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) is sponsoring a resolution that calls for a public vote on a constitutional amendment that would allow judges to deny bail to defendants accused of committing first-degree crimes such as murder, kidnapping and sexual assault.

If the amendment is successful, judges could order defendants deemed too dangerous to be let out held without bail.

And Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester) has proposed a measure that would create pretrial screening units in courthouses across the state to determine whether defendants should be set free before trial. Defendants who qualify could be monitored by tracking devices affixed to their ankles.

“We all know we need to reform the criminal justice process in New Jersey to ensure bail is administered in a common sense way and that all those charged with a crime receive their right to a speedy trial," Burzichelli said today. “This issue must be free of partisanship and politics. Working together, we can reform this system and create a safer and more just New Jersey. I’m confident we’re headed in the right direction.”

Rabner highlighted a study issued last year by the Drug Policy Alliance which showed that twelve percent of defendants are being held in county jails at taxpayer expense because they can’t come up with the money to cover bail of $2,500 or less.

“Poor defendants who pose little risk of flight or danger are held in county jails pre trial even if they can’t make modest amounts of bail,” he said.

The recommendations won praise from Roseanne Scotti, the director of the state chapter of the Drug Policy Alliance, a not-for-profit group advocating for change.

“Piecemeal reform will not work," Scotti said. "I believe this report marks a critical turning point in the campaign to remake New Jersey’s broken bail system and create a system that provides true justice and protects public safety.”

The recommendations and the legislative proposals are expected to generate stiff opposition from the state’s bail bond industry, which could lose millions of dollars in business if the state moves away from a money-based bail system.

Rabner said he anticipated the role of the bail bondsman would be limited in much the same way it was in Washington, D.C. when the courts there shifted away from money-based bail in favor of a risk-based system for determining who should be released before trial.

“Over the course of a decade the role of the bail bonds industry diminished over time but they did continue to play a role and I would expect to see that in New Jersey if we adopt these recommendations,” he said.

Bail bond agents say they’re not about to stand by and watch while the state presides over their extinction without a fight.

They are questioning why the state would resolve to spend taxpayer money to screen pretrial defendants when agents perform a similar task at no cost and assume the financial risk for making sure defendants show up in court.

And, they say, several of the proposed reforms could be accomplished through regular monitoring of pretrial defendants in custody to determine who should be released ahead of trial.

“The question should be who’s in there for $2,500 or less and why are we holding that guy?,” said Jack Furlong, an attorney who represents ABC Bail Bonds, one of the state’s largest agents.

And, Furlong said, more judges should be using the so-called 10 percent option, which allows defendants to post a portion of their total bail in cash. For instance, a defendant with a $25,000 bail would be allowed to post $2,500 through a bail bondsman.

“It’s the ultimate rusty tool,” Furlong said. “It’s available and under used.”

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Seton Hall shooting trial: Defense attorney calls police investigation 'sloppy'

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Nicholas Welch, of East Orange, is facing life in prison for firing into an off-campus Seton Hall fraternity party in 2010, killing one and injuring four others.

welch.cataldo.jpgNicholas Welch, left, shown with his attorney, Thomas Cataldo, is facing life in prison for firing into an off-campus Seton Hall fraternity party in 2010, killing one and injuring four others. 

NEWARK — The attorney for an East Orange man accused of firing into an off-campus Seton Hall fraternity party in 2010, killing one and injuring four others, accused police today of conducting a slipshod investigation after settling on his client as the gunman.

Attorney Thomas Cataldo told jurors in Superior Court in Newark that police became convinced Nicholas Welch was the shooter after finding his blood inside the South Clinton Street home in East Orange where the party was held on Sept. 25, 2010.

Welch’s nose had been bloodied during a fight with one of the party’s hosts after he refused to leave, Essex County prosecutors say.

“They had their man on Sept. 27, 2010,” Cataldo said during closing arguments in Welch’s trial. “They were going to ignore everything after that. They were going to conceal the truth.”

"It wasn't a thorough and complete investigation. It was a sloppy investigation," he said.

Seton Hall sophomore Jessica Moore, a 19-year-old honors student from Virginia, was shot in the back of the head and killed when Welch, upset at having been turned away, exacted his revenge by firing on partygoers with a .38-caliber revolver, prosecutors say.

Four others were shot but survived.

Welch, 29, faces life in prison if convicted of murder and attempted murder charges.

Cataldo used most of the day to sum up his case to jurors. Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Romesh Sukhdeo is expected to give his closing arguments on Thursday.

Several prosecution witnesses have identified Welch as the shooter, first from police photo arrays and again in court over the past three weeks.

Cataldo admitted Welch, who lived down the street, was inside the home and had his nose bloodied during what he termed “an assault.”

But Cataldo questioned whether witnesses frantically running for cover as shots were fired, could have identified Welch as the gunman. And, he said, several had the color of the gun wrong – claiming it was silver instead of black.

Prosecutors say that after Welch was told to leave by members of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, he went out to the street and, turning to friend Marcus Bascus, demanded “Give me the banger,” a reference to a gun

Hours after the shooting, prosecutors say, Welch got in touch with Isaac Muldrow – an acquaintance with a lengthy criminal past – and turned over the gun.

“Get rid of it,” Welch told Muldrow, according to Muldrow’s testimony.

Weeks after the shooting, Newark police found the gun on Muldrow. 29, when they stopped him near his home. He claimed he did not know the gun had been used in the shootings.

Cataldo said Muldrow’s claim was a “fabrication” and an attempt to curry favor with prosecutors in an effort to shave years off a potentially lengthy prison stretch for a series of crimes that he’d committed.

“They got Isaac Muldrow to make up a story about how he got this gun,” Cataldo said.

Cataldo said it was a tragedy that Moore was killed and four others were shot. “It would also be a tragedy in this case because my client Nicholas Welch did not commit these offenses,” he added. “It was based on assumptions that the person who was in the party was the same person who did the shooting.”

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Chicago man admits stealing $1M worth of electronics, including iPhones and iPads

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Stephen Gunn, 36, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud before U.S. District Judge Claire Cecchi, authorities said. At his July 15 sentencing, Gunn faces a maximum potential punishment of 20 years in prison, they added.

A Chicago man admitted today in federal court in Newark to stealing 1,700 electronic devices from Verizon Wireless, worth more than $1 million, by using an elaborate scheme that featured accessing customer accounts, diverting product-shipments and then bribing Federal Express drivers to get the goods, authorities said.

Stephen Gunn, 36, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud before U.S. District Judge Claire Cecchi, said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman. At his July 15 sentencing, Gunn faces a maximum potential punishment of 20 years in prison, authorities said.

The 1,700 devices he diverted and stole included several hundred Apple iPhones and iPads, Blackberry devices and Motorola phones, authorities said. Court documents show that the crime took place from 2010 to October 2011.

Gunn’s federal public defender attorney could not be reached for comment.

Citing case documents and court statements, authorities said Gunn was able to gain access to the online accounts of dozens of Verizon’s customers, including several customers in New Jersey, although no public information was immediately available explaining how Gunn got the access.

Using the infiltrated accounts, he placed unauthorized orders for electronics products, mostly smart phones and their accessories, authorities said.

Next, Gunn directed that the fraudulently ordered products be shipped via Federal Express to addresses in Texas, including to some addresses that did not exist, authorities said.

At Gunn’s direction, two Federal Express drivers then intercepted the device shipments, removed the goods and re-shipped them to addresses in Illinois given to them by Gunn, authorities said.

Gunn bribed those drivers by paying each of them thousands of dollars, authorities added. According to the federal indictment brought against Gunn, the drivers and co-conspirators were George Greene, of Bell County, Texas, and Marion Samuel Perkins, of Bell County, Texas. They were not charged in the indictment focused on Gunn, and federal authorities in New Jersey did not immediately know if they have been charged separately.

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Player is back on track after Seton Hall shooting derailed her hoop dreams

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Nicosia Henry is playing basketball and running track at Montclair State University, two years after she was shot at an off-campus party while she was a freshman at Seton Hall University

nicosia.henry.JPGNicosia Henry, 22, was shot in the ankle when a gunman opened fire on an off-campus party packed with Seton Hall University students in 2010. Henry transferred to Montclair State University, where she has become a star in basketball and track. 

In her darkest days, when it seemed the hours of rehabilitation would never end and she found herself alone, hundreds of miles away from her family, Nicosia Henry would remind herself of the words from scripture her mother taught her.

“No weapons formed against you shall prosper.”

The weapon was a .38-caliber black revolver.

Nicholas Welch used it to fire into an off-campus party crowded with Seton Hall University students on Sept. 25, 2010, moments after he’d been told he wasn’t welcome inside, Essex County prosecutors say.

“Give me the banger,” Welch demanded of a friend after he stepped out onto an East Orange street, his nose bloodied by a scuffle with party hosts who just told him to leave.

The bullet tore into Henry’s right ankle, narrowly missing bone and shattering into pieces that are still there.

Three others at the party — Yvan Christophe, Nakeisha Vanterpool and Daryl Elmore — were struck by gunfire. And Seton Hall sophomore Jessica Moore — a 19-year-old honors student from Virginia — was shot in the head and killed.

It was Henry’s first college party. She was a freshman guard on the Seton Hall women’s basketball team, a prized recruit from Bolingbrook High School in suburban Chicago living out a little girl’s dream of playing Division 1 basketball against players she used to watch on TV.

Exhausted from the weeks of preseason practices, she thought of staying behind in her dorm room that night with a teammate who was too tired to go.

“Some days I just kinda wish I didn’t go,” Henry said last week in her first interview since the shooting. “I had an instinct that when one of my teammates said they didn’t want to go I said I should stay. And they were like ‘no, no, no’ go and enjoy your first freshman party.”

On Monday, a jury in state Superior Court in Newark convicted Welch, 29, of the murder of Moore and the attempted murder of Henry and the others. He faces a penalty of life in prison when he’s sentenced on May 30.

For Henry, the past 3½ years have been a journey through fear, renewal, self-doubt, shattered confidence and, ultimately, peace.

The 18-year-old woman, who arrived at the Seton Hall campus in 2010 thinking she’d continue racking up athletic achievements like she had in high school, was led down a very different path when that bullet tore through her ankle at the off-campus frat party.

She would leave Seton Hall at the end of her sophomore year, too mentally exhausted from recurring thoughts of the shooting and the demands of being a Division 1 athlete. Weight training, class, practice, study hall. Repeat.

In a meeting with Anne Donovan, then Seton Hall’s head women’s basketball coach, Henry poured out her feelings.

“I felt I just couldn’t bear it anymore,” she said. “I was still having homesickness, dealing with the whole situation from the shooting. I just couldn’t focus on what my role was here in New Jersey. I just didn’t feel the passion anymore. I just thought I was going to be done playing basketball.”

nicosia.henry1.JPGHenry goes up for a shot during a 2013 game against The College of New Jersey. 

Her mother, Nicosia Johnson-Jones, couldn’t be there for her daughter when she had surgery days after the shooting. Pregnant with her seventh child, Johnson-Jones was unable to fly.

She received regular reports about her daughter’s condition from a sorority sister who lived nearby.

Several weeks later, Nicosia was released from the hospital and back home in Illinois, unsure if she would ever go back.

“I wanted to run home, but my mom kept telling me there’s nothing here,” she said. “If you come home, you’ll be like everybody else.”

It was then her mother recalled the biblical verse from the book of Isaiah popularized by one of her favorite gospel singers, Fred Hammond, in the song “No Weapon.”
“No weapon formed against me shall prosper,” Hammond sings. “It won’t work.”

Johnson-Jones tried to convince her daughter that she shouldn’t leave behind a four-year scholarship to a top university without some thought.

“Naturally the instinct of a mother is to shield her children and protect them,” Johnson-Jones said. “But I felt like I would be doing her a disservice by doing that. I knew that I could not protect her from everything.”

Henry returned to Seton Hall.

“There were times when I just wanted to give up and say it’s not worth me pushing anymore,” she said.

She went at her rehabilitation hard, at full speed the way her father, Nathaniel Henry, had taught her do on a basketball court.

“She’s such a good kid to be around,” said Margeritte Carlson, one of Henry’s athletic trainers at Seton Hall. “She was always so positive, never bringing anything negative.”

Watching her teammates running up and down the court at practice left her frustrated. “I just felt lonely being on the sideline,” she said. “I didn’t like it. I felt useless, like they didn’t need me.”

Donovan had been at Henry’s side during her days in the hospital and tried to encourage her. “My coach would make me feel wanted and needed just by saying ‘Girl, we need you to get healthy so we can get you on the court. We need you,” Henry recalled.

nicosia.scars.JPGThe scar above Henry's ankle marks the spot where a gunman's bullet entered.  

By January, she was back playing again, although sparingly. “She (Donovan) wasn’t expecting a lot out of me,” Henry said. “What she was expecting was me to come out and show no signs of weakness. Just to go out and show you can overcome obstacles.”

Henry played through her sophomore year during two losing seasons for the Pirates – a combined record of 16-45.

By the end of her sophomore year, Henry was at the breaking point.

“I just felt burnt out and felt that I had overworked myself too much,” she said. “I didn’t feel wanted as much as I was in Chicago, like how important me playing on the court was to everyone in Chicago. I started doubting myself and that’s when I started losing my confidence.”

She couldn’t shake the losses or her mistakes.

“It would eat me up inside,” she said. “That’s probably what made me lose my confidence and what made me feel as if I wasn’t as good as everybody else.”

She told Donovan she wanted to leave, without letting her mother know.

“She (Donovan) made me feel comfortable, that it was okay,” Henry said. “She wasn’t going to force me to do something I didn’t want to do. She said, ‘At some point in your life, you’re going to have to do something for yourself, and you’re going to have to make yourself happy, and at the end of the day you’re going to have to live for you.”

Her mother wanted her to stay at Seton Hall and her father, she said, tried to remind her what it meant to be playing a Division 1 sport.

“I just felt like basketball is basketball,” she said. “It doesn’t matter the division. It doesn’t matter the talent you play against. It’s a sport. You should be able to play it for fun and not a job. That’s how I felt at Division 1. It wasn’t fun for me anymore.”

Donovan said she supported Henry’s decision and smoothed the way for her transfer to Montclair State University because she knew how the shooting had changed the young woman, reordering her life.

“Nicky just kind of embraced the experience and it shaped her outlook from that point forward,” said Donovan, who left Seton Hall in 2013 for a return to the WNBA as head coach of the Connecticut Sun. “I don’t think there are too many kids who would have handled it like she did. I think it gave her a healthy perspective on life, not just athletics. When you go through something like that you’re forced to figure out that when that little voice inside you is talking to you, you should listen to it.”

During the summer of her sophomore year, Henry transferred to Montclair, which plays basketball at the Division 3 level.

Over the past two years, Henry averaged nearly 12 points a game and 8.6 rebounds for a Red Hawks basketball team that has gone 57-4, with appearances in the Elite Eight and Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division 3 Women’s Basketball tournament championship.
They are the two best years in the team’s history, according to Coach Karin Harvey.

During that time, Henry, now 22, was twice named the New Jersey Athletic Conference’s defensive player of the year and in December pulled down 20 rebounds in a win over Moravian College.

“She was pretty shook up,” Harvey recalled of Henry’s early days at Montclair. “She needed a new environment. She could come in and feel good about herself. Mentally, I just think it was draining and she had to work through it. She needed to have something to work toward. She wanted to be a good teammate.”

Henry said she has gotten to the point where she can talk with others about the shooting without getting upset.

She testified at Welch’s trial, describing for jurors the scene that unfolded that night. Images from the crime scene shown her by prosecutors brought back memories that remain painful, she said.

In the audience were Moore’s parents, James Moore and Phyllis Moore Tolliver.
“Seeing her family and seeing their faces, you just want to live every day like it’s your last,” she said.

At Seton Hall, she wore Moore’s initials on her basketball sneakers. “I dedicate my season every time I play for her,” she said.

Last week, with just four days of practice, she ran the 400-meter event at a meet in Pennsylvania even though she hadn’t run competitively since high school.

She ran it in 58.97 seconds, for a third-place finish. And she anchored the Montclair relay team that finished first.

She has plans to graduate in the fall with a degree in fashion design and would like to design clothes that fit the bodies of long-armed basketball players like herself.

And she said she’s still thinking about playing basketball professionally, perhaps overseas.

“It’s challenging because I’m not ready for the real world,” she said.

Maybe more ready than most.

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Advocate for clergy sex abuse victims, assistant prosecutor to be honored by attorney general

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The awards honor those who have helped crime victims or their survivors

Mark-Crawford-2.JPGMark Crawford, New Jersey director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, will be honored by the state Attorney General's Office Wednesday. He is seen here in 2011. 

An advocate for victims of clergy sex abuse and a prosecutor who handled one of Essex County’s most high-profile murder cases will be recognized Wednesday by the state attorney general for their service to crime victims.

Mark Crawford, the New Jersey director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and Romesh Sukhdeo, an assistant prosecutor in Essex County, will receive awards during a morning ceremony at the Hughes Justice Complex in Trenton.

"Through their relentless efforts, the men being honored at this week’s ceremony change the landscape every day within their own communities and throughout New Jersey," acting Attorney General John Hoffman said in a statement today.

The awards, the first of their kind bestowed by the attorney general’s office, coincide with Crime Victims’ Rights Week and the 30th anniversary of the Victims of Crimes Act.

Crawford, who was abused as a child by his parish priest, will receive the Ronald W. Reagan Award. He was nominated by state Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex), who said Crawford tirelessly listens to and educates abuse victims from across New Jersey and beyond.

Romesh-Sukhdeo.JPGEssex County Assistant Prosecutor Romesh Sukhdeo, seen here in court in 2012, will be honored by the Attorney General's Office for his work helping victims of violent crime. 

"Because of Mark’s efforts, many individuals, after living in years of silence and shame, learned of their predators’ crimes and came forward themselves, finally getting help and holding their offender accountable," Vitale said.

Sukhdeo, who will receive the Gladiator Award, served on the prosecution team that won convictions in the 2007 murders of three college-age friends in a Newark schoolyard. A fourth person was seriously injured. Sukhdeo was an invaluable help to family members of the victims throughout the process, said Deputy Chief Assistant Prosecutor Gwendolyn Williams, who nominated him.

"When victim survivor family members had issues with their employers, he didn’t hesitate to assist them so they could be present at each stage of the court proceedings." Williams said. "All defendants were either found guilty at trial or pled guilty. Whenever the victim survivors have vigils celebrating the life of their loved one, Mr. Sukhdeo is present."

Newark man set free after serving 17 years for a rape he says he did not commit

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Rodney Roberts was recently freed after spending seven years in prison and another ten in civil commitment for a 1996 rape he says he did not commit.

rodney.roberts.JPGRodney Roberts was locked away for 17 years for a 1996 rape he says he did not commit. DNA evidence that recently surfaced cleared Roberts of his role in the rape. 

NEWARK — During the long years of confinement, cut off from his wife and the life he was just starting to build, Rodney Roberts gave up hope he’d ever live as a free man again.

“It was like being in the middle of a storm shouting and nobody hears you,” Roberts said.

Roberts spent 17 years locked up -- the first seven in state prison and the rest at a state treatment center for sexually violent predators. Through it all, he denied he was guilty of raping a 17-year-old Newark girl in 1996, even though doing so might have cleared the way for him to be freed much sooner.

“I knew I didn’t commit the crime I was charged with," Roberts said. "I knew I was innocent.”

Last month, Essex County prosecutors decided not to pursue an appeal of a judge's November decision to set aside Roberts' 1996 guilty plea to a kidnapping charge.

On March 14, Roberts was freed from a state facility for sex offenders in Avenel, where he'd been held for 10 years.

The decision was prompted by the surfacing of DNA evidence presumed to be lost forever that put a halt to a decade's worth of appeals, reversals and post-conviction legal battles.

Roberts was grateful for the decision by Assistant Prosecutor Clara Rodriguez.

“They could have 86’d it,” Roberts said, using a slang term for hiding evidence. “They could have continued with the same story but they didn’t.”

Roberts’ tortuous journey through the state’s criminal justice system began in July 1996 when he pleaded guilty to the kidnapping charge just two months after he was accused of sexually assaulting the woman by forcing her into a secluded area in Newark.

“They came at me saying they had all this evidence,” Roberts recalled. “I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in jail for a crime I didn’t commit.”

Roberts claimed that on the day he pleaded guilty his attorney visited him in a holding cell and informed him that the victim had identified him, court testimony shows. Roberts denied knowing the woman.

At the time, Roberts had a criminal conviction for a robbery in his past, his attorney said.

Roberts said he mistakenly believed – based on what he said was his lawyer’s advice – that by pleading guilty to the kidnapping charge – and having the sexual assault dropped -- he would serve just a few years in jail. And, he believed wouldn’t face the consequences of indefinite civil commitment that’s used to hold defendants the state considers sexually violent predators.

In 2006, Roberts chose to fight to have the charges overturned on appeal by claiming his lawyer gave him bad advice.

Meanwhile, by refusing to admit his role in the rape, he had dashed any chance of being freed from indefinite civil commitment.

“He couldn’t progress in his treatment because he wouldn’t admit his guilt,” said Michael Pastacaldi, the Jersey City attorney who handled Roberts’ appeal. “He didn’t admit to what they wanted him to admit to.”

In 2007, the state’s Appellate Division reversed Roberts’ conviction and sent the case back to the trial court in Newark. State Superior Court Judge Eugene Codey held hearings on the case in 2009 and issued a decision in May 2010.

“It is obvious to even the most casual observer that this application by (defendant) is a blatant attempt to withdraw a voluntarily entered plea, whose sentence has already been served, solely to enhance his efforts to have his status as a Sexually Violent Predator reconsidered,” Codey wrote.

Codey determined that the victim’s 2009 hearing testimony, in which she claimed she could not recall identifying Roberts to police as her assailant, to be “rife with inconsistencies.”

And, he noted that DNA testing ruling out Roberts as the father of a child the woman gave birth to in February 1997 was “not dispositive” because she admitted having another sexual partner at the time.

The Appellate Division sent the case back to the trial court again in 2012.

This time, Newark police, at the urging of Essex County prosecutors, managed to find key pieces of evidence from a rape kit taken after the 1996 assault that hadn’t turned up before. Because Roberts pleaded guilty so soon after his arrest, no DNA tests of the evidence were done, prosecutors say.

Evidence in the form of semen from the kit was discovered by a Newark detective in 2013, Rodriguez said. And DNA tests conducted by state experts ruled out Roberts, she said.

It is still unclear whose semen was discovered, she said.

“It really did just come down to getting that DNA kit,” Pastacaldi said. “If we didn’t have that he could very well still be in there.”

In November, state Superior Court Judge Sherry Hutchins-Henderson dismissed Roberts’ kidnapping conviction.

“I felt like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders,” Roberts said. “It was so great to sit in a courtroom and be vindicated.”

And Roberts was released from the Special Treatment Unit for sex offenders at the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Avenel when Essex County prosecutors chose not to appeal.

The decision on Roberts’ March release was first reported by the New Jersey Law Journal.

Rodriguez said the decision not to go ahead was influenced, in part, by the victim’s reluctance to testify. “The evidence was not sufficient to go to trial,” Rodriguez said. “It was the right thing to do to dismiss it.”

For now, Roberts, who graduated from West Side High School in Newark, is working as a paralegal and helping other defendants who he believes were, like him, wrongfully convicted.

“I’m not bitter or anything,” he said. “I’m grateful and humbled.”

He is back living with his wife Lynda in Newark while he pursues a legal claim against the state seeking compensation for what he says was his unjust conviction.

And, Pastacaldi said, Roberts is trying to catch up to some of the technological changes that occurred outside prison walls while he was locked up.

“He’s got a smartphone and he’s been sending me texts,” Pastacaldi says.

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Civil case taking too long? A court advisory committee hopes to speed that up

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In a report issued last week but released today, a committee of judges, lawyers and judicial staff, suggested ways to get the cases resolved more quickly for the disputing parties and to unclog the court dockets.

TRENTON — Lawyers, judges and litigants have often complained they’ve had to wait years for resolution of civil lawsuits, and now a state Supreme Court advisory committee has offered guidelines to try to speed the process.

In a report issued April 8 but released last week, a committee of judges, lawyers and judicial staff, suggested ways to resolve the cases more quickly and to unclog court dockets.

Chief Justice Stuart Rabner formed the Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Expedited Civil Matters in May 2013 to consider how cases could be streamlined while still retaining a litigant’s due process and fairness.

“The recommendations of the committee help address access to justice issues in civil cases,” Rabner said in a statement. “Under the proposed pilot project, parties would be able to have their day in court and proceed to trial more promptly, the cost of discovery and litigation as a whole would be more affordable, and judges could oversee cases more effectively.”

New Jersey currently allows expedited trials – where all parties tailor certain aspects of a trial to shorten its length – but it’s not used frequently, said attorney Thomas Curtain, co-chairman of the 39-member committee along with state Supreme Court Justice Faustino Fernandez-Vina.

The time for civil cases to get to trial varies by county, but it's not unusual for the process to take about two years, Curtain said.

The panel's recommendations were designed to speed the pretrial phase – from the time a lawsuit is filed to the time all sides gather and exchange information, a process known as discovery.

The committee recommended the changes first be tested in a pilot program implemented in two or three counties that have yet to be selected.

If adopted, the guidelines would automatically apply to uncomplicated cases, such as contract disputes, automobile accidents and employment contract disputes, but would be voluntary for more complicated cases, such as medical malpractice lawsuits involving multiple parties or a shareholder dispute against a large corporation.

Litigants would be able to opt out of the expedited program with a judge's consent, according to the report.

The committee envisions the program would apply to contracts or commercial transactions, debt collection, simple personal injury claims, simple insurance coverage claims, and cases requiring minimal discovery. Cases involving name changes, forfeiture, case dismissals and the Open Public Records Act would be excluded.

If there are disputes over the discovery process, attorneys would be encouraged to work it out themselves. If they can’t, they won’t have to file motions for a judge to hold a formal hearing weeks later. Instead, the judge can hold an informal conference quickly to resolve the matter.

The case is given a trial date that takes precedence over cases not in the program.

The report suggests that lawyers take no more than two depositions for uncomplicated cases and no more than five depositions for the more complex cases.

The committee also calls for speeding up the time that parties are given to answer interrogatories, a set of written questions issued by attorneys at the beginning of a lawsuit.

Written comments on the new report will be accepted until June 6.

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Rutgers-Newark philosophy chairwoman fights criminal sexual assault charges

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Anna Stubblefield, the chairwoman of the philosophy department at Rutgers-Newark, is facing aggravated sexual assault charges involving a 33-year-old man diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

Anna Stubblefield, the chairwoman of Rutgers-Newark’s philosophy department, has been an outspoken proponent of “facilitated communication,” a technique she believes gives the disabled the power to communicate thoughts to the outside world that otherwise would remain locked away.

By guiding the “facilitator’s” fingers across a keyboard, the disabled person can, with some help, “speak” for the first time.

And D.J., a 33-year-old man with cerebral palsy since infancy whom doctors have declared severely mentally disabled, became a model for what Stubblefield believed.
She met him in 2008 through his brother, who’d taken a Stubblefield class in which she discussed the technique.

In the years to come, she worked with him at her offices in Newark and at his adult day care center, court records show.

By 2010, Stubblefield was taking D.J. to conferences in Philadelphia and Wisconsin, where, according to his family, D.J. would communicate to the audience with Stubblefield acting as his facilitator.

“If people believe that people who do not talk do not think, they will believe that they have nothing to contribute,” D.J. wrote in a 2012 essay published under his name in an academic journal for the study of disabilities. “This is a part of disability oppression that must be put forth for more study.”

It was a remarkable breakthrough for someone who doctors claimed had the mental capacity of an 18-month old and could not even effectively communicate with his family.

Or was it?

Today, Stubblefield, 44, is facing criminal charges of aggravated sexual assault for allegedly molesting D.J. repeatedly in her Newark offices in 2011. She’s been placed on administrative leave without pay, university officials say.

And she’s facing a civil lawsuit filed in federal court by D.J.’s mother and brother, who say she used D.J. as a “guinea pig” to advance her cause. They cast her suggestion that D.J. could communicate through her as “a farce” and are seeking an unspecified amount in damages.

The pending criminal case, should it go to trial as expected in the coming months, promises to be a referendum on facilitated communication, a technique dogged by controversy almost from the moment it was first publicly identified in the 1990s.

Question of consent

At issue is whether D.J. effectively communicated his consent through facilitated communication, according to Stubblefield’s lawyer, James Patton.

“This man is in his 30s,” Patton said. “The only issue is whether he’s even capable of giving consent and whether that’s what he did.”

Patton claims that he did.

Essex County prosecutors are expected to counter with experts who will testify that facilitated communication is an idea peddled by advocates that has repeatedly failed to stand up to the rigors of scientific research.

The issue has become a lightning rod for debate among academics and practitioners over whether facilitators — either purposefully or through a misguided desire to help — are communicating the words of the disabled or simply substituting their own.

Stubblefield, who lives in West Orange, has been at the center of the fray.

In an essay published in Disability Studies Quarterly, she accused the technique’s detractors of engaging in hate speech.

“Anti-FC rhetoric functions not as principled scientific debate intended to help humanity in its quest for truth but rather as hate speech intended to silence dissenters, with the result (whether intended or not) of contributing to the ongoing marginalization and oppression within our society of people labeled as intellectually impaired,” she wrote.

Critics point to several high-profile criminal cases in which evidence gleaned through facilitated communication eventually turned out to be untrue.

The most recent occurred in 2007 when Michigan prosecutors charged the father of a 14-year-old autistic and mute girl with sexual abuse. The girl’s mother was also charged with allowing the abuse.

Charges against the couple were dropped the following year and they are pursuing a lawsuit against Oakland County, Mich., prosecutors, according to reports.

Howard Shane, a speech pathologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, is among those who have attacked the practice as unproven. Shane declined to comment because he may be called as a witness in the case.

But in prior interviews, he’s questioned how certain individuals, with the help of facilitators, were suddenly able to communicate in full, grammatical sentences.

Stubblefield has suggested in her writings that the entire field should not be tarred because of mistakes made by inexperienced facilitators.

She points to the experience of Sue Rubin, a California woman with autism who, after years of using facilitated communication with a therapist, learned to type on her own.
Rubin’s story was recounted in the 2004 documentary “Autism is a World.”

During spring 2008, Stubblefield showed her class the film. In the audience was D.J.’s brother, according to the lawsuit the family filed in federal court last year.

Soon after, at the brother’s urging, Stubblefield began meeting with D.J. in her office and at his adult day care center, the lawsuit says.

In October 2010, Stubblefield arranged to have D.J. present his research at an autism conference in Wisconsin, the lawsuit says. D.J.’s mother joined them on the trip, the lawsuit says.

But several months later, in May 2011, the relationship soured when Stubblefield met with D.J.’s mother and brother and, according to the civil lawsuit, admitted that she had sexual relations with D.J.

In August 2011, D.J.’s family brought their allegations to university police officers, who contacted Essex County prosecutors. Stubblefield was indicted on aggravated sexual assault charges in January 2013.

Hearing Thursday

Both sides are expected to appear in court Thursday for a hearing before state Superior Court Judge Siobhan Teare. The judge is expected to decide whether more tests need to be done to determine the extent of D.J.’s ability to communicate and comprehend.

Meanwhile, the pending civil litigation has been placed on hold until the criminal case is resolved, lawyers say.

Rutgers-Newark spokeswoman Helen Paxton declined to comment.

In January, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Wigenton dismissed Rutgers as a defendant in the lawsuit.

The judge brushed aside claims made by the family’s attorney, Charles Lorber, who suggested Rutgers effectively turned a “blind eye” to human research being conducted by its own professors.

“Plaintiffs argue that Rutgers failed to police human research, especially with respect to facilitative communication where the teacher must use a vulnerable class of people who are handicapped in that they cannot communicate,” Wigenton wrote. “Even taking all of these factual allegations as true, they do not amount to the institution or implementation of an unconstitutional policy which condones or encourages rape or sexual exploitation.”

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Judge grounds convicted swindler: 37 months for Teterboro charter flight scam

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A Florida man was sentenced to 37 months in prison today for conning Jet Aviation of Teterboro out of three charter flights last year.

corporate.jets.jpgA Florida man has been sentenced to 37 months in prison for conning a Teterboro company out of three charter flights last year, federal prosecutors say. Shown here are corporate jets based at Teterboro Airport. 

NEWARK — A smooth-talking swindler who has spent half his life conning others out of millions was sentenced today to more than three years in prison for his latest caper – posing as a high-level executive to score charter flights out of Teterboro Airport and the limo rides that went with them.

U.S. District Court Judge William Martini said he was imposing the 37-month sentence for Dante Dixon because he’d failed to abandon his criminal ways despite serving several prison stints for swindles that caused $2 million in losses.

“He hasn’t learned,” Martini said. “Nothing has deterred him up to this point.”

Dixon, 46, pleaded guilty in December to a federal charge of conspiring to commit wire fraud for a scheme to con officials at Jet Aviation into advancing him a $350,000 line of credit so he and others could take three charter flights between Miami and New Jersey last year.

In May 2013, Dixon called Jet Aviation’s offices in Chicago and California, identifying himself as “Josh Stevens,” a senior level executive of a financial institution, Newark federal prosecutors said.

Dixon and others, through their misrepresentations, managed to obtain charter flights and limousine services valued at nearly $176,000, prosecutors said. The scheme was uncovered when a Jet Aviation employee contacted the company where Dixon and the other man supposedly worked and discovered neither was an employee.

They also managed to use their phony ties to a financial institution to obtain more than $45,000 in stays at a luxury hotel in Miami as well as high-end Tiffany & Co. watches, sunglasses and sterling silver, prosecutors say.

Martini ordered Dixon to pay some $221,000 in restitution.

Dixon’s criminal history dates back to 1991 when, at the age of 23, he made false statements for a loan application and was sentenced to 13 months in prison by a federal judge in Detroit, Martini said.

Charges of forgery and tampering with evidence followed in 1992 in Ohio, Martini said. Three years later, Dixon was convicted of larceny in Michigan, followed by a conviction for impersonation in Illinois in 1997, the judge said.

And in 2000, he was accused of obtaining hundreds of unauthorized credit cards by submitting applications in the names of individuals dead and alive, court records show.

Dixon was on supervised release for an unrelated credit card fraud when he called Jet Aviation to arrange the charter flights, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Pak, who prosecuted the case.

He will begin serving the 37-month sentence after he wraps up a one-year sentence for violating the terms of his release on the credit card charge.

Dixon’s brother, Rashid Dixon, urged the judge to show leniency to a man who he said suffers from compulsive behavior he’s been unable to keep in check, even as he was beginning work as a minister in Florida.

“He was doing really well for several years and now it’s come back,” Dixon said.

“He doesn’t get it, OK,” Martini said. “This is not a mistake. We’re dealing with a mature adult here who has lived the life of cheating people.”

Dixon wrote a number of letters to the judge, detailing health-related issues that include chronic migraines and trouble with his teeth.

“I’m not standing here trying to get probation because of a toothache,” Dixon told Martini today. “I have done a lot of positive things…I’m not some guy who is not trying to take responsibility for his actions.”

Martini expressed concern with Dixon’s plans once he’s released – running a ministry near his home in Pensacola, Fla. The judge said he feared Dixon could use his position to con others out of money.

“He’s pretty smooth in terms of his ability to talk,” Martini said.

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A smooth-talking swindler who’s spent half his life conning others out of

Former truant officer for Elizabeth schools admits he was truant

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The former attendance liaison officer for the Elizabeth Board of Education pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $5,000 from the schools by working a second job when he was supposed to be tracking down missing students.

elizabeth.bdofed.JPGScott Farley, the former attendance liaison officer for the Elizabeth Board of Education, admitted that he embezzled more than $5,000 from the schools.  

The former truant officer for Elizabeth schools pleaded guilty to being truant today.

Scott Farley, 45, admitted during an appearance in federal court in Newark that he embezzled more than $5,000 from the Elizabeth Board of Education by logging some 250 hours at a second job when he was supposed to be tracking down missing students.

Farley, of Cranford, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $125,000 fine when he is sentenced Aug. 6 before U.S. District Court Judge Kevin McNulty.

Federal prosecutors say that during the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years Farley was working a second job in the shipping and receiving department of a Mountainside company.

Company time sheets showed that Farley had worked at least 100 days in each of both school years when he was supposed to be visiting the homes of Elizabeth students who had excessive absences, prosecutors say.

Farley, who was hired by the schools in 2004, was paid $40,499 for the 2009-10 school year and $42,825 the following year.

As a condition of his plea deal, Farley agreed to pay the schools $22,065 in restitution – the amount he was paid by the schools for time he spent at his second job.

During the 2009-10 school year, Farley worked seven full days at the company’s Tampa, Fla. facility at a time when schools were in session and he was scheduled to work as a truant officer, prosecutors say.

"Scott Farley is one of the most noble people I know," said his attorney, Timothy R. Smith. "I'm confident that after this case reaches its final resolution that the integrity of this fine individual will have been preserved."

The investigation was led by the FBI, which was assisted by investigators from the Union County Prosecutor’s Office. The prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark McCarren and Assistant Prosecutor Robert Vanderstreet of the Union County Prosecutor’s Office.


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Lakewood rabbi pleads guilty in bizarre plot to get husband to consent to Jewish divorce

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A Lakewood rabbi pleaded guilty today to his role in a bizarre plot to kidnap an Israeli man so that he would agreed to give his wife a divorce.

paul.fishman.JPGU.S. Attorney Paul Fishman announced that David Wax, a Lakewood rabbi, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to commit kidnapping. 


TRENTON — A rabbi pleaded guilty today to masterminding a bizarre plot to lure an Israeli man to his Lakewood home where he was handcuffed, blindfolded and beaten until he agreed to give his wife a “get,” a religious divorce under Orthodox Jewish law, federal prosecutors say.

David Wax, 51, pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to commit kidnapping during an appearance before U.S. District Court Judge Freda Wolfson in Trenton.

He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison at his sentencing on Aug. 19, as well as a $250,000 fine.

Prosecutors say Wax was paid $100,000 by the wife’s family to obtain the religious divorce -- known as a get -- and his co-conspirators received another $50,000.

Without a husband’s consent to the get, women are typically prevented from remarrying under Orthodox Jewish law.

Wax was charged with the crime in July 2011.

A criminal complaint filed then details the lengths Wax and others went to persuade the Israeli man into relenting to the get after his repeated refusals.

The victim was living with a cousin in Brooklyn after leaving Israel, according to a complaint filed by the FBI.

On Oct. 17, 2010, Wax lured the man to his Lakewood home by telling him that he would be working on Talmudic books that Wax – a Jewish scholar –was publishing, according to the complaint.

When he arrived he was brought upstairs to a second-floor bedroom and beaten for several hours, the complaint says. His legs and arms were bound and he was forced to lie face down on the floor, it adds.

Wax, sporting a cowboy hat, placed a dark-colored body bag over the victim and told him that if he didn’t agree to the get and relinquish custody of his children, he would be buried somewhere in the Pocono Mountains, the complaint said.

After the victim agreed to the get, Wax forced him to call his father in Israel. Wax, according to the complaint, then demanded the father transfer $100,000 to the wife’s family, telling him that he would be killed if he didn’t comply.

The victim’s father recorded the call, the complaint says. “For you, there’s a special gift,” Wax told the father, according to the complaint. “It’s called a bullet…in your head.”

The victim was then driven back to Brooklyn in a car driven by Judy Wax, Wax’s wife, the complaint says. The criminal case against Judy Wax is pending.

Wax’s attorney, Mitchell Ansell, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The investigation was led by agents of the FBI.

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A mother's quest for justice after daughter found dead in Elizabeth motel room

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Brooke LaZare was found sprawled across a queen-size bed at the Royal Motel on Routes 1&9 in Elizabeth

These are the snapshots of Brooke LaZare’s life: Child soccer star, high school choral member, college psychology student, law office clerk, daughter, sister, friend, bridesmaid. She lives on the shelves of her parent’s home in Summit, on laptops and cellphones of her family and friends.

These are the coroner’s photos of Brooke LaZare’s death: She is sprawled across a queen-size bed at the Royal Motel on Routes 1&9 in Elizabeth, her body framed by rumpled pillows and bed linens.

Her tank top, emblazoned with the brand PINK, is pushed up over her belly, her black pants pushed down on her hips. Her head is tilted to the right, near a stain of her own vomit. Her right arm is stretched at 90-degree angle from her body, her left is dangled off the bed. Both were covered with multiple puncture marks, which the police report described as "consistent with the use of narcotics through injection."

But in picture after picture of her alive, she is sleeveless or in shorts, not looking like a person trying to hide track marks. In picture after picture, her face is full, her eyes and smile alive, not looking like a person strung out on drugs.

But sometimes a kid grows up, finds the wrong people, makes some bad decisions and, just like that, they are lost.

Brooke LaZare died on May 8, 2012. Her 24th birthday would have been May 11. This year, her birthday falls on Mother’s Day.

"It (the grief) is unquantifiable," Jill LaZare, her mother, said while going through pictures in her Summit home. "When you suffer a loss like this, your whole sense of right and wrong and justice and fairness goes off kilter. Everything is so much darker. I don’t know if I want to go on."

The "justice and fairness" Jill LaZare speaks of are directed at the Union County prosecutor’s investigation into her daughter’s death.

Brooke checked into Room 12 at the Royal Motel before midnight on May 7, 2012, with a man, and surveillance video shows her never leaving. The man with whom she checked in, and another man, come and go several times in the early morning hours. Both were later identified by police and questioned.

On the video, the man she checked in with leaves the room frequently through the night and next day. The last time he leaves, according to the Elizabeth police report, is 3:35 p.m. May 8, a half-hour after the coroner’s latest estimated time of Brooke’s death from a heroin and cocaine overdose.

According to police, the man returned the key to a motel clerk and said: "She is in there sleeping, and she’ll be there for awhile so don’t bother her."

The police report questioned why the man left the air conditioner blasting on a cool and rainy day. In the catalog of items found in the room, there is a hidden syringe but no empty heroin bags or other drug paraphernalia.

In a taped conversation with a private investigator hired by the LaZare family, the man admitted to using Brooke’s debit card three times. A motel video shows him using it to rent the room for a second night and a video from a nearby Walgreens shows him twice purchasing items there. The man said he used the card with Brooke’s permission.

NO CHARGES FILED

Bank records show the card was used to rent two rooms in a nearby hotel at about the same time the man used it to rent the Royal room, and it was later used twice at a liquor store in Newark but rejected. The man denied using the card for those transactions. It was found in Brooke LaZare’s wallet after her death.

But some of her other items were missing. Jill LaZare said Brooke’s GPS and iPod were stolen and the earrings taken out of her ears.

And yet the man has not been charged with any crime. According to Jill LaZare, the prosecutor offered to charge him with theft of the earrings if she could produce a receipt for their value.

Jill LaZare wants to know why no one has had to answer for her daughter’s death, or at the very least, for leaving her to die.

The Union County Prosecutor’s Office declined to answer specific questions about its investigation. Instead, it sent this prepared statement:

"The Union County Prosecutor’s Office conducted a thorough investigation of the circumstances surrounding Brooke LaZare’s death. However, the investigation revealed insufficient evidence to file criminal charges against anyone who had contact with Ms. LaZare during the time period leading up to her death. We continue to offer our deepest and most sincere condolences to the family and friends of Brooke LaZare."

Reached by The Star-Ledger, the man who checked in with LaZare refused to talk about her death.

"No, I’m not talking about that," he said. "I’m good."

I’m good. He actually said that.

Between 2010 and 2013, about 4,300 people in New Jersey died of drug overdoses; 800 of them were in 2012, the year Brooke LaZare died.

It’s not news that the prescription painkillers like oxycodone can be pathways to heroin addiction, and ultimately, some overdoses.

"The pills are expensive and heroin is so cheap and pure now, that’s why we’re seeing the problem," said Al Della Fave of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.

Jill LaZare said Brooke hurt her back while working at a liquor store several years ago and was prescribed oxycodone. But, her mother said, there was no evidence she got hooked.

'STRICT LIABILITY'

"When they told us she had used intravenous drugs, you could have knocked us over with a feather," her mother said.

It’s also not news that the spate of overdose deaths have some county prosecutors aggressively pursuing the state’s "strict liability" laws that hold people who supply drugs criminally liable for overdose deaths.

Jill LaZare wonders why the strict liability can’t be applied to her daughter’s death. She has a record of Brooke’s text messages where the man brags about how easily he can get the drugs: "I can always get it, 24/7, 6 a bag."

Last Wednesday, Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato charged three men with manslaughter for distributing heroin that killed Jamie Caravella, 23, in Toms River, bringing to eight such charges in the last year. On the same day, two Paterson drug dealers were indicted in Bergen County in the heroin death of Brendan Cole, 22, of Allendale.

These charges are about demanding accountability. They say overdose victims have a complicit partner in their death, their drug dealer. They say that any life is worthy — and any death should be investigated — even if the deceased was a drug user.

Celina Gray, the head of the Governor’s Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, says the stigma attached to drug addicts can sometimes cloud law enforcement’s view of a crime.

"The stigma is the biggest problem," she said. "It’s why people don’t seek treatment, and it’s why drug users are, at times, not seen as victims of crimes."

Jill LaZare says that is exactly the problem in her daughter’s case.

"I just can’t believe the indifference they (the prosecutor’s office) have shown toward her life," she said. "Everyone wants to feel that their children matter. Doesn’t Brooke’s life matter?"

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East Brunswick dermatologist accused of evading currency reporting rules

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Federal prosecutors today charged Sandy S. Milgraum, 60, with purchasing nearly $850,000 in money orders to evade federal currency reporting requirements.

sandy.milgraum.JPGFederal prosecutors today charged Sandy S. Milgraum, 60, with purchasing nearly $850,000 in money orders to evade federal currency reporting requirements. He is shown here in a 2006 photo. 

NEWARK — A prominent New Jersey dermatologist who once owed more than $2.2 million in child support was charged today with buying up nearly $850,000 in money orders to get around federal currency reporting requirements.

Sandy S. Milgraum, 60, was charged with conspiring to structure financial transactions during an appearance today in U.S. District Court in Newark. He was released on a $300,000 bail.

Federal prosecutors say that between January 2005 and August 2010, Milgraum and others at his direction purchased 1,280 money orders valued at $846,092 so that he could pay off his own debts as well as the credit card debts of a girlfriend.

Each of the money order purchases was for less than $3,000, prosecutors say. A money order of $3,000 or more is supposed to trigger a cash transaction report to the Internal Revenue Service and would reveal Milgraum’s identity to the government, prosecutors say.

Milgraum is a licensed dermatologist who runs the Academic Dermatology Laser Surgery Center in East Brunswick. He made a name for himself in the 1990’s using laser techniques to remove tattoos or unwanted birthmarks and perform other cosmetic procedures.

His attorney, Joseph Benedict, said Milgraum was just trying to pay business-related bills after being hit with alimony payments for seven children that at one point hovered around $2.5 million.

“Basically, you’ve got an alleged crime without a victim,” Benedict said. “This is a guy who is trying to run a legitimate business so he can pay alimony, so he can pay his taxes.”

In November 2006, Milgraum and other so-called “deadbeat dads” were rounded up by officers from the Middlesex County Sheriff’s office for failing to keep up with court-ordered child support payments. At the time, Milgram owed nearly $2.2 million, according to a Star-Ledger report.

Benedict said Milgraum turned to the money order purchases because his bank accounts were being “raided” by court orders stemming from divorce and child support obligations.

To avoid detection, individuals engaged in tax evasion, money laundering or other illicit activity will “structure” multiple purchases of money orders in amounts less than $3,000, according to a criminal complaint filed by an agent of the IRS’ Criminal Investigation Division, which led the probe of Milgraum.

For example, on a single day in April 2007 Milgraum and others visited five different financial institutions in New Jersey and purchased 19 money orders totaling $19,100, according to the complaint. Three of those purchases were for $2,500, the complaint says.

Federal prosecutors said money orders were purchased through MoneyGram, Western Union, Bank of America and the U.S. Postal Service and were used to make mortgage, credit card and business payments. They also went to pay for credit card debt incurred by “Milgraum’s paramour,” according to the complaint.

The woman was not identified. But Benedict said she is a former employee.

Milgraum faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Benedict said Milgraum lives modestly in an apartment and has worked to get himself out of debt. “He’s a terrific doctor,” Benedict said.


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Former NJ Transit supervisor admits taking bribe for company's snow removal bid

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A former NJ Transit supervisor pleaded guilty today to accepting an $8,000 bribe and a free power washing of her house in Jackson in exchange for assisting a company's bid for a snow removal contract.

snow.removal1.JPGWorkers remove snow from an NJ Transit station in this 2009 photo. U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman says a former NJ Transit supervisor accepted an $8,000 bribe and a free power washing of her house in return for helping a Lakewood company secure a bid to remove snow from a station in Trenton. 

NEWARK — A former NJ Transit supervisor pleaded guilty today to accepting an $8,000 bribe and a free power washing of her house in exchange for backing a Lakewood business’ bid to remove snow from a Trenton station.

Donna Schiereck, 56, of Jackson, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine as a result of her guilty plea to a federal charge of agreeing to accept a bribe during an appearance in U.S. District Court in Newark.

Schiereck’s sentencing has been scheduled for Sept. 9 before Judge William H. Walls.

Schiereck retired from her $80,000-a-year position as a station terminal manager in November, according to NJ Transit officials and public records.

The allegations against Schiereck stemmed from a separate probe of an unidentified NJ Transit employee who agreed to cooperate with the feds after being recorded in April 2012 participating in a bribery and mail fraud scheme, according to a criminal complaint filed by U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.

In September 2012, a vice president of the Lakewood company reached out to the NJ Transit employee to ask for assistance in securing a snow removal contract for a station in Trenton, the complaint says.

The vice president said he could pay $20,000 to the employee but could not get all the money together at once in a lump sum, it adds.

On Oct. 10, 2012, during a car ride, Schiereck told the employee that the company was not likely to get the snow removal contract, the complaint says. The employee told Schiereck that the company had offered $16,000 for the snow removal contract and that she would personally receive $8,000 if the company got to keep the contract, the complaint says.

The following day, Schiereck, in a recorded phone conversation with the employee, said the job would go to the company, the complaint says.

“You owe me eight grand,” Schiereck told the employee.

“You got it?,” the employee asked.

“Uh, huh,” she replied, according to the complaint.

Schiereck then told the employee that she wanted her own house power washed in return for assisting in the company’s bid, the complaint adds.

During a second recorded phone conversation on Oct. 25, 2102, Schiereck told the employee she was still waiting for “our guys” to power wash the front of her house in Jackson, the complaint adds. That same day company workers appeared at her house and did the work, with federal agents watching, according to the complaint.

Less than two weeks later, the company was removing snow from the Trenton station, the complaint adds. It sent the bill for snow removal to NJ Transit.

The investigation was led by the FBI and was prosecuted by assistant U.S. attorneys Amy Luria and Michael Monahan.

Schiereck’s attorney, David Schwartz, could not immediately be reached for comment.


Ex-longshoremen's union officials plead guilty to extorting payments from members

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Three former members of the International Longshoremen's Association plead guilty to extorting Christmastime tributes from members.

paul.fishman.JPGNew Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman says three former officials with the International Longshoremen's Association union have pleaded guilty to conspiring to extort payments from members.  


NEWARK — Three former officials with the International Longshoremen’s Association union pleaded guilty today to conspiring to extort Christmastime tributes from members who worked on New Jersey’s piers, federal prosecutors say.

Vincent Aulisi, 82, of West Orange; Thomas Leonardis, 56, of Glen Gardner; and Robert Ruiz, 55, of Watchung, entered their pleas during appearances before Judge Claire C. Cecchi in U.S. District Court in Newark.

The three men admitted conspiring to force members of ILA Local 1235, through real or implied threats of force and violence, to pay unspecified amounts in tribute, prosecutors say.

Aulisi is the former president of Local 1235 and was retired at the time of his arrest in January 2011. Leonardis was the president of the local from 2008 through 2011 and Ruiz was a union delegate from 2007 through 2010, and is a former ILA representative.

Leonardis and Ruiz were suspended from the union following their arrests in 2011.

All three men face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at their September sentencings.

Charges are pending against eight other defendants indicted along with Aulisi, Leonardis and Ruiz. Among them are several members of the Genovese organized crime family who are accused of conspiring to collect tribute payments from workers at New Jersey ports by using their influence over corrupt union officials, prosecutors say.

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