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AUTO-THEFT UNIT REVS INTO ACTION

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, July 12, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B01

There’s no shortage of business for Bergen County’s stolen-car detectives.
The Sheriff’s Department auto-theft unit has been in operation four months, but already it has recovered 47 vehicles valued at more than $600,000 and arrested 23 suspects.
“We had high expectations that it would be a success, and it certainly has met all our expectations,” said Capt. Frank Benedetto, head of the department’s detective bureau. “But we realize that we are fighting a never-ending battle in the area of auto thefts.”
The program, begun March 15, has two detectives, Joseph Cacciatore and David Moody, assigned full-time to auto-theft cases. They have received about 70 cases referred by local police departments, informants, and insurance companies, said Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune.
The unit, Terhune said, “is solely dedicated to automobile thefts, which the municipal departments are not able to do.”
According to the state Uniform Crime Report, 4,109 automobiles were stolen in Bergen County in 1990, a 12 percent increase over 1989. Before Cacciatore and Moody began working full-time, the Sheriff’s Department had not been involved in auto-theft investigations in Bergen County for several years, Benedetto said.
In their most recent case, Cacciatore and Moody lured a Paterson man into his probation officer’s Passaic office and arrested him for receiving stolen property.
He is a suspect in a car-theft ring that authorities said took vehicle identification numbers and titles from junk cars and put them onto similar stolen cars.
People with information about a stolen car are urged to call their local police department or a state toll-free hotline on stolen cars 1-(800) 447-HEAT (4328).

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; POLICE; MOTOR VEHICLE; THEFT

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – LINDA CATAFFO / THE RECORD – Detectives David Moody, left, and Joseph Cacciatore checking automobile identification numbers. They are assigned to the auto-theft unit of the Bergen County Sheriff’s Department, which has recovered 47 vehicles in its first four months.

ID: 17349244 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

July 12, 1991
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BERGEN JAIL CROWDING IS LAID TO STATE

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, July 11, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B01

Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune is warning the state Corrections Department that an overload of state inmates is making the county jail unmanageable.
“We have an authorized capacity of 423 between the annex and the main jail, and we run 230 to 240 percent above that, consistently,” Terhune said in an interview Wednesday.
“Now, when you take human beings and you put them in smaller space than was designed for them, you are going to have the potential for violence, the potential for problems.”
Terhune, who said he recognized the state’s prison overcrowding problem, wants some state prisoners removed from his jail.
County jails are supposed to house anyone sentenced to a term of 364 days or less, with those sentenced to a year or more going to a state prison. Of the jail’s population of 966, 429 belong in a state prison, Terhune said. The jail population often swells to more than 1,000 on weekends, he added.
Under a state executive order signed in 1981 and renewed every six months since, Bergen County must take 72 state inmates.
“We get $45 a day to keep state inmates here,” Terhune said. “The cost to the taxpayers of Bergen County is $63 to keep them, so we are losing money. People think we make money off this thing. We don’t.”
The sheriff has written two letters to Corrections Commissioner William H. Fauver expressing his concerns. A spokeswoman said Wednesday that the state removed 10 inmates following Terhune’s first letter in May and plans to remove 30 more this week.
Inmates in two Bergen County Jail annex cell sections were disciplined in a “lockdown” during the weekend following a food fight in one cell section and a gang attack on an inmate in the other. Overcrowding contributed to both incidents, Terhune said, adding that most of those involved were state inmates.
Fauver is aware of the overcrowding problem in all county jails, said Patricia Mulcahy, a Corrections Department spokeswoman, but the 15 state prisons with 23,518 inmates are running an average of 130 percent over capacity. About 3,400 state inmates are in county jails, with some of the jails running 300 percent to 400 percent over capacity.
To alleviate some of the problem, the state will take over the vacant 300-bed Hudson County Correctional Facility in Secaucus, with the first 100 beds available Monday, Mulcahy said. She said she did not know whether any beds would go to county jail inmates.
A 1988 lawsuit brought against Bergen County on behalf of jail inmates seeking relief from overcrowding, among other issues, is being negotiated for a possible settlement. None of the parties in the suit would comment on it this week.

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; PRISON; POPULATION; NEW JERSEY

ID: 17349186 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

July 11, 1991
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COUNTY INMATES PLACED IN LOCKDOWN FOOD FIGHT, ATTACK LED TO MEASURES

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, July 10, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B03

Inmates in two Bergen County Jail Annex cell sections were put in disciplinary “lockdowns” over the weekend following a food fight in one cell and a gang attack on an inmate in the other, a jail official said Tuesday.
The first incident occurred about 5:50 p.m. Friday when the 72 inmates in Cell Pod A demanded fried fish instead of the baked fish they were served, said Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune.
In the ensuing verbal complaints about the food, Terhune said, an inmate knocked over a stack of food trays. The other inmates then began throwing their food.
A second lockdown of 72 more inmates started in Cell Pod B about 9:20 p.m. when six inmates ganged up on one, Terhune said.
A lockdown, in which inmates lose all privileges as they are locked up in their cells, occurs when inmates violate the jail’s rules and code of conduct. Terhune said jail administrators then investigate to find out who was responsible for the violation.
Terhune said jail officials on Tuesday released all 144 inmates from lockdown and restored privileges to the inmates.
In a telephone call to The Record on Tuesday, two inmates, speaking on condition that they not be identified, said they were locked up and denied privileges when they refused to identify the inmate who knocked over the trays. They said the protest began because they were served fish that was improperly cooked.
Terhune said most of the inmates involved in Friday’s incidents were state prisoners, and that 425 of 965 inmates currently in the jail are state prisoners. The jail has a rated capacity of 423 inmates.

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; PRISON

ID: 17348977 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

July 10, 1991
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BOGUS WATER WORKERS SOUGHT IN THEFT

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, July 10, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B03

An elderly couple were robbed of $1,500 cash and assorted jewelry by two men who came to their home Monday and claimed to work for the “water company,” police said.
The couple whom police said were 79 and 81 years old but declined to identify further allowed the men into their house around noon, Capt. C. Kenneth Tinsley said.
The men, clad in matching dark-colored uniforms, said they were checking water theft in the area, Tinsley said. One suspect took the couple upstairs into their kitchen, distracting them while the other man went into a bedroom and took the money and jewelry, Tinsley said.
Cindy Munley, a Hackensack Water Co. spokeswoman, said the men did not work for the water company.
“We ask customers to carefully check the identification of anyone claiming to be from the Hackensack Water Co.,” Munley said. “Anytime that the customer has doubt, they should feel free to call the water company before admitting anyone to the premises.”
Tinsley said anyone with a similar experience should call police. The Hackensack Water Co.’s toll-free telephone number is 1-800-422-5987.

Keywords: ENGLEWOOD; WATER; UTILITY; THEFT; FRAUD

ID: 17348978 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)

July 10, 1991
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