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PROSECUTOR TO INVESTIGATE JAIL SUICIDES; Rate of Death `Out of Kilter,’ Fahy Says

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, March 5, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | A01

Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy announced Wednesday that he would investigate the deaths of seven county jail inmates including four suicides during the past 11 months.

Fahy said the investigation was sparked by the death last week of Robert Irving, who killed himself in his cell about eight hours after he was jailed on a charge of murdering his girlfriend’s grandmother.

“I see an inordinate number of deaths in the jail, including four suicides in less than a year,” Fahy said. “That is a very high number as compared to other county jails. I don’t know what the problem is, but I see that the numbers are way out of kilter, and it’s my duty to investigate and make sure that the procedures are working.

“The Bergen County Jail is overcrowded, but every jail in the state is overcrowded. I suspect that is a factor, but the other jails are not having the same problem with suicides.”

Fahy said he would hire an expert in jail management to look at the jail’s policies and procedures, the training of corrections officers, intake screening, and supervision of inmates once they’ve been processed. He said he wants to see if someone routinely keeps an eye on each inmate, if only to make sure the inmate is all right. A report should be completed in about six weeks, Fahy added.

“In fairness to the sheriff, he may be running a very good jail, and just as a matter of bad luck, there’s a lot of misfortune there. That’s a possibility,” the prosecutor said. “But it’s an inordinate number of deaths, and we want to take a look at that.”

Patricia Mulcahy, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, said the Passaic, Essex, Hudson, and Morris county jails reported no suicides during 1990 and 1991. In the state’s 12 adult prisons and three juvenile institutions, two suicides were reported in 1990 and one in 1991, she said.

Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune said Wednesday, his first day back to work after a vacation, that he had talked at length with Fahy and would cooperate fully.

“I welcome his investigation of the department’s policies and procedures,” Terhune said. “Since I’ve become sheriff, we have amended a number of procedures relating to our intake policies and our mental health unit.”

In all of the suicides, the jail staff followed established procedures, Terhune said. One other death was an accident, he said, and the other two resulted from preexisting medical conditions.

The changes made by Terhune included adding a second officer in the mental health unit at the jail annex. He said he is considering hiring a part-time, on-site psychiatrist to supplement the services provided by Bergen Pines County Hospital, along with renovation and possibly expansion of the mental health unit.

Assistant Deputy Public Advocate Audrey Bomse, who represents Bergen County Jail inmates in an ongoing lawsuit to reduce overcrowding there, also said she welcomes Fahy’s probe.

The number of suicides “obviously is evidence of desperation,” Bomse said. “I really don’t know what specifically causes that state of despair, why it should be so different from other jails.”

Bomse was critical in particular of the way the jail handled John Russell, a Fair Lawn resident who hanged himself with a shoelace in a shower in the mental health unit on Oct. 4. Russell had been admitted to Bergen Pines County Hospital on Aug. 27 and was released Sept. 30.

“His medical intake screening at Bergen Pines indicated that he had four previous suicide attempts,” Bomse said. “The day he was sent to the hospital, he had attempted suicide in the shower, in the exact same situation that he would later kill himself. They couldn’t have been alerted any more to the need for this one man to be watched.”

Terhune said Russell was put on suicide watch upon his return to the jail, and killed himself while corrections officers were distracted by another inmate’s suicide attempt.

“At the time, we did not take shoelaces from everyone committed to the Bergen County Jail or everyone in the mental unit. The policy has since been reviewed, and we now provide slip-on shoes to everyone in the mental unit,” the sheriff said.

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – “I see an inordinate number of deaths in the jail, including four suicides in less than a year. . . . It’s my duty to investigate.” Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy

ID: 17370627 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

March 5, 1992
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COPS GET LESSONS ON AIDING THE AGED

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, March 4, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 2 Star | PASCACK VALLEY-YOUR TOWN RECORD | 1

A patrol officer stopped an 80-year-old woman driving 5 mph on the highway, then wondered what to do when she told him she was driving so slowly because she was hungry and needed to find a place to get a slice of pizza.

“What is the captain going to say? What is the judge going to say?” John Pescatore, director of the Bergen County Highway Safety Office, said in recalling an incident early in his 25 years as a law enforcement officer.

To avoid citing the woman for driving too slowly, then having to answer to his captain or a judge, Pescatore said he would have delivered pizza to the woman’s house every day of his career.

“Our primary responsibility is no longer just enforcing the law, but to assist the people in our community to live a safer life,” he said.

Pescatore spoke about the incident to about 55 police officers attending a training program last week in Mahwah on older-adult behavior.

The half-day session, sponsored by the northern New Jersey chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association and Hackensack Medical Center’s Geriatric Assessment Program, looked at ways police should handle older adults, who appear to be committing crimes but may in fact be confused or suffering dementia.

Police officers often notice confusion and dementia in an older adult before family members do, Janet Reynolds of the Geriatric Assessment Program said. The center is an outpatient program for families and other health-care professionals on how to keep older adults healthy and independent.

“There are many reasons why an older adult can be confused,” Reynolds said. “They include everything from Alzheimer’s disease, to reaction to medication, to depression from being alone and isolated.”

Bergen County was selected as the first place to hold the police training seminar, because it has the state’s largest population of adults over 60 years old about 174,000 said Marcia F. Mohl, executive director of the Northern New Jersey Alzheimer’s Association. The chance that a person will get Alzheimer’s, a progressive degenerative brain disease that often results in irreversible dementia, increases with age.

It also often results in a loss of memory, erratic driving, fear, and confusion. About 150,000 New Jersey residents have Alzheimer’s, Mohl said.

Because victims of Alzheimer’s might sometime lash out in frustration at their loved ones, Englewood Police Detective Barry Johnson pointed out that the state’s new Domestic Violence Prevention Act mandates police make an arrest when they see evidence of abuse.

Reynolds of the Geriatric Assessment Program advised that it may be better to leave the person in that situation because, often, they would have forgotten what they did before police arrived at the scene. Arresting them might only increase their confusion, she said. But officers told her the mandate of the law does not leave them room for discretion.

Both Rochelle Park Police Chief William Betten and Hackensack Sgt. John Elefante said the seminar was useful, if only to amplify the care officers need to use in certain situations.

Rochelle Park, with a nursing home and a huge residential development for the elderly, has Bergen County’s largest percentage of adults over 60, Betten said. “Police, sometimes, are the only friends and contact some elderly people who live alone have,” he said.

Hackensack is a special case because, as the seat of county government and criminal justice and a nexus of commerce and transportation, it has a mix of population rivaled, perhaps, only by Paramus, Elefante said. The study material would be used by the department to raise officers awareness, he said.

SOUTH CENTRAL BERGEN YOUR TOWN RECORD SOUTH BERGEN YOUR TOWN RECORD SOUTHWEST BERGEN YOUR TOWN RECORD NORTH CENTRAL BERGEN YOUR TOWN RECORD SOUTHEAST BERGEN/NORTH HUDSON YOUR TOWN RECORD NORTHERN VALLEY YOUR TOWN RECORD

ID: 17370391 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

March 4, 1992
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2 BROTHERS SHOT, THIRD IS CHARGED; Family Argument Erupts Into Gunfire

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, March 1, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | A03

A feud between brothers spilled onto a front lawn, where an Oakland man fired nine shots at his two brothers, striking each once in the back, police said. The victims were spared serious injury because the bullets were slowed by the doors of the Jeep in which they were attempting to escape.

Anthony Rucereto and his brother John drove themselves to Englewood Hospital immediately after they were shot, Police Chief Michael Affrunti said. A spokeswoman at Englewood Hospital said they were treated and released.

Vincent Rucereto was arrested without incident on numerous charges among them attempted murder after the shooting Friday night on the lawn of his mother’s home at 248 Lexington Ave., the chief added.

“They were trying to get away from him and that’s when he started shooting at them,” Affrunti said. “It’s an argument over money. I don’t have details yet because we haven’t had a chance to interview these people.”

The brothers 70-year-old mother with whom Anthony, 50, and John, 31, live injured her hands when she fell trying to separate her sons, the police chief said. The woman, whose name was not given, was also treated at Englewood Hospital.

The argument among the Ruceretos began somewhere outside of Dumont, then continued when they arrived at their mother’s house about 10:40 p.m. Friday.

When his brothers tried to drive away, Vincent, armed with a .22-caliber automatic handgun, fired nine shots into the vehicle, the police chief said.

“John Rucereto was struck in the back,” Affrunti said. “It penetrated the door of the car first so it didn’t go that deep into him. The other brother, Anthony, was also hit in the back but it didn’t penetrate him because that bullet also went through the car first.”

Two stray bullets also hit the house, the chief said.

Vincent Rucereto, 48, of Rutgers Drive, Oakland, was being held in Bergen County Jail on $90,000 bail. He was charged with two counts of attempted murder, three counts of aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose, Affrunti said.

ID: 17370170 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

March 1, 1992
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JAIL SITUATION IS DECRIED; Suicide is Linked to Poor Conditions

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, February 28, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | B01

A state deputy public advocate on Thursday criticized procedures at the Bergen County Jail after a Passaic man accused of murder committed suicide in his cell.

Robert Irving, 20, accused of killing Ann Roma Li Gregni of Lodi last week, should have been monitored better, said Assistant Deputy Public Advocate Audrey Bomse. She is overseeing a 1988 lawsuit challenging overcrowded conditions at the jail.

Irving was arrested Tuesday and was found in his cell 7:05 a.m. Wednesday by a corrections officer who came to serve him breakfast. He choked himself with his shoelaces, and his socks were stuffed in his mouth, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said.

“Here you have a young person, he’s hit with a serious charge, high bail, had not had contact with an attorney, probably distraught,” Bomse said. “It would seem to me there should be better monitoring within the first few days of admission to the jail.

“It also raises the question whether there is adequate training of officers, adequate intake procedure, and suicide prevention.”

Fahy had said that Irving appeared calm at the time of his arrest.

Irving’s mother, Millie, 39, also said Thursday that her son should have been watched.

“I feel like if he was arrested for murder he should have been watched,” she said. “A 20-year-old boy accused of murder, and he wasn’t watched? I don’t care, even if he was in his right mind.”

Irving said her son denied he was involved in the killing after he was questioned by authorities who visited their home.

“I asked him, `Did you do it? He said, `No, Mama. I won’t do something like that,” she said.

Fahy said the number of inmate suicides three in the jail since May, with a fourth by an inmate at Bergen Pines County Hospital a month earlier seems higher than in other jails around the state and could indicate a serious problem. He said he would investigate.

Bomse, saying “the level of security is definitely a factor in deciding whether the conditions are constitutional,” added that the suicides will be offered as proof that overcrowding and inadequate staffing inhibit the jail administration’s ability to protect the inmates from themselves as well as from other inmates and security officers.

But Bergen County Undersheriff Mary Ellen Bolton reiterated Thursday her earlier statement that Irving had physical and psychological screening “and did not demonstrate any signs or symptoms” of suicide.

Irving was charged in the strangling death of Li Gregni in her home at Avenue C on Feb. 20.

Her body was found wrapped in a blanket in a basement closet. Fahy said Irving was the boyfriend of Li Gregni’s granddaughter and that she disapproved of the relationship.

Hearings in the public advocate’s suit, filed in 1988 to relieve overcrowding and the problems it creates, are under way before a special master who will make a recommendation to a federal judge.

ID: 17370050 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

February 28, 1992
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SLAYING SUSPECT KILLS SELF IN JAIL; Charged in Death of Lodi Woman

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, February 27, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | B01

A Passaic man who was charged Tuesday with killing a Lodi grandmother committed suicide in the Bergen County Jail early Wednesday.

Robert Irving, 20, the boyfriend of the victim’s 16-year-old granddaughter, was found in his cell by a corrections officer who had come to deliver breakfast, said Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy.

“He choked himself with the shoelace, and there was a sock that was found in his mouth also, but I haven’t received all the details at this time,” he said.

The prosecutor said his office will investigate the suicide, the third since May and the fifth death in the jail since March. “It’s something that I’m going to be looking at,” Fahy said. “I am disturbed that people are committing suicide in the jail, and it does not appear as if, perhaps, the proper procedures are in place to make sure that this does not happen.

“I am familiar with the 20 or so other county jails in the state, and I don’t know of this happening with this kind of frequency at the other jails.”

Irving had been accused of strangling Ann Roma Li Gregni in her home at Avenue C last Thursday. Her body was found wrapped in a blanket in a basement closet.

At 3 a.m. of the day of the killing, Irving climbed into the bedroom window of Li Gregni’s granddaughter, Dawn, who lived with her, and spent about two hours there, Fahy said. Dawn is not suspected of involvement in the crime.

Irving, who was in the house without Li Gregni’s knowledge, returned after she left 7:30 a.m. to take her granddaughter to Immaculate Conception High School in Lodi.

“We believe that he didn’t know she would be there,” he said. “The grandmother’s pattern was to get up, drop the granddaughter off at school, go to work, then come back home.”

But Li Gregni, who disapproved of her granddaughter’s relationship with Irving, had been ill and had not reported to her job as a billing clerk at Gibraltar Plastics in Lodi for a few days. She was seen dropping off Dawn at the school 7:45 a.m., then bought bread at a Lodi bakery.

The loaves later were found on her kitchen counter.

Meanwhile, Irving let himself into the house with a key Dawn had given him two years ago, Fahy said.

“Irving probably assumed the grandmother would not be home, and he was just hanging out at the house. Then she surprised him by coming into the house. From there, we ended up with a murder,” the prosecutor said.

Li Gregni’s daughter, Elaine Tufaro of Garfield, became concerned when she could not reach her mother, Fahy said. The woman had not called in sick to work. Tufaro then called Lodi police, who found her body at 11:10 a.m. Thursday.

An autopsy performed Friday revealed that she had been strangled, Fahy said.

Investigators discovered that her pocketbook, keys, and 1987 Honda Civic were missing, the prosecutor said. A neighbor saw the car leave the house about 8:25 a.m. but did not see who was driving, he said.

“He was a suspect from the beginning. He was always our suspect,” Fahy said.

He added that Li Gregni family members knew Irving often entered the house through Dawn’s bedroom window and left through a basement window to avoid Li Gregni.

On Friday evening, a Passaic patrolman saw the car in an unpaved parking lot adjacent to an apartment building at 75 Hope St.

Authorities then watched the car during the weekend, but removed it when no one came for it. The Bergen County Sheriff’s Department’s Bureau of Criminal Identification processed it for fingerprints, and a positive identification of Irving’s fingerprint was found on the shift handle, Fahy said.

Irving was arrested at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Passaic apartment he shared with his mother and siblings. He was charged with murder and theft, and bail was set at $1 million.

Bergen County Undersheriff Mary Ellen Bolton said Irving did not appear to be a suicide risk when he was brought to the jail at 10:55 p.m. Tuesday. “The inmate was brought to the booking area, and a general assessment was conducted by the medical staff and determined that he was acceptable for general population,” she said.

“Had this gentleman been identified as a risk for suicide, he would have been put in a separate unit in the jail annex and put under suicide watch.
“At 5, he was identified as awake and alert. At 6 a.m., he appeared to be sleeping when an officer made his rounds. And at 7:05, the officer attempted to wake him to serve him his breakfast, and he was identified as deceased.”

Bolton said the Sheriff’s Department’s Detective Bureau was conducting an investigation into the death. Irving was alone in the cell.

Sheriff Jack Terhune was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Irving’s mother, Millie, did not wish to comment. John Bethea, who said he is a family friend and next-door neighbor, said Irving was “one of the quietest kids.”

“I’ve never seen him do anything,” he said. “To me, he was one of the perfect kids didn’t drink, didn’t do nothing.”

Fahy said Irving had a “substantial criminal record,” including serving a one-year term on a narcotics charge and an arrest last month on an arson charge.

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections said Irving was paroled in October. He had been in the state prison system since November 1990 on a narcotics charge, she said.

Two other suicides occurred in the jail in the past year.

In May, Christian F. Shane, 21, of Fair Lawn hanged himself in his cell with a sheet tied to a bar above his door.

John Russell of Fair Lawn, who was jailed Aug. 23 for violating probation, hanged himself in a shower with his shoelaces. He had spent about a month in Bergen Pines County Hospital for psychiatric treatment.

The two suicides led to staffing changes in the jail, including the addition of a second officer in its psychiatric ward.

ID: 17369970 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

February 27, 1992
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SMOKY BLAZE GUTS 3 BUILDINGS; North Bergen Fire Being Investigated

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, February 26, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | B03

A fire that raged through a perfume warehouse on Paterson Plank Road on Tuesday destroyed two adjacent residential buildings and forced the evacuation of about 15 buildings on the block.

No one was injured, and authorities were investigating the cause of the fire, which was reported about 3:20 p.m., North Bergen Detective William Solan said. Apartment buildings on the 1100 block of Paterson Plank Road and buildings on 11th Street, downwind from the fire, were evacuated immediately, North Bergen police Sgt. Boze Bozicevic said.

Tears streaked down Virgin Minna’s cheeks as firefighters pumped water through her bedroom window, trying to put out the stubborn fire. Minna, 33, lived in an upstairs apartment at 1108 Paterson Plank Road with her husband and two children. The fire spread to her home from La Cibeles Inc., a warehouse at 1110 Paterson Plank Road.

Kathy Vargas, 29, of 1102 Paterson Plank Road, said she went into her neighbors house when her daughter told her she smelled smoke.

“I walked out and the street was filled with smoke,” Vargas said. “The flames were shooting above the roof of the building next to us.”

She went next door and got Luz Guzman and her three young daughters and Minna’s 13-year-old son, Hilton, out of the house. Hilton said he smelled the smoke and was checking around the apartment when Vargas came knocking and told him of the fire next door.

Four employees were working in the warehouse at the time the fire started, but they were not injured, he said.

North Bergen firefighters were assisted by the Union City, Jersey City, and Weehawken fire departments.

People who were evacuated from dwellings because of dense smoke near the warehouse were sent to the nearby John F. Kennedy School. By Tuesday evening, they still had not been allowed to return home, and Red Cross representatives were working to arrange temporary shelter.

Caption: Firefighters dousing buildings ignited by a fire in a perfume warehouse on Paterson Plank Road in North Bergen on Tuesday. PHOTO – ED HILL/THE RECORD

ID: 17369768 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

February 26, 1992
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LODI DEATH CALLED MURDER; Woman, 68, Was Found in Closet

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By Michael O. Allen and Janet DeStefano, Record Staff Writers | Saturday, February 22, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | Two Star B | NEWS | A03

Authorities confirmed on Friday that Ann Li Gregni, the 68-year-old Lodi woman found dead Thursday in a closet in her home, was murdered, but they did not provide details on their investigation.

Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy would not comment on what kind of wound, if any, was on the woman’s body. The cause and time of the woman’s death had not been determined late Friday afternoon, he said, declining to comment on reports that she had been strangled or suffocated.

Workers at Gibraltar Plastics in Lodi, where Li Gregni worked as a billing clerk for 15 years, called authorities when she did not show up for work Thursday morning. Police and family members discovered her body about 11 a.m. in the brick home on Avenue C she shared with a 16-year-old granddaughter.

Police were searching for an unidentified person believed to have driven away from the house Thursday morning in the victim’s car.

Lt. Richard Desimone said police questioned “a couple of family members,” but declined to say who. The granddaughter’s whereabouts remained unclear.

Li Gregni’s neighbors on Avenue C, a quiet block where the homes are well tended, said they were shaken by the murder. “She was a hard-working woman . . . and we’re in shock over this,” said Angelo Cangelosi, who lives next door.

Neighbors say Li Gregni’s life revolved around her granddaughter, Dawn, who lived with her.

She saved her salary so that she could send Dawn to Immaculate Conception High School in Lodi and eventually to college. They said she planned to retire in May so that she could spend more time with Dawn.

“She was extremely protective of her granddaughter,” said Elizabeth Sanders, Li Gregni’s boss at Gibraltar Plastics.

ID: 17369478 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

February 22, 1992
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FIREFIGHTER ACCUSED OF SEX ASSAULT

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, February 21, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | D03

A former borough fire chief has been charged with sexual assault on a 5-year-old boy, officials said Thursday.

Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said Joseph D. Schneider of 370 Feronia Way was charged Feb. 13. Schneider, 46, was released after he paid 10 percent of his $2,500 bail.

Mayor Andrew E. Bertone said Schneider was chief of the volunteer Fire Department a few years ago, and that he’s still active in the department. He declined to discuss the arrest.

The complaint, signed by police Sgt. Thomas Farrell, said Schneider touched “intimate parts” of the child. Fahy said the incident occurred between Jan. 25 and Feb. 9, when Schneider took the boy to his basement to show him a military book.

A relative of the boy’s reported the alleged incident to police, and Schneider was arrested about 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 13, Fahy said.

Schneider referred all questions to Brian J. Neary, his attorney. Neary said Schneider pleaded not guilty to the charge Monday.

“We are looking into the situation and hope to act appropriately when all the facts come to light,” Neary said. “He’s a decent man who’s never been in trouble before. And he’s been a community leader. We’ll wait to see the complete scope of the allegation, and we hope to act appropriately.”

Schneider has been a volunteer firefighter for about 12 years, Neary said.

ID: 17369407 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

February 21, 1992
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FIRE VICTIM IS MOVED TO NEW YORK BURN CENTER

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, February 16, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | A03

An 11-year-old boy injured in a Palisades Park apartment building fire was moved Saturday to a Westchester County Medical Center burn unit to place him near a machine that would help him breathe if he should need it.

Although the boy, Angelo Gagliardi, is able to breathe through a ventilator, his windpipe was damaged so severely that he may need the extracorporeal membrane oxygenator, which few hospitals have, said Dr. Anthony C. Barbara, chief of the Hackensack Medical Center burn unit and head of pediatric surgery.

Angelo suffered second- and third-degree burns to his arms, legs, and face, and smoke inhalation. Heat from the fire about 1:50 a.m. Friday ruptured the passageway to his lungs.

The special respirator serves as an external lung for people with significant breathing problems, Barbara said.

Barbara said such equipment isn’t readily available, and New Jersey does not have a place where a victim Angelo’s age can receive treatment. Calls to centers in other states were fruitless, he said.

But, with help from the National Burn Victim Foundation, a non-profit agency that arranged Angelo’s transportation, Hackensack Medical Center officials searched a University of Michigan national registry of centers utilizing the machines and came up with the Westchester medical center in Valhalla.

The machine can get him over a rough period with his breathing until the lining of the tracheobronchial tree regenerates, Barbara said. “We felt it was best to transfer him now, while he’s stable, rather than wait for a catastrophe. ”

Also critically injured were Angelo’s mother, Ada Cruz, and stepbrother, Luis Maldonado. A spokeswoman at Teaneck’s Holy Name Hospital, where they were being treated, said Moldonado, 21, and Cruz, 43, had improved Saturday, and that their conditions were stable.

Cruz’s daughters, Monica Nieves, 6, and Christiana Gagliardi, 12, and her mother, Maria Owens, 62, were treated at Englewood Hospital on Friday and released, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Jose Castro, superintendent of the adjoining 21-unit buildings at 28 and 32 E. Palisades Blvd., said Cruz had just moved into a basement apartment with her four children at the beginning of the month ironically because she was concerned about fire hazards at the apartment she was moving from.

The fire was ruled an accident, but authorities were investigating why the hallway fire alarm was switched off. Tenants often go to the circuit breaker and switch it off, Castro said.

Palisades Park police Capt. John Genovese, coordinator of the borough’s emergency management team, fractured a knuckle getting into the apartment during the rescue. Fire Chief Donald Spohn said borough fire and medical emergency teams were assisted by Leonia, Ridgefield, Fort Lee, Cliffside Park, and Teaneck emergency, fire, and ambulance personnel.

ID: 17368966 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

February 16, 1992
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PALISADES PARK BLAZE INJURES 8, ROUTS 42 FAMILIES; Police Carry Out Those Hurt Seriously

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, February 15, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | Two Star B | NEWS | A03

A fire at an apartment building Friday morning injured eight people three of them critically and routed 42 families, authorities said.

Two of those critically injured were stepbrothers who were carried out unconscious by police from a smoke-filled basement apartment where the fire started.

Although the fire was ruled an accident, it was unclear what started it, and an investigation continues into why fire alarms and smoke detectors apparently failed to work, Police Chief Alan J. Lustmann said.

Patrolman Scott Maresca, who was the first to arrive at the building at 32 E. Palisades Blvd. about 1:50 a.m., found three of the injured people outside. Maresca, Capt. John Genovese, Lt. Anthony Servis, and Patrolman John Sopelsa entered the basement apartment when they were told more people were inside.

Genovese carried out Luis Moldonato, 21, while his 11-year-old stepbrother, Angelo Gagliardi, was rescued by Maresca, said police, who credited the officers with saving the two stepbrothers lives.

Except for the tenants of four units rendered uninhabitable by the fire, residents of the building were allowed to return four hours later, Lustmann said. Firefighters estimated that 150 people lived in the adjoining 21-unit buildings at 28 and 32 E. Palisades Blvd.

Fire Chief Donald Spohn said the fire was put out within 30 minutes.

Moldonato suffered burns and smoke inhalation and was in Holy Name Hospital, a spokeswoman said. His mother, Ada Cruz, 43, who shares the apartment with three other children, was also in listed in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

Gagliardi was in critical condition at Hackensack Medical Center with second- and third-degree burns, a hospital spokeswoman said. Daughters Monica Nieves, 6, and Christiana Gagliardi, 12, and Cruz’s mother, Maria Owen, 62, were treated at Englewood Hospital and released, a spokeswoman said. Berta Lopez, also a tenant in the building, was treated at Englewood Hospital and released.

ID: 17368895 | Copyright © 1992, The Record (New Jersey)

February 15, 1992
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