SUSPECT HELD IN ASSAULT ON FAMILY IN FORT LEE

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 24, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | One Star | NEWS | Page B03

A 22-year-old Bronx man was being held on $250,000 bail Tuesday on charges that he was one of five men who assaulted a borough family during a robbery about seven months ago, police said.
Tri Minh Le was arraigned in Fort Lee Municipal Court on Tuesday on charges of burglary, robbery, and kidnapping, and was being held in the Bergen County Jail, Fort Lee Police Chief John Orso said.
The victims, whom Orso declined to identify because other suspects have not been arrested, saw Tri Minh Le’s face when he took off his mask during the attack, Orso said. The victims identified him in a police picture line-up, Orso said.
He said the suspects broke into the single-family home about 2 a.m. on Sept. 15 and menaced the family an Asian couple in their 50s and their teenage children. The man was beaten and required about 100 stitches on his face, Orso said. The wife also was beaten.
A breakthrough occurred in the case when Fort Lee Detective John Wemken recognized Tri Minh Le on a New York City television newscast of an arrest in February, Orso said.
Tri Minh Le was arrested Feb. 2 on automobile theft charges, but was released the following day for insufficient evidence, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said. With the cooperation of New York City police and the suspect’s consent, he was transferred to Fort Lee on Monday, Orso said.
Orso said gangs have been targeting Asians in Fort Lee and other Bergen County communities. Victims have been reticent about reporting the incidents to police. Orso has asked Asians to contact police if they are being intimidated by gangs or if money is being extorted from them.
Orso said he is trying to reach out to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean organizations in the area to see how police can gain their trust.
“They are not coming forward when something happens to them,” Orso said. “By helping us, they are helping themselves. They should not be afraid. We’ll give them all the police protection they need. But we can’t help them if they don’t come forward.”

Keywords: FORT LEE; ASSAULT; FAMILY

BURGLARY SUSPECT MAY NOT HAVE DROWNED

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, April 20, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A04

A burglary suspect thought to have drowned after he leaped off a bridge into the Passaic River after a police chase may have escaped, police said Friday.
Police have developed new information that Herbert Pitts of 43 Graham Ave., Paterson, may have been seen running down a nearby highway ramp after the jump, police Lt. Ron Natale said.
“We combed the river thoroughly Wednesday and again yesterday,” Natale said. “We didn’t find any body. We are not absolutely positive that he did go into the river. We believe he may have, but there is a chance he did escape. Right now, we’ll continue on the assumption that Pitts is somewhere out there, possibly alive.”
A suspect in custody, Tyrone Jones, 28, of Paterson identified Pitts, 32, from a photograph as a suspect involved in the chase, which led to the drowning death of Terry Wilson, 25, also of Paterson.
The incident began Wednesday afternoon at the scene of a burglary in Hackensack. With Hackensack, Lodi, and Elmwood Park police pursuing, the suspects fled in a stolen van, weaving through traffic on Routes 46, 20, and 80 before crashing in the eastbound Route 80 lanes in Elmwood Park.
The men abandoned the van and ran across the highway, and Pitts and Wilson leaped 50 feet off the bridge into the river, near Market Street. Wilson’s body was later pulled from the river. Jones, who did not jump and was caught, was being held in the Bergen County Jail Annex on $100,000 bail.
Jones, charged by Hackensack police with 11 counts of theft, five counts of burglary, and one count each of receiving stolen property and resisting arrest, cooperated with investigators, giving them information on burglaries in Carlstadt, Fair Lawn, Maywood, Wyckoff, and other Bergen County communities.

Keywords: HACKENSACK; BRIDGE; BURGLARY; RIVER; MISSING PERSON; DEATH; VICTIM

BERGEN FIRM HIT IN $13M DRUG BUST

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, April 20, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Edition: All Editions | NEWS | Page A01

Federal drug agents have arrested the president of an Englewood Cliffs trucking firm, seized 1,087 pounds of cocaine found in a company truck, and confiscated the company’s assets, officials said.
Agents in New York, Los Angeles, and Tucson, Ariz., seized an additional 420 pounds of cocaine bringing the total value of the drug seizure to $13.3 million after the arrest of six individuals Wednesday in Queens, U.S. Customs Service Special Agent Martin Ficke said Friday. Three other people were arrested in Tucson, he said.
Jaime Quintero, president of Suffolk Overland Transport Inc. at 701 Palisades Ave., set up the deal for the truck to carry the drugs, Ficke said.
Ficke said about 12 trailers belonging to the company, which he said had been involved in “significant” drug trafficking since December 1989, were seized, along with other assets. The company’s 25 employees were effectively out of work, he said.
A man who answered Suffolk Overland Transport’s telephone in Englewood Cliffs on Friday declined to comment.
After the investigation began about two weeks ago in Tucson, agents followed a truck to Los Angeles, then to Newark, and finally to Queens, Ficke said.

Keywords: USA; DRUG; CRIME; ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS; BUSINESS; EXECUTIVE; MOTOR VEHICLE

COPING WITH THE FEAR NEW GROUP AIDS COPS SPOUSES

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, April 19, 1991

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

One July evening three years ago, as Mary Ann Sorace and her two daughters tidied up in the kitchen of their Paramus home after dinner, a voice over the police scanner sent them into a panic.
“Officer needs assistance,” came the call from her husband, Bergen County Police Officer Edward M. Sorace.
Sorace was in the middle of a confrontation with two drug suspects, one armed with a gun. He ended up arresting one, but the other escaped and was captured later. Sorace wasn’t able to get in touch with his wife for some time.
“The only thing I remembered was being glued to the radio and being afraid to leave it,” Mary Sorace said. “It must have been four hours later before I found out he was OK.”
After four years of coping alone with the fears and frustrations caused by her husband’s job, Sorace resigned in October from her job in the Paramus school system to found a new support group, Concerns of Police Spouses of Bergen County (COPS).
“It’s the stress of not knowing when they leave the house if they are going to be returning, or if you’re going to get that fateful telephone call that something has happened to them,” she said.
The organization, Sorace said, would not become a “wives gripe group.” It will have available to it a family therapist, a minister who is a retired policeman, and other professionals who have pledged to either counsel or help spouses obtain information that would help them cope.
COPS, which had its first meeting last month, is one of a number of such New Jersey groups, including the 20-year-old Pascack Valley Police Wives Association.
Dr. Katherine W. Ellison, a psychology professor at Montclair State College and author of several books on police and stress, said such groups are helpful because they tend to lessen the sense of isolation that police spouses can feel.
“The wives I’ve worked with want to know about the job, but their husbands want to keep them innocent,” Ellison said in an interview. “The sweet little angels know a heck of a lot more than you think. . . . An important thing that can be done is to have the wives teaching the new wives how to cope positively.”
Sorace acknowledged that one of her biggest challenges would be reaching the spouses. Eileen Neillands, wife of Bergen County Police Chief Peter Neillands, and Judith Betten, wife of Rochelle Park Police Chief William Betten, were among 11 wives who attended the first meeting.
Chief Neillands, the evening’s keynote speaker, testified to a host of shirked familial responsibilities during the first 30 of his 40 years in law enforcement, starting with the Leonia Police Department in 1951.
“We get so smart too late,” Neillands said. “I hope people will learn from us, what we did wrong. Mary [Sorace] is going through some of those things that are difficult to go through, and she is crying out, Help me. Some of these other people, they are silent, but they want to be helped, too." Neillands concluded his talk by saying he wished he had not while trying to cure some of society's ills by doing police work abandoned his family all those years. He said he would do all he could to help the group succeed. Eileen Neillands seized on a symbol of the isolation spouses feel when she said that, for all his sins, Neillands was a good husband except at the annual police officers ball. She said the men tend to leave their wives on one side of the room and mingle with fellow officers on the other side. The Neillandses, who have been married for 41 years, have among their five children a son who is a policeman in the Bronx and a daughter about to marry a policeman. "You have to learn to do a lot of things," Eileen Neillands said, "including driving yourself to the hospital to deliver your baby. I did it with my fifth one. He was tied up in an accident or something." Ed Sorace, who said he supports his wife's efforts, said the group would be well worth it if it helps just one police family cope. He sat in the background during the meeting with the couple's 7-year-old daughter, Stefanie. The Rev. Kim F. Capwell, rector of the All Saints Episcopal Church in Glen Rock, said idealism leads many, in their desire to solve their communities problems, to seek law enforcement careers, but also has the effect of isolating them from society and, most acutely, from their families. Capwell spoke from experience. "I was married to a police department for 12 years before I took an early retirement and went into the seminary," he said. "I was very lucky that my spouse stuck with me through 10 solid years of nights with no rotation. We actually got to appreciate that I worked 8 at night till 4 in the morning." Rochelle Park's Chief Betten said he often asks new recruits if they are aware of the demands of the career. "I ask them,Are you aware what a police officer’s job is? ” Betten said. ” Are you aware that you have to work Saturdays, Sunday, holidays, nights?Oh, yeah, they reply. Later on, after they’ve become policemen, suddenly the wives will call you: `How come my husband is working on Christmas day? Many spouses don’t know what to expect when they get into this.”
The next meeting of COPS is at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Paramus High School, room 616.

Keywords: POLICE; FAMILY; COUNSELING; ORGANIZATION; MENTAL; HEALTH; PSYCHOLOGY

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – STEVE AUCHARD / THE RECORD – Bergen County Police Officer Edward M. Sorace giving his 7-year-old daughter, Stefanie, a kiss as he prepares to go to work. Looking on is his wife, Mary Ann Sorace, who founded a new support group for spouses of law enforcement officers.

MAN, SON ACCUSED OF THREATS

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Thursday, April 18, 1991

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

A building contractor and his son face a variety of charges for threatening a truck driver with a shotgun and knife after he asked them to move a car to make way for a delivery, police said Wednesday.
The driver, Thomas Misciagna, 37, of Park Ridge told police that Vincent Filardo Sr., 60, of Upper Saddle River pulled out a shotgun when asked to move the car, according to North Bergen Lt. Timothy Kelly. Filardo’s son Vincent Jr., 26, of Tuxedo, N.Y., pulled out a knife and threatened to cut Misciagna’s throat, police said.
The incident occurred about 10:45 a.m. Wednesday at 82nd Street and Tonnelle Avenue, where a shopping mall is being built, Kelly said.
Misciagna ran into a construction shed and called police, Kelly said. The two Filardos were released on $7,500 bail each.

Keywords: NORTH BERGEN; WEAPON

ANONYMOUS CALL LEADS POLICE TO DRUG SUSPECTS

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Thursday, April 18, 1991

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

Three men were arrested on drug charges after a tipster told city police they were selling cocaine on West Street on Tuesday night.
Fernando Hernandez, 29, of Palisades Park; Uriel Capata, 22, of New York City, and German Rodriguez, 45, of Englewood were being held in the Bergen County Jail, each on $35,000 bail.
They were charged with possession of cocaine, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, and possession of an illegal drug within 1,000 feet of a school, said Englewood Police Capt. C. Kenneth Tinsley. Police also seized more than $1,000 and the 1985 Chevrolet car that Hernandez drove, he said.
An anonymous caller told police at about 7:15 p.m. that the three men were seen selling drugs on West Street, Tinsley said.
Detective Joseph Martin cut the car off at West Street’s intersection with Palisade Avenue. A dog from the Bergen County Police Department canine unit found about 38 grams of pure cocaine, worth about $40,000, in the car, Tinsley said. Most of the cocaine was hidden under the air-conditioning compartment in the car, he said.

Keywords: ENGLEWOOD; DRUG; CRIME

2 TEENS STABBED, BABY ABDUCTED EX-BOYFRIEND OF A VICTIM HELD

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, April 18, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | One Star | NEWS | Page B01

A 19-year-old Brooklyn man was arrested Wednesday minutes after he stabbed two teenagers, one of them his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend, and abducted his and the girl’s baby from a North Bergen apartment, police said.
One victim, a 17-year-old Brooklyn boy, was in serious but stable condition at Palisades General Hospital in North Bergen, a spokesman said. The girl was not seriously injured, police said, but was to be kept overnight at the hospital for observation. Police withheld the victims names because of their ages.
The 2-month-old baby was unharmed.
The suspect, Courtney Wiltshire, was held on $15,000 bail in the Hudson County Jail, North Bergen Lt. Timothy Kelly said.
Police had not yet interviewed the victims late Wednesday, but said it appeared Wiltshire attacked them at a Durham Avenue apartment where the girl lives with her mother and the baby. Police would not comment Wednesday on the motive for the attack.
Police were alerted to the incident by phone calls from the two victims, said Kelly, who gave the following account:
The 17-year-old called about 11:30 a.m., saying he had been stabbed. A few minutes later, after Wiltshire had left, the 16-year-old girl called from the apartment. She, too, said she had been stabbed, and that the father of her daughter had forcibly taken the child.
Officer Michael Darin found the 17-year-old at a pay phone at 67th Street and Newkirk Avenue. He had been stabbed twice in the chest, once in the shoulder, and once in the back.
A search began for Wiltshire that eventually involved 13 squad cars, including four from West New York.
North Bergen Officer Lorenzo Paret spotted Wiltshire about 11:50 a.m. at 65th Street and Hudson Avenue in West New York. When Paret approached him and began asking him questions, Wiltshire threw up his hands and said: “I know what you want. The baby is in the store. “
Wiltshire had gone into the Latino Supermarket with the baby and bought some juice, telling the storekeeper to watch the infant for a moment.
The baby was found in the store and placed in the custody of the state Division of Youth and Family Services after being examined at Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center in Secaucus.
Wiltshire was charged with two counts of aggravated assault, burglary, unlawful possession of a weapon, and criminal restraint.

Keywords: NORTH BERGEN; ASSAULT; KIDNAPPING; BABY

MAN HELD IN STUDENT’S DEATH PAROLEE FACES MURDER CHARGE

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, April 14, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Edition: All Editions | NEWS | Page A03

A 23-year-old Spring Valley, N.Y., man on parole for possession of a loaded weapon was being held without bail Saturday in the stabbing death of Kissinger Shiimi, a Ramapo College student leader.
Peter Ralph Finley, who police say is a Jamaican national, was arrested in Brooklyn on Friday. He was charged with second-degree murder and was being held in the Rockland County Correctional Center pending a hearing.
Shiimi, a 30-year-old senior majoring in political science, died about 5:30 a.m. April 6 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, N.Y. He had been stabbed five times by one of two men arguing with him over a fender bender outside the Atlantic Gas ‘n Go, a Spring Valley gas station and convenience store, police said.
Tom M. Jones, Ramapo College’s director of public relations, said Finley’s arrest is a relief to students who have been grappling with the violent death of Shiimi, whom they regarded as a peacemaker and bridge-builder.
Hinyangerwa Asheeke, Namibia’s ambassador to the United Nations, on Friday escorted Shiimi’s body back to Namibia, the southwest African country where Shiimi fought oppression, then escaped to come to the United States to build a better life.
Asheeke was Shiimi’s uncle, but they first met about a month ago at a reception celebrating Namibia’s first year of independence from South Africa.
At Ramapo, Shiimi won the Aly Makwaia Scholarship named for an African student at the college who was stabbed to death in 1987.
On the day he died, Shiimi and two fellow students had gone to a nightclub in Spring Valley. They stopped at the gas station about 4:30 a.m., when the car the three were traveling in tapped the bumper of the other car. Police refused to say who was driving the car that carried Shiimi.
Two men in the other car argued with Shiimi and one stabbed him, police said. The men, along with a woman in their company, fled in a red Nissan with a white stripe. Police described both men as having Jamaican accents, and said one had a gold front tooth. It was unclear from police reports Saturday whether Finley has a gold tooth.
At the Spring Valley Police Department’s request, detectives from the New York Police Department’s 70th Precinct in Brooklyn had been checking the home of Finley’s relatives on Sterling Street, said Sgt. Mary Wrensen, a city police spokeswoman. They found Finley there about 8:30 p.m. Friday. He had an airline ticket to Florida, police said.
Police are looking for the other man and the woman. No further details of the investigation were available.

Keywords: NEW JERSEY; COLLEGE; STUDENT; MURDER

VANDALISM INCIDENTS PROBED IN TEANECK

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Saturday, April 13, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A04

Township police are investigating five incidents of vandalism along Teaneck Road in which windows at two businesses, a private residence, and the Bryant School were broken Thursday night.
In the first incident, about 5:30 p.m., a woman reported that someone threw a rock through the passenger side window of her car parked on Sherman Avenue, near Teaneck Road.
The vandalism occurred in the wake of an impromptu march Wednesday by students marking the first anniversary of the death of Phillip C. Pannell, a black 16-year-old who was shot by a white township police officer. The window of a police cruiser was shattered.

Keywords: TEANECK; DEMONSTRATION; ANNIVERSARY; VANDALISM; POLICE; SHOOTING; YOUTH; DEATH

WASHED-UP BODY MAY BE LOST SUSPECT

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Wednesday, April 10, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B04

A body found Tuesday on the muddy bank of the Hackensack River may be that of a suspect who jumped into the frigid water March 14 while being pursued from the scene of a burglary, police said. The man is believed to be John Quinones.
Police say detectives investigating the March 14 burglary of the Liz Claiborne warehouse in Secaucus identified Quinones, 23, of Bayonne as one of the two suspects who fled in a van from the scene. The men abandoned the van and jumped in the river to avoid being caught.
Police found Raymond Simone, 32, of Jersey City, at about 12:30 a.m. on the west bank of the river, three hours after the search began.
Simone, suffering from exposure, was treated at Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center. He was charged with two counts of burglary, one count of theft, and eluding police, and later was transferred to the Hudson County Jail.
Surveyors working in the area found the body along the riverbank about 100 feet south of the North Bergen Foundry at about 1 p.m. Tuesday, police said.

Keywords: SECAUCUS; DEATH; PROBE