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Jul 25

SETTLEMENT IN WORKS FOR JAIL OVERCROWDING LAWSUIT

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, July 25, 1991

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

A 1988 federal lawsuit seeking to reduce overcrowding and improve conditions at the Bergen County Jail is nearing a settlement, the state Public Advocate Department says.
“We still have to fine-tune it,” said Audrey Bomse, an attorney for the agency, which represents the inmates. “I would say it’s a matter of months.”
Murshell Johnson, assistant Bergen County counsel, declined to discuss the case.
Patricia Leuzzi, special assistant to Attorney General Robert J. Del Tufo and the lawyer representing the state in the lawsuit, acknowledged that the inmate population and jail conditions were two major topics in the ongoing talks.
The October 1988 lawsuit, filed by the Office of Inmate Advocacy and nine inmates, charged that overcrowding at the jail creates conditions that make it unfit for human habitation and violates inmates constitutional rights.
Bergen County contended during hearings in 1990 that the conditions were not inhuman and that the New Jersey Corrections Department was responsible for the overcrowding. More than 300 of the jail’s roughly 1,000 inmates should be housed in a state prison, Bergen County lawyers charged.
In two recent letters to the state Corrections Department, Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune warned that an overload of state inmates was making the county jail unmanageable. Under a state executive order signed in 1981 and renewed every six months since, Bergen County must take 72 state inmates. About 425 inmates now in the jail are state prisoners.
Recently, inmates were put in disciplinary “lockdowns” following a food fight and a separate gang attack.

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; PRISON; LAWSUIT; NEW JERSEY; GOVERNMENT

Jul 19

Love0

SUSPECT CAPTURED, WITH HELP OF TIPSTER; LEFT SON WITH COPS AS HE DUCKED ARREST

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

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

An anonymous tip Wednesday led to the capture of a 42-year-old man who last week had fled police leaving his son in their custody after being recognized as wanted on several charges.
Officers from five municipal police departments chased Nicola Lomuscio after he bolted from his home at 176 Woodland Ave. and arrested him about 4:45 p.m., said Little Ferry Detective Sgt. Michael Walsh.
Lomuscio was being held on $56,536 bail in the Bergen County Jail on Thursday. Little Ferry police charged him with eluding police and with two counts of resisting arrest. Police in Hackensack, where the case originated, charged Lomuscio with violating a restraining order, harassment, theft, and escape from custody.
Hackensack Police Capt. John Aletta said the incident began July 11 at their headquarters, when an officer recognized Lomuscio as the man they wanted in connection with a domestic abuse case and other charges. Lomuscio had come to report that someone had assaulted his 10-year-old son. He fled, leaving the boy, Aletta said. The assault claim was determined later to be unfounded, police said.
Hackensack police released the boy to his mother, who lives in the city.
Police had been unable to find Lomuscio at home since that incident, until a caller told police Wednesday that Lomuscio was heading toward Little Ferry, Aletta said. Four borough officers were waiting outside his home when he arrived. He defied the officers, entered the home, and escaped out the back door, Walsh said.
Police from South Hackensack, Moonachie, and Ridgefield Park and a Bergen County Police K-9 unit joined the brief chase before Lomuscio was arrested on Route 46 in Little Ferry, Walsh said.

Keywords: POLICE; LITTLE FERRY; HACKENSACK; ABUSE; THEFT; ASSAULT

Jul 19

Love0

TRUCKER IN FATAL ACCIDENT WAS SOBER

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

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

A tractor-trailer driver arrested Sunday in Teaneck after he left the scene of a Washington Heights accident in which two elderly sisters were killed was not drunk or under the influence of drugs at the time, officials said Thursday.
Blood and urine samples taken from Harold Heitzman at the time of his arrest came up negative in New Jersey State Police laboratory tests, said Terry Benczik, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Heitzman, who had a Texas driver’s license but lives in Peru, Ind., was released from the Bergen County Jail Monday on $1,000 bail. He was charged with driving while impaired, use of or under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance, eluding police, and going 10 miles above the 55-mph speed limit.
At least the two drug-related charges will likely be dropped, Benczik said.
Betty Rosen, 83, and Claire Muller, 86, both of Manhattan, were on their weekly outing to a restaurant at the time of the accident. Rosen and Muller, holding hands as they crossed the 179th Street-Broadway intersection about 4:15 p.m. Sunday, were struck and killed.
New York police said witnesses supported Heitzman’s statement to Port Authority police officers about 20 minutes after the accident that he was not aware he had hit the women. New York police did not charge Heitzman in the death of the two women because there was no evidence of a crime, said a spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.
Heitzman did not heed the lights and sirens of two Port Authority police officers attempting to stop him as he crossed the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey after the accident, police said. He stopped at the junction of Routes 95 and 80 in Teaneck.
A Sept. 10 court appearance had been scheduled for Heitzman in Fort Lee on the charges of impaired driving, eluding police, and speeding.
“Until I speak with my officers and review the case, I can’t make a decision whether the charges will be dropped,” said Matthew Fierro, municipal prosecutor. “I have to see what other charges the police officers have brought against him. He will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law once I review the charges.”
Teaneck Municipal Prosecutor Howard Solomon said he had not seen the complaint and could not comment on it. Heitzman is charged with use of or under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance in Teaneck.
“We’ll go forward with the complaint if it is provable,” Solomon said.

Keywords: MOTOR VEHICLE; ACCIDENT; DEATH; NEW YORK CITY; TEANECK; VICTIM

Jul 19

Love0

3 SOVIET EMIGRES END UP IN GOLF CRISIS

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By Michael O. Allen and Patricia Alex, Record Staff Writers | Friday, July 19, 1991

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

Police say a trio of Soviet emigres caught sopping wet after diving for golf balls in Rockleigh Golf Course ponds early Thursday were carrying free enterprise a bit too far.
Yuri Slobodkin, 20, and Vyachestu Shablvusky, 20, both of Brooklyn, and Pavel Krants, 25, of Queens were charged with defiant trespass and theft of movable property about 2,500 golf balls.
They were arrested after Northvale police stopped them in a 1982 Oldsmobile on Haring Farm Lane at about 3:45 a.m. soaking wet and in possession of wet suits, scuba gear, and a duffel bag full of the duffers bounty.
Detective Jean Rothenberger of the Bergen County Police Department said the men dove for golf balls which fetch from 35 to 75 cents each for a living in New York, where they had legitimate contracts to do so.
“They just came out here to free-lance,” Rothenberger said.
The three were given summonses and released.

Keywords: RUSSIA; GOLF; LAKE; ROCKLEIGH; VIOLATION; NEW YORK CITY; THEFT; NORTHVALE

Jul 17

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VICTIMS ADVOCATES LAUNCH CAMPAIGN; SEEK APPROVAL OF RIGHTS AMENDMENT

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, July 17, 1991

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

Advocates of a state constitutional amendment recognizing crime victims rights met in Paramus on Tuesday to begin their drive to get voter approval of the measure in a Nov. 5 referendum.
The state Legislature recently approved the amendment, which says that a crime victim “shall be treated with fairness, compassion, and respect by the criminal justice system.”
The amendment also states that a crime victim should not be denied the right to be present at public judicial proceedings. Currently, crime victims are not allowed in the courtroom unless they are giving testimony.
A crime victims rights panel convened by Assembly members Rose Heck, R-Hasbrouck Heights, and Patrick J. Roma, R-Palisades Park, to discuss the amendment was videotaped and will be given to groups around the state as part of a public education effort, Heck said.
Dr. Jill Greenbaum of the Bergen County Rape Crisis Center said the amendment would begin to balance the rights that criminal defendants have with a measure of rights for the victims.
The amendment would help restore victims faith in the criminal justice system, said James O’Brien, chairman of the Coalition of Crime Victims Rights Organizations.
Right now, “a victim of a crime is not denied constitutional rights. That implies he has them,” O’Brien said. “He does not have them.
“We absolutely do not want to infringe on the rights of the defendants, because who is to say that I won’t be a defendant tomorrow? What we are saying is that the rights of the victims do not have to conflict with the rights of the defendant.”
The New Jersey Association of Defense Lawyers opposes the amendment, saying victims rights are adequately protected by current law.

Keywords: CRIME; VICTIM; FAMILY; ORGANIZATION; MEETING; NEW JERSEY; CONSTITUTION; RIGHT

Jul 16

Love0

NO CHARGES PLANNED IN TRUCKING ACCIDENT THAT LEFT SISTERS DEAD

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Tuesday, July 16, 1991

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

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office will not prosecute a tractor-trailer driver arrested Sunday in Teaneck after he left the scene of a Washington Heights accident in which two elderly sisters were killed.
Gerald McKelvey, a spokesman for District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, said Harold Heitzman would not be charged in the deaths of Betty Rosen, 83, and Claire Muller, 86, because there was no evidence of a crime.
Witnesses supported Heitzman’s statement that he did not know he had struck and killed the women, New York police said. Afterward he continued onto the George Washington Bridge and into New Jersey.
Heitzman, arrested after a short pursuit by Port Authority police about 20 minutes after the accident, was released from Bergen County Jail on Monday night on $1,000 bail. Police charged him with driving under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance, driving while intoxicated, eluding police, and driving 65 mph in a 55 mph zone.
“The witness statements did not support charges of leaving the scene,” said New York police spokeswoman Sgt. Tina Mohrmann. “That would have been the only charge in New York. It appears he didn’t know they [the sisters] were there.”
McKelvey said investigators were talking to witnesses and would charge Heitzman, 35, if they turn up information indicating he knowingly left the scene.
The sisters holding hands as they crossed at Broadway and 179th Street about 4:15 p.m. were on their weekly outing to a restaurant. Muller was buried Monday at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, Long Island. Services for Rosen were pending.
He appeared to be under the influence of a drug other than alcohol, said Port Authority police Lt. George Albin, who added that state police test results on blood and urine samples taken from Heitzman should be ready in about three days.
Evidence confirming Heitzman’s impaired state during the accident could influence whether New York charges him in the deaths, McKelvey said. He added that Heitzman had a Texas driver’s license but lived in Peru, Ind.
This article contains material from The Record’s news services.

Keywords: MOTOR VEHICLE; ACCIDENT; DEATH; AGED; VICTIM; NEW YORK CITY; TEANECK; ALCOHOL; ABUSE

Jul 16

Love0

ENGLEWOOD POLICE DISPATCHER IS KILLED IN MOTORCYCLE CRASH

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Tuesday, July 16, 1991

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

A 24-year-old city police dispatcher died and his wife was critically injured in a collision Sunday between their motorcycle and a car, police said.
Ronald Zadrozna of Bergenfield, a dispatcher in Englewood since June 1988, suffered a broken neck in the accident, said Police Lt. Charles Dillon.
Tammy Zadrozna, 23, was in critical condition in Englewood Hospital’s surgical intensive care unit, a hospital spokeswoman said Monday. Mrs. Zadrozna broke her hips and both ankles and sustained serious bruises.
The accident occurred about 9:55 p.m. at the intersection of Engle and Concord streets, Dillon said.
Zadrozna’s 1991 Honda motorcycle and a 1987 Chrysler driven by Claudia Conrado were both northbound on Engle Street when they collided, Police Chief William Luciano said.
“We still don’t know exactly what happened,” Luciano said. “There is no charge at this time, but the case is under investigation.”
Conrado, 32, of West Caldwell was uninjured, Luciano said.
Luciano said Zadrozna was a community-oriented person who would be missed by the Police Department. He was also a volunteer fireman and ambulance worker in Bergenfield and Englewood, and had just taken the test to become a full-time firefighter in Englewood, the chief added.
Deputy Chief Edward Kneisler of the Bergenfield Fire Department said the Zadroznas had been married only three months.
Kneisler recalled Zadrozna as “a good kid” who “had his life snapped from him.” Zadrozna had just bought the motorcycle and brand-new helmets, Kneisler added.
Record Staff Writer Laura Impellizzeri contributed to this article.

Keywords: ENGLEWOOD; POLICE; EMPLOYMENT; MOTOR VEHICLE; ACCIDENT; DEATH

Jul 15

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2 DEAD IN N.Y.C. HIT-AND-RUN; TRUCKER ARRESTED ON ROUTE 80

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Monday, July 15, 1991

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

A 34-year-old Indiana tractor-trailer driver was arrested in Teaneck on Sunday after he fled the scene of an accident in upper Manhattan in which two elderly sisters were struck and killed by a truck, police said.
The accident occurred about 4:16 p.m. at the intersection of 179th Street and Broadway, said Sgt. Tina Mohrmann, a New York City police spokeswoman.
“We had a tractor-trailer going westbound,” Morhmann said. “He struck two elderly women, both of whom died at the scene.”
Eyewitnesses told police that the women, who had come out of an A & P supermarket near the intersection, were dragged along the pavement several feet by a truck.
Police identified the women as sisters: Betty Rosen, 83, and Claire Muller, 86, both of Manhattan.
A police lieutenant at a bus station at the intersection notified Port Authority Police at the George Washington Bridge about the truck, and two officers on the bridge spotted it, said Port Authority spokeswoman Terry Benczik.
Port Authority Police Officers Dennis Higgins and Michael Bucholz stopped the truck about 4:35 p.m. at the junction of Routes 95 and 80 in Teaneck, Benczik said.
The suspect, identified as Harold J. Weitzman of Peru, Ind.,was charged with eluding police and driving under the influence of a controlled substance, Benczik said.
Additional charges are pending in New York.
Benczik said the suspect was being held at the Port Authority police lockup at the George Washington Bridge and would be transferred to the Bergen County Jail to await arraignment.
Forensic technicians were examining the truck to confirm it was the vehicle involved in the accident, police said.

Keywords: MOTOR VEHICLE; ACCIDENT; NEW YORK CITY; TEANECK; WOMAN; AGED; VIOLATION; DEATH; VICTIM

Jul 12

Love0

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.

Jul 11

Love0

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

Jul 10

Love0

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

Jul 10

Love0

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

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