Bergen County Archives - MICHAEL O. ALLEN

HEROIN PROBE RESULTS IN 38 ARRESTS; Most Suspects are From Bergen or Passaic

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 15, 1992

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

A state police task force investigating heroin trafficking in North Jersey has arrested 38 people, most of them from Bergen and Passaic counties, and seized more than $600,000 worth of uncut heroin.

Law enforcement authorities used undercover drug purchases and surveillance to penetrate a ring of traffickers stretching from North Jersey through New York City to Yugoslavia, state Attorney General Robert Del Tufo said Tuesday.

Dubbed “Operation Big Apple” because the drugs came into the country through Kennedy International Airport, the investigation began a year ago and started bearing fruit with the Feb. 7 arrest of Nicholas Lore, also known as Aniello Moschillo. The Hasbrouck Heights resident was charged with cocaine possession.

Lore is suspected of being one of the network’s linchpins, authorities said.

Police seized five ounces of cocaine and $11,000 in that arrest.

The case broke open March 20 when agents executing search warrants at Xhemil Zhuta’s Elmwood Park residence seized 2 kilograms of heroin, a .38-caliber pistol loaded with hollow-point bullets, and about $2,000, officials said.

Arrested with Zhuta, the alleged leader of the network, were his wife, Qibaret, son, Mendi, and daughter, Teuta.

Arrested at other North Jersey locations that day were Saban Adili, 41, of Dallas; Esref Ismaili, 40, of Fairfield, Conn.; Esat Sulesjmanoski, 41, of Lincoln Park; and Bajram Ibrahimi, 56, of Paterson, who allegedly is the courier who brought the heroin from Yugoslavia to the United States.

Further arrests occurred later in March and in early April.

In all, 38 people were charged, including 32 from Bergen and Passaic counties.

Authorities said the Cambridge Club Tavern in Garfield was the principal distribution point of heroin and cocaine in the Garfield-Lodi area.

Zimbret Mahmudi, a 28-year-old Garfield resident who authorities say is the owner of the club, was among those arrested.

He is being held at the Bergen County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail.

The elder Zhuta and his wife were being held in the jail in lieu of $500,000 and $250,000 bail, respectively.

The investigation is continuing and authorities expect to make more arrests, said Col. Justin J. Dintino, state police superintendent.

April 15, 1992

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FEDERAL LIMIT ON INMATES ASSAILED; Del Tufo Weighs Legal Challenge

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 1, 1992

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

New Jersey Attorney General Robert J. Del Tufo said Tuesday that he is considering challenging federal court orders that limit the number of state prisoners in some county jails.

“I would prefer not to have a federal judge telling the state what it can and cannot do,” he said.

Del Tufo said he talked Monday with U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr about a new U.S. Justice Department policy to provide legal help to states that are trying to lift court-ordered limits on prison populations.

He said he wants to review the current consent decrees restricting the number of state inmates in the Essex, Atlantic, Burlington, Monmouth, and Union county jails, with an eye toward challenging those limits.

Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune said lifting the cap on state inmates at other jails might help the Bergen County Jail because some state prisoners could be removed, but that the problem would remain with the state.

“If the state realizes it has an overcrowding problem, then it must address it at the state level, not at the expense of the county jail system,” Terhune said.

The new Justice Department policy was first put forth by Barr in a Jan. 14 speech in which he said the ability of states in recent years to manage their own prisons has been hampered by lower federal court rulings that came out of lawsuits filed by inmates.

“Many courts went far beyond what the Constitution requires in remedying purported Eighth Amendment violations,” Barr said in the speech. “Caps, in particular, have wrought havoc with the states efforts to get criminals off the street.”

But on Jan. 15, the day after Barr’s speech, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that undercut his position, said Elizabeth Alexander, deputy director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ruling, in a case originating in Boston, made reopening consent decrees easier, but put limits on how much they could be rewritten, Alexander said.

“I’m really surprised that Barr is continuing to make this argument,” she said. “In the face of the decision, I would have thought that he would stop, because it was so soundly rejected by the Supreme Court.”

The Bergen County Jail operates at an average of 235 percent of its rated capacity of 423 inmates, with its population hovering around 1,000 during the week and exceeding that on weekends. The county and state are co-defendants in a 1988 lawsuit filed by inmates who charged that their constitutional rights were being violated by conditions at the jail.

James Stabile, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, said the state prison system currently runs at 135 percent capacity. Although the department removed 1,559 inmates from county jails in February, the caps in the five counties prevented the state from spreading that number out, he said.

For instance, the department removed 348 prisoners from the Essex County Jail, one of the jails under consent decrees, but only 72 inmates from Bergen County. The number could have been divided more evenly among the counties if the state could be flexible with the cap, Stabile said.

April 1, 1992

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SEX-ABUSE CASE TIED TO SNAPSHOTS; Bergen Teen in Photos, Not Baby Hope

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By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, March 15, 1992

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

The Baby Hope mystery will have to endure, for now at least.

New York City detectives, who attached the moniker “Baby Hope” to a dead girl whose body was found last year in a cooler near the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan, continue to search for the girl’s identity and the circumstance of her death.

Bergen County prosecutor’s sex crime investigators identified a 13-year-old Paterson girl who last week reported that she had been sexually assaulted as the person in photographs widely held to be of the dead girl.

Welling Wedemeyer, 54, of 123 Kennedy Drive, Lodi, was charged Friday with aggravated sexual assault on the girl, Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said. He was being held Saturday in the Bergen County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Though she is older than Baby Hope is believed to have been, authorities are sure they have the right girl, attributing the difference in age to the fact that the photographs show only the victim’s head and shoulders.

The mystery of the photographs began June 14 when an unidentified man walking west on Route 46, near the Midland Avenue overpass in Garfield, found a brown paper bag containing five glossy snapshots that show a girl being sexually assaulted and being forced to perform a sex act with man whose head is not visible. He turned the bag over to police.

Construction workers found the body of a girl in a cooler near the West Side Highway more than a month later. The girl, thought to be 3 to 5 years old, was malnourished and had been beaten, sexually abused, bound, and suffocated.

A Bergen County prosecutor’s sex crimes investigator made the connection between the two cases in October when he noticed similarities in the features of the girl in the snapshots and New York City police composites of Baby Hope, leading to cooperation between the two departments.

There were other clues that seemingly tied the dead girl to the girl in the snapshots: Route 46 is one route leading to the George Washington Bridge, which has an exit to the Henry Hudson Parkway.

An anthropologist working at the FBI crime laboratory in Washington, D.C., created a single photograph from the five snapshots, then compared the photograph with the skull of the girl in the cooler.

Saying he was 90 percent positive the highest degree of certainty in cases like this, Fahy said Saturday the anthropologist three months ago concluded the dead girl and the girl in the photographs were the same.

The mystery of the girl in the snapshots began to unravel last week, however, Fahy said. A 13-year-old girl, accompanied by her mother, went to Lodi police Monday. Directed to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, which investigates all sexual abuse cases in the county, the girl alleged that Wedemeyer sexually assaulted her, Fahy said.

Wedemeyer was arrested Tuesday and charged.

An investigator, who noticed the similarities in the features of the girl and the girl in the snapshots, asked her more questions and she told them that photographs had been taken of her. Authorities executed a search warrant at Wedemeyer’s home and found several photographs.

“The background of the house was the same as the background in the pictures found on [Route] 46 the drapes, the couch, windows, and things like that,” Fahy said. “I mean, there is no doubt that this girl is the girl in those photographs.”

Wedemeyer was charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault and Superior Court Judge William C. Meehan added $75,000 to the $25,000 bail from his arrest on the initial charge Tuesday.

March 15, 1992

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CRASH KILLS DRIVER OF COUNTY VAN

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, February 1, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | Two Star | NEWS | A05

Authorities are investigating the crash of a Bergen County special transportation van whose driver died after he apparently lost control and landed in a ravine.

Detective George Gibbs of the Bergen County Police Department said eyewitnesses reported the van was headed south on Polifly Road about 11 a.m. Thursday when it crossed into the northbound lane, drove through the Exxon gas station on the Hackensack-Hasbrouck Heights border, then landed in a ravine behind the station.

The witnesses said the driver was not visible when the vehicle went out of control.

The driver, Charles Strunck, 49, of Wood-Ridge, was taken to Hackensack Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 11:22 a.m., Gibbs said.

“Right now, we are waiting for the autopsy report and mechanical inspection of the van. A preliminary inspection indicated everything was OK on the van,” Gibbs said.

Margaret Cook, director of special transportation for Bergen County, said Strunck was on his way to pick up an elderly woman for a doctor’s appointment when the accident occurred. He had just dropped off about 10 passengers at a senior citizens center in Hackensack.

“It will be a tremendous loss to us,” said Cook, who described Strunck as a compassionate and outgoing worker.

February 1, 1992

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VICTORY FOR JAIL COULD BE A LOSS; Hearings Resume on Overcrowding

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, January 29, 1992

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

In an ironic twist to a class-action suit seeking to reduce overcrowding at the Bergen County Jail, a high-ranking county official says the county could wind up a loser if it wins the case.

Jerrold B. Binney, chief of staff to county Executive William “Pat” Schuber, said Tuesday that the state might walk away from the jail’s problems, if the recommendation of special master James R. Zazzali goes against the Department of the Public Advocate. It filed the federal suit in behalf of jail inmates in 1988.

The state and county are defendants in the case. Hearings on the suit were scheduled to resume today, after negotiations on an out-of-court settlement reached an impasse late last year.

Of 984 inmates in the jail which has a rated capacity of 423 379 are state prisoners, said a spokeswoman for Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune.

Binney, who has been designated by Schuber to speak for the county on the issue, said that the county has maintained all along that the state is to blame for the overcrowding and a host of other problems at the jail.

If the state and county win, he added, the state would have no incentive to decrease the number of state prisoners in the jail, or to increase its per-diem subsidy for state prisoners.

Binney says the county may sue the state to get it to address the county’s concerns.

“We’ve already done that in one instance, on the per-diem issue,” he said. “We’ve joined the Gloucester County suit on the per-diem cost because, right now, it is draining our treasury.

“We get $45 a day from the state,” he went on. “That’s what we’ve been getting for about 12 years, and everybody knows the costs have been going up. We feel that at a minimum at a minimum it’s costing us $65 a day to house those state prisoners, and that’s not even including some capital costs.”

The Bergen County freeholders are to consider the per-diem issue at their next meeting, deciding how much to ask of the court in the Gloucester case.

Deputy Attorney General Patricia Leuzzi, representing the state Corrections Department in the suit, said she had not been notified that Bergen County joined the Gloucester suit.

Leuzzi also said she was reluctant to discuss the issues discussed during settlement talks, but that the state does not dispute that the per-diem rate needs to increase. The state Legislature is responsible for such an increase, she said.

“The budget is limited,” she said. “The governor and the Legislature are making difficult decisions on what can be funded. Things are being cut back. There are complaints from every constituent.”

Deputy Public Advocate Audrey Bomse, who is handling the class-action suit, said the state deliberately overloads the county jails in order to avoid having its prisons declared unconstitutional.

Bomse said that overcrowding exacerbates the violation of inmates constitutional rights, and that an expert for the public advocate would testify today that, with the exception of health care, “almost next to nothing has been done to ameliorate” problems at the jail.

Among the problem areas cited were lack of exercise, poor lighting, improper sanitation, inadequate protection of inmates from other inmates, and a rising level of violence between inmates and corrections officers.

Corrections Department spokesman James Stabile said that overcrowding results from state prisons taking in more inmates than they let out. In 1991, for instance, 11,559 inmates came into state prisons and 8,216 were paroled, leaving a monthly average surplus of 279 inmates.

New Jersey is one of only five states in the nation not under a court order to drastically reduce its prison population, said Betsy Bernat, a spokeswoman for the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. The project seeks to reduce prison populations.

Bernat said the reasons vary among the five states. Vermont, Montana, and North Dakota have no prison overcrowding largely because they are sparsely populated states, and Minnesota doesn’t because it imprisons only the most dangerous criminals.

She agreed with Bomse that New Jersey, which operates at about 135 percent of its prison capacity, was able to stave off a court order by “backing up its prisoners into the county jail system.”

January 29, 1992

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INMATE CLAIMS INJURY BY GUARD DOG; Attack in food protest charged

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, January 25, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | One Star | NEWS | Page A04

A Bergen County Jail prisoner claims he was injured when he was subdued by a police dog during an inmate protest over food.

Another inmate said the prisoner was bitten by the officer’s dog, but Sheriff Jack Terhune would say only that he assumed the inmate was bitten, because he needed medical attention.

Inmate Gary Jones, 32, said in a call to The Record that he saw a guard dog bite Gregory Cannell on Jan. 11 during a melee that ensued when several inmates dumped their food trays in protest over the portions they receive at mealtime.

Terhune said Thursday that Cannell received medical attention after he was taken into custody with the assistance of the guard dog. Cannell, 26, of Union City, was then returned to an isolation cell because he and Howard Tucker, 19, of Newark, face a charge of assault on a law enforcement officer in the disturbance, Terhune said.

Cannell was one of several inmates who tried to push past a corrections officer into a hallway after about 10 inmates had dumped their trays, Terhune said. Several officers responded to the correction officer’s call for assistance, he added, declining to say whether anyone else was hurt.

Jones was one of five inmates who called The Record around midday on Jan. 11, before the disturbance later that afternoon, to say they were on a hunger strike in protest of their meal portions, and of general conditions. Jones reported the incident to The Record several days later.

The state Department of the Public Advocate, which is representing the jail inmates in a suit to reduce overcrowding at the jail, is looking into the incident and may have the inmates involved testify at a hearing next week.

Assistant Deputy Public Advocate Audrey Bomse said she was aware of the incident but had not received a report from either side. The charges of assault filed against the two inmates were not surprising, Bomse said.

“I’m not going to prejudge this. Sometimes that is the case, but sometimes it is also used as justification for the use of excessive force upon inmates,” Bomse said.

Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; PRISON; ANIMAL; ASSAULT

Notes: Cut in late editions.

January 25, 1992

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JAIL NEGOTIATIONS BOG DOWN OVER WHO SHOULD PAY

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, December 21, 1991

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

Negotiations over a lawsuit aimed at reducing overcrowding at the Bergen County Jail have reached an impasse over funding, the state Public Advocate’s Office says.

The office is expected to go back to court to pursue a class action suit filed on behalf of prisoners against the state and Bergen County in 1988. A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 3.

Negotiations, which had the advocate on one side and the state Attorney General’s Office and Bergen County on the other, had been going on for a year. Many issues, including a cap on the number of inmates, had been resolved, said Audrey Bomse, assistant deputy public advocate.

However, the talks broke down when the state and county feuded over who would pay the costs of meeting the terms of any agreement, Bomse said. “The hang-up is not coming from my end; the hang-up is coming from the county and the state. Both are saying the other should foot the bill,” she said.

State Corrections Department spokesman James Stabile declined to comment on the suit Friday. Bomse said the state maintains it does not have the money or space to move inmates who would be squeezed out of the jail as a result of the settlement. The county, however, says it could not make the improvements needed to meet the agreement at the current level of state funding.

Deputy Bergen County Counsel Murshell Johnson, who, with Bomse, holds out the possibility that an agreement can be reached before the court action resumes, confirmed that money is an issue holding up the settlement.

“You’ve got the executive order that gives the [corrections] commissioner power to house state prisoners in county facilities. However, the funding that is provided to house them is totally inadequate,” she said, adding that the $45 a day the state pays for each prisoner falls short of the $63 it costs the county to house an inmate.

Although it has a rated capacity of 423 inmates, the Bergen County Jail has 1,034. Under a state executive order signed in 1981 and renewed every six months, Bergen County is required to take 72 state prisoners. About 400 inmates are state prisoners.

Bomse said the state and county basically have agreed on a capacity of 800 inmates.

December 21, 1991

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COPS CAST MASSIVE DWI NET

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, December 14, 1991

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

More than 200 law enforcement vehicles were ordered onto the streets and highways of Bergen County on Friday night in a 12-hour campaign to get drunken drivers off the road.

Operation Eagle was launched at 6 p.m. and involved all divisions of the Bergen County Public Safety Department, the state police, and officers from each of the county’s 70 towns. It was the brainchild of John Pescatore, director of the county’s Highway Safety Office.

“The eagle may have landed on Friday the 13th, but the feathers will be flying for a long time to come,” Pescatore said, because the crackdown is to continue into January.

The effort’s cost will be covered through fines levied against people convicted of driving drunk, not by the taxpayers, Pescatore said.

The state police established a sobriety checkpoint in Rutherford, and 15 troopers were deployed on Interstates 80 and 95 and routes 3, 4, 17, and 208.

The Bergen County Police Department had 20 cars in the field; the Prosecutor’s Office 15. “DWI Task Force” decals were displayed on the vehicles.

Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said deterrence was the main focus. He said people tend to drink more during the holiday season, especially on weekends.

“If we end up with no arrests, I will be happy, because it would mean that we’ve had an impact,” Fahy said.

December 14, 1991

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THANKS GIVEN TO DRIVERS; LAW ABIDERS PULLED OVER

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, November 28, 1991

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

Cornell Adams of Hillsdale said he did not know what to think when Bergen County Police Sgt. Vincent DeRienzo told him to pull over on Route 17 in East Rutherford Wednesday morning.

“We thought they were just messing with folks,” Adams wife, Dejuanna, said.

Rather than a summons, DeRienzo handed the Adams family a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne and thanked them for wearing their seat belts.

In a twist, John Pescatore, director of the Bergen County Highway Safety Office, said police were stopping motorists who were wearing their seat belts on the day before Thanksgiving to thank them for obeying the law.

“We thought the best way to get people to wear their seat belts is to enlist the help of those people who are already wearing their seat belts to help us spread the message through word of mouth,” Pescatore said. “It is a positive reinforcement of a good habit.”

About 7 a.m. Wednesday, five officers from the Bergen County Police Department were out handing bottles of a sparkling apple drink imported from Spain to motorists at the Route 17 intersection with Union Avenue in East Rutherford. At the same time, three Mahwah police officers gave out bottles of a non-alcoholic sparkling wine from California at the Franklin Turnpike-Micik Lane intersection.

The champagne, 240 bottles in all, was donated by Goya Foods Inc. of Secaucus and Inserra Supermarkets Inc. of Mahwah.

On a frigid morning, as motorists drove through the rush-hour traffic, the officers would pick a driver at a red light. The drivers looked worried as they pulled over to spots designated by the officers.

A few took the offensive even before an officer spoke. One woman, speaking in rather clinical language, cursed at DeRienzo for stopping her. The officer waved her on.

“People go, `What did I do wrong? ” said Bergen County Police Officer Dwane R. Razzetti, a state-certified seat belt training officer. “Today, we are stopping cars that are properly inspected, where people are wearing their seat belts the opposite reasons that we normally stop cars.”

An exception was a 23-year-old Jersey City woman, who was stopped when an officer spotted her 2-year-old son lying in the front seat, not strapped in. The woman was given a child-restraint seat, instead of a summons.

Most drivers, when they opened their windows to hear the officers announce they were being stopped, were frowning.

“You know why we are stopping you ma’am? ” county police Officer Mark Solimando asked Carlstadt High School guidance counselor Marilyn Persico.

“No,” she answered, frowning.

“We stopped you because you are wearing your seat belt,” Solimando said. He handed her the bottle, and enjoined her not to drink and drive. He also gave her pamphlets with information on how to use seat belts and how to drive in winter conditions.

Like a flower blooming, her face lit into a full smile.

“This is nice,” she said, turning the bottle over in her hand. “This is nice.”

“Have a nice holiday, ma’am,” Solimando said, waving her on.

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – BOB BRUSH / THE RECORD – Officer Chris Zovistoski “citing” Patti Jacobson of Wallington.

November 28, 1991

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GRIM TALES, HARD DRUGS, TOUGH LESSONS; THESE DEGREES HAVE NO VALUE

By michael o. allenHomepage, The RecordNo Comments

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, October 23, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | 6 Star | NEWS | Page B01

They met informally after a talk on drug addiction given by two Bergen County Jail inmates. A handful of Fair Lawn High School students walked onto the stage to meet the prisoners, to ask a question, or make a statement.

One of the students, a 17-year-old senior, felt a special kinship with the pair: He is a recovering cocaine addict.

“It’s true everything they said,” the student said. “You can go to alcohol, and it will bring you right back to drugs.”

The cycle had just been vividly recounted for him and about 270 other Fair Lawn seniors at a forum Tuesday morning in the school auditorium. The program is being offered this month in county schools by the Sheriff’s Department’s “Hit Team.”

The two inmates Michael, 48, and Greg, 28 told of lives disrupted because of addictions, beginning with alcohol and escalating to illegal drugs.
“If you play the game of drugs, you are going to end up one of three ways: addicted, in jail, or dead,” said Michael, who is serving a five-year sentence for possession of cocaine.

Greg said his descent began in the eighth grade, when he tried to use alcohol to mask the pain of mental, physical, and sexual abuse by his father. It soon escalated to nocturnal walks in New York City, looking for crack.

“You have to understand that these little six-packs and cases of beer you drink at victory parties . . . I don’t know, does it really make the music sound all that better? I don’t think so,” Greg said.

“It just doesn’t happen overnight. It started at a young age. It started with drinking. It started as fun. All my friends did it. So I did it, too.”

Michael said he was from Washington and once had a well-paying job and a family. But his addiction put him in the wrong place at the wrong time in a car when police busted the driver with a kilo of cocaine.

Joelynn Lisa, 17, said the two men’s stories were powerful. “It makes you think twice about doing drugs,” she said.

The Hit Team is two inmates, a corrections officer, a deputy sheriff, and an undersheriff or Sheriff Jack Terhune.

Student at Fair Lawn High School fires a pistol in class.

Keywords: FAIR LAWN; SCHOOL; STUDENT; MEETING; BERGEN COUNTY; PRISON; DRUG; ABUSE

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – BOB BRUSH / THE RECORD – Fair Lawn High School seniors listening to Bergen County Jail inmates Greg and Michael tell the stories of their addictions.

October 23, 1991

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