SHOCKED EDUCATORS DEAL WITH SEX CASE; POLICE INVESTIGATE ACCUSED PRINCIPAL

By Michael O. Allen and Thomas Moran, Record Staff Writers | Sunday, December 2, 1990

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

As Bergen County law-enforcement officials continued their investigation of an elementary school principal accused of molesting pupils, Elmwood Park educators began scheduling counseling sessions for children and meetings with parents.

“To say that we were shocked would be an understatement,” said Michael Schill, president of the school board. “Our first and foremost concern has been the children, and that will always be our concern.”

Victoria Williams, Elmwood Park’s superintendent of schools, called a Monday meeting with parents to begin answering questions arising from the arrest Friday of Samuel R. Bracigliano, principal of the Gilbert Avenue Elementary school for 10 years.

Authorities say the alleged victims three boys, two age 11 and one age 9 are students at the school.

Bracigliano, who prosecutors said is single and lives with his mother in Elmwood Park, was accused of touching the buttocks of one student and taking photographs of three boys in “provocative poses” in his school office.

Law-enforcement investigators will review with school officials whether photographs and videotapes seized at Bracigliano’s home are those of former and current students at the school.

John J. Fahy, the Bergen County prosecutor, said parents who have questions or suspicions should call the Bergen County Sex Crimes Unit at 646-3600.

Williams said that at Monday’s meeting, which will be at 7 p.m. she will attempt to reassure parents that everything possible is being done to help the children.

Also Monday, counseling services will be made available to students and parents during school days for as long as they are needed, Williams said.

“We have a team of counselors, school psychologists, social workers, learning consultants, crisis-intervention counselors, and school nurses, and Bergen County personnel that will help us with this,” she said.

Except to express their shock and disappointment, several school trustees declined to comment on the situation. Many urged that the investigation be allowed to take its course.

Schill issued a formal statement, saying:

“The board suspended Mr. Bracigliano because that is the proper thing to do. We are not implying in any shape or form his guilt in this matter. He is suspended with pay. We want to get this cleared up as quickly as possible. Whether he’s guilty or innocent, the nature of the charges itself triggers a very strong reply.”

Fahy said his office acted swiftly when a parent of one of the alleged victims called to complain Thursday afternoon. Investigators armed with a search warrant seized boxes containing photographs and videotapes of young boys from Bracigliano’s home.

Bracigliano, an unsuccessful candidate for principal of Memorial High School this year, was arrested at about 7 p.m. Neither he nor his lawyer, Louis Mangano, a member of the school board, could be reached on Saturday.

Saturday, a woman who identified herself as the mother of one of the three boys allegedly photographed said the Prosecutor’s Office called her Thursday night and asked her to bring the boy in for to be interviewed.

She said her son told her he had been summoned to the principal’s office through the school intercom during his regular classes on Thursday, and he described what occurred inside the office.

Elmwood Park Mayor Richard A. Mola said that in the 20 years he has known Bracigliano, as a public official and an educator, “people have always held him in high regard.”

“I’ve never heard anything derogatory about him.”

ACADEMY CHIEF STILL IN CRITICAL CONDITION

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, November 15, 1990

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

The director of the Bergen County Police and Fire Academy, injured in an accident last week when he lost control of his van and was broadsided by a truck, remained in critical condition at The Valley Hospital Wednesday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Ronald Calissi’s condition has stabilized and he is showing improvement, hospital spokeswoman Jackie Welch said, but he is still being monitored in the intensive care unit for multiple injuries he suffered Thursday afternoon in the accident along Sicomac Avenue, not far from his home in Franklin Lakes.

Peter Neillands, Bergen County police chief and director of public safety, said short-term operation of the academy would not change. Scheduled classes are continuing, and Neillands is managing the academy in Calissi’s absence.

Neillands said he had assigned Bertram Kerrigan, chief police instructor, and John Evans, chief fire instructor, to oversee the day-to-day operation of the academy.

Graduations for the corrections officers class on Nov. 21 and for the basic police class on Dec. 14 will take place as scheduled, Neillands said.

Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy said the accident occurred when Calissi, eastbound on Sicomac at about 5 p.m. on Nov. 8, passed on the left a vehicle making a right turn. A utility truck was traveling westbound on Sicomac.

Calissi lost control of his 1988 Ford van as he attempted to go back into the eastbound lane, and the truck broadsided the van, Fahy said.

Calissi’s van rolled over onto the passenger side from the force of the impact, and rescue workers had to cut the roof off the van to extricate him.

SUSPECT IN BURGLARY SPREE WAS OUT ON BAIL

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, October 26, 1990

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

The chief suspect in more than 40 cat burglaries in four Bergen County communities over the past two months had been arrested on burglary charges in one of the towns in July and freed on bail.

Celious Lee Harmon of Teaneck, who was arrested Monday night on burglary charges, had spent nearly a month this summer in the Bergen County Jail after being arrested on burglary charges in Englewood, police said.

Harmon, who was captured Monday as he tried to flee from police at the Port Authority’s George Washington Bridge bus terminal in Manhattan, is fighting extradition to New Jersey, said Fort Lee Police Chief John Orso.

Police say that after Harmon posted $5,000 bail on the Englewood charges, he began burglarizing homes in Englewood, Englewood Cliffs, Fort Lee, and Tenafly in early September.

Orso said Harmon, 28, often rode the bus from New York City into affluent sections of the communities, broke into homes and stole valuables, and then rode the bus back across the bridge to the bus terminal, where he sold the stolen goods to support a crack cocaine habit.

Capt. C. Kenneth Tinsley of Englewood said that when the four-town burglary spree began Sept. 5, the Englewood Police Department knew who its chief suspect was. So did the Fort Lee Police Department.

“We knew who we were looking for because we had a set of footprints and a set of fingerprints,” Orso said. “We also knew he was traveling by bus between New York and New Jersey. “

The four communities formed a 30-person task force to track him down, but he eluded them. By the time he was captured Monday, he was suspected of more than 40 home burglaries in the four towns.

He was arrested after a chase by two Fort Lee and two Port Authority police officers at 180th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan.

Tinsley said that Harmon’s arrest in Englewood in July came after a chase. He allegedly had broken into a home in the East Hill section of city. Police also found property stolen from a residence on Gloucester Street strewn along the path of the chase.

Harmon was arrested in Fort Lee in 1985 and sentenced to five years in prison after conviction on three counts of burglary, two counts of receiving stolen goods, two counts for possession of burglary tools, and two counts of resisting arrest. He was also a suspect in 18 other burglaries in Fort Lee, Orso said. He was paroled in 1988.