DON’T INVITE HOLIDAY CRIME

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, December 23, 1990

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | SOUTH CENTRAL BERGEN | Page 11

As police in Englewood Cliffs tell residents at this time of year, “Don’t play Santa to a burglar. ” Put lights on timers, turn on your home alarms, and notify your police department when you leave on vacation.

While burglars strike at any time of year, homes in the region have been particularly hard-hit in recent months.

Englewood Cliffs Deputy Police Chief Patrick Farley said residents should assist the police by being vigilant and reporting suspicious activities.

Fort Lee Police Chief John Orso said residents should also be wary of flim-flam artists. Don’t pay for cash-on-delivery packages that you didn’t order, he added: Some nicely wrapped packages turn out to be empty.

For residents who will be vacationing out of town, Orso said the Fort Lee police, like those in several other communities, have a program in which homes are watched to protect them from burglars.

Emerson police Sgt. Ronald Micucci agreed, saying tough times make people more desperate.

Englewood Deputy Police Chief William Luciano said there are block associations in the city and that neighbors should also alert each other and perhaps leave keys when they will be gone for any length of time.

Other departments say to have neighbors take in mail and not to allow newspapers to pile up in front of your home.

The malls will be staying busy past Christmas Day so shoppers, especially the elderly, should watch their pocketbooks when shopping and walking to cars, police say.

PAIR MAY BE LINKED TO 23 BREAK-INS; CHARGED IN NOV. 17 THEFT

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, December 2, 1990

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A46

Two men arrested during a domestic dispute were charged with theft and burglary for one of 23 recent break-ins in the city and are suspected of being involved in the others, police said.

Walter Wiggins, 36, of 230 Central Ave., Hackensack, and Howard J. Hutchinson, 30, of Englewood were to be transferred from Englewood to the Bergen County Jail on Friday.

Englewood Police Capt. C. Kenneth Tinsley said the men were being charged with the Nov. 17 break-in of a garden apartment at 530 Broad Ave. Tinsley said items stolen from the apartment were recovered from the two.

Patrolmen Tim Torell and George Austin Jr. were responding to a call Thursday night about threats to Hutchinson’s sister, Georgia, 32, at 9-22 Rock Creek Terrace, Englewood, where they arrested Wiggins and Hutchinson, Tinsley said. A 9-inch kitchen knife was found imbedded in a wall where Wiggins had been jabbing it, he said.

Tinsley declined to say how police were able to connect the men with the burglary.

Wiggins was being held on $10,500 bail on charges of unlawful possession of a weapon, making terroristic threats, theft, and burglary. Hutchinson, being held on $5,000 bail, was charged with theft and burglary.

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.