MAN CHARGED IN WIFE’S ORDEAL; HE DRENCHED HER WITH GAS, COPS SAY

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, December 20, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | Page C05

A 27-year-old man abducted his estranged wife from a Teaneck street, drenched her with gasoline, and threatened to set both of them afire if she did not reconcile with him, police said.

Russell J. Kutcher was arrested in a Ridgefield motel where he had taken her, police said. Kutcher was being held Thursdau on $500,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail. His wife, whom police declined to name, was not injured.

The couple, separated since September, were in the process of getting a divorce. The woman had obtained a temporary restraining order against Kutcher on Dec. 13 because he was bothering her, Teaneck police Detective Leonard Pinto said. They were married in February.

Kutcher, a former Garfield resident who had been living at the motel, abducted the 24-year-old Elmwood Park woman about 12:45 p.m. Wednesday as she was talking with a friend at Bergen Street and Blauvelt Avenue near Ridgefield Park, Pinto said.

He dragged her into his 1978 Ford Thunderbird, then pulled a container from the back seat and poured gasoline over her head, Pinto said.

“He held a lighter to me and threatened to kill us both if I didn’t stop screaming,” the woman later told police.

A few minutes later, the frantic friend hailed Ridgefield Park police Sgt. Timothy LaTour, who had just left his house after a lunch break, and told him what had happened. LaTour broadcast a description of Kutcher’s car, and police from Teaneck and Ridgefield joined Ridgefield Park police in the search.

About 1:30 p.m., LaTour found Kutcher’s car in the parking lot of the Turnpike Motor Hotel on Route 46 west.

LaTour said he waited for backup from Ridgefield Park Capt. William Morton and Officer Philip McEntee, Pinto, and Ridgefield Detective Richard Stoltenborg, Investigator William Candeletti, and Officer William Pych, and that police then kicked in the door of Room 59.

“She was inside the room, sitting on the bed, crying,” LaTour said. “He was just walking around with pants, no shirt on.”

Kutcher gave up without incident, police said. Ambulance personnel found his wife covered with gasoline, Stoltenborg said.

Police said Kutcher, an unemployed chef, was staying in the motor hotel for the past week. His last known address was 271 Lanza Ave., Garfield.

He was charged Thursday in Teaneck Municipal Court with abduction and aggravated assault. Bail was set at $100,000. He was charged in Ridgefield with criminal restraint, unlawful imprisonment, making terroristic threats, and contempt of court for violating the restraining order. Bail there was set at $400,000.

ENGLEWOOD WOMAN HOME SAFELY; HUSBAND MAY FACE KIDNAPPING CHARGE

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, December 19, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star 3| NEWS | Page B03

A 37-year-old Ridgefield woman, allegedly kidnapped by her estranged husband and taken to his Middletown, N.Y., home, has returned home unharmed, police said.

City police are seeking to extradite John Louis Ruggiero from New York to face a kidnapping charge, Capt. C. Kenneth Tinsley said Wednesday.

Ruggiero, 41, was being held without bail in Orange County Jail on charges of criminal possession of cocaine, drug paraphernalia, two handguns, and fireworks, New York State Police Investigator Thomas Wood said.

Margaret Ruggiero was reported missing by her mother, Dorothy McDermott, about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. Workers at the obstetrician’s office where Ruggiero works called McDermott to say they had not seen her daughter all day, although her car was parked outside, said Detective Scott Jenkins, who investigated the case with Detective Sgt. David Bowman.

McDermott called police about 6 p.m., after receiving a call from her daughter, and said that Ruggiero had been kidnapped by her husband that morning and was being held at his home.

Ruggiero later told police that her husband had come up behind her and forced her into his car as she arrived at work in Englewood about 8:45 a.m. Tuesday, Jenkins said.

He drove her to Middletown, telling her that he would not harm her and that he just wanted to talk. He allowed her to make the call that led to her return home, she said.

SUSPECTED KIDNAPPER IS SHOT; WAVED DYNAMITE AT MARSHALS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, October 3, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | 1 Star | NEWS | Page B01

A 50-year-old man wanted for masterminding the kidnapping of a Union County businessman for ransom two years ago was shot and wounded by one of two U.S. marshals in North Bergen as he waved a stick of dynamite at them, authorities said.
Julio Sosa Rodriguez of Jersey City was holding a lighter to the dynamite, threatening to ignite it, and refusing the agents commands to drop it, said Arthur Borinsky, U.S. marshal for New Jersey.
The shooting occurred about 10:40 p.m. Tuesday at the corner of 14th Street and Paterson Plank Road, said township police Lt. Timothy Kelly.
The marshals learned that Sosa was going to be in the area and, accompanied by local authorities, approached a van where they suspected he was hiding, said Bill Licatovich, a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Marshals Service in Washington.
When they told Sosa to come out, he emerged holding the dynamite, authorities said.
Sosa, who was shot in the upper torso, was in custody at the Jersey City Medical Center on Wednesday. A hospital spokesman said he was in stable condition.
He was wanted on a Sept. 7, 1989, complaint of kidnapping and illegal possession of firearms, said Union County First Assistant Prosecutor Michael Lapolla.
On Sosa’s order, Nydia Gonzalez Melendez and Hese Ayala, also known as Johnnie Ayala, kidnapped George Sanchez of Elizabeth in Union City on Sept. 1, 1989, Lapolla said.
Sanchez had a business in Union City, Lapolla said.
Sosa was in phone contact with the two men as they tried to get Sanchez’s wife to pay a $100,000 ransom.
The call to Sanchez’s wife, made by Gonzalez, was traced to a pay phone in Hoboken, and he was arrested there.
“When [Gonzalez] didn’t return,” Lapolla said, “the victim convinced Ayala that he had taken off with the ransom money, and he persuaded Ayala to take him home, that he would give him money.”
Ayala was arrested when he got to Sanchez’s home.
Both men pleaded guilty and are serving prison terms on kidnapping charges.
Sosa, however, was not seen again until Tuesday.

Keywords: KIDNAPPING; SHOOTING; NORTH BERGEN; POLICE; BOMB

KILLER’S REQUEST FOR PAROLE IS REJECTED

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, August 10, 1991

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

A request for parole by Christopher Righetti serving a life sentence for the 1976 rape and murder of a 20-year-old New Milford woman was rejected this week, the state Parole Board’s executive director said Friday.
Robert Egles said the panel, weighing the seriousness of Righetti’s crime, also ordered a hearing on whether his next eligibility date in three years should be delayed.
Kim Montelaro, a journalism and English student at the University of Rhode Island, had gone shopping at Paramus Park Mall when she was abducted on Aug. 31, 1976, raped, then stabbed several times in the chest. Her body was found in a ravine near Washington Township’s Pine Lake Beach Club a few days later.
Righetti maintained through most of his trial that the killing had been an act of self-defense or an accident. In a hearing to determine whether he would tried as an adult, Righetti, then 16, claimed Montelaro lured him into her car, had sex with him, then turned on him with his knife.
Righetti’s lawyer abandoned the self-defense claim on the last day of trial, saying his client should be convicted of manslaughter.
In appeals of his murder conviction, the last one in 1982, a public defender contended Righetti’s police lineup appearance was illegal. The evidence was insufficient to compel Righetti to appear in the lineup during the search for Montelaro’s killer, the lawyer said.
But Righetti’s alibi witnesses failed to show up during his trial and prosecutors proved a knife and sheath found at the scene matched items he admitted purchasing shortly before the killing.
At age 15, Righetti was released from the state Training School for Boys and Girls after serving 13 months for raping an 18-year-old woman in a Bergen County park in 1974. In March 1976, he accosted another woman at knifepoint and demanded a ride home, but charges were not pressed after authorities assured the victim Righetti would receive psychiatric help.

Keywords: NEW MILFORD; MURDER; PRISON; WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP; KIDNAPPING; PARAMUS

GUNMAN HIJACKS TRUCK ON ROUTE 46

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, June 29, 1991

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

A gunman hijacked a cargo-filled Caldor truck on Route 46 near the George Washington Bridge on Thursday night and then met up with an accomplice who took the driver to upstate New York, where he was released unharmed, authorities said.
“Evidently traffic was a little heavy or the guy was going slow enough for someone to jump into his cab,” Fort Lee Police Chief John Orso said.
Orso said the driver is a 32-year-old man from North Bergen but declined to identify him further. The truck valued at $47,000 and carrying about $80,000 worth of clothing belonged to Caldor Distribution Center at 601 Westside Ave., North Bergen, Orso said.
The driver told FBI agents a gunman jumped into the cab of his tractor-trailer about 10:30 p.m. Thursday as the truck slowed in eastbound traffic on Route 46, Orso said.
“When the suspect jumped in the car, he told the driver to keep driving. When he got to the Major Deegan, he was handcuffed and transferred to a white minivan. They took him to a town called Deposit in upstate New York, about a four-hour drive,” Orso said.
Store officials on Friday declined to comment on the hijacking, the shipment’s origin, or its destination.

Keywords: FORT LEE; NEW YORK STATE; KIDNAPPING; HOSTAGE; CLOTHING; STORE; MOTOR VEHICLE; THEFT

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