TWO DRIVERS HOSPITALIZED AFTER COLLISION

By MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Thursday, April 23, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | 5 Star | NEWS | B05

The drivers of two cars that collided head-on in Mahwah were hospitalized in stable condition Wednesday.

Edward Blust of Garrison Court, Mahwah, was being treated at Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, N.Y., and Robert Scotto, 36, of Brooklyn was at the University Hospital in Newark, spokesmen for the hospitals said.

Scotto’s car crossed the center lines on Route 202 at 5:35 p.m. Tuesday and crashed into Blust’s auto, according to a statement from Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy.

Blust, 29, and Scotto suffered head injuries. Scotto also suffered severe leg injuries.
No summons was issued and the investigation was continuing.

FAMILY ID’S SON’S BODY, THEN LEARNS HE’S ALIVE

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, April 12, 1992

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

Members of John Howe’s family thought he had died in a train accident Thursday night. On Friday, they found out he hadn’t.

His boss, his brother, and his parents on Friday identified a body taken to the Rockland County, N.Y., morgue as that of Howe, Suffern Village Police Chief Leo Costa said Saturday.

“Each one positively said that it was him,” Costa said. “No doubt about it.”

But then Howe, 22, was later spotted walking along a Spring Valley, N.Y., street with his girlfriend.

The body in the morgue was subsequently identified as that of Charles Horton, 24, of Wayne Avenue, Suffern. He was struck and killed near Suffern by an NJ Transit train Thursday night. Police said no identification was found on the body.

Dr. Frederick Zugibe, Rockland County chief medical examiner, said Saturday that Howe’s mother, father, and brother came to the morgue in Pomona five hours after the body was discovered and identified it as Howe’s. They were called shortly after Howe’s boss was summoned to the morgue and made the initial identification.

In a followup investigation to determine Howe’s whereabouts before the accident, police tracked down his girlfriend and found the two in Spring Valley.

Police did not identify Howe’s relatives, boss, or girlfriend.

Costa said the two men bore a strong facial resemblance. Authorities were able to identify Horton through his fingerprints.

A woman described by Costa as Horton’s common-law wife had called police to ask if they knew where he was.

2 FACE STOLEN CAR CHARGES MAHWAH POLICE NAB N.Y. COUPLE

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, June 20, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B04

A Queens woman who left a stolen car at a borough service station came back to claim it on Tuesday in a second stolen car and was arrested, police said.
Sherrilyn Clark, 23, was being held in the Bergen County Jail on Wednesday on $2,500 bail on charges of possessing stolen cars.
A Brooklyn man who accompanied her on Tuesday, Bernadino Torres, 31, also was arrested on the same charge and was being held on the same amount of bail.
Both the 1988 Mercury Sable that Clark left at the Citgo service station on the Franklin Turnpike on Saturday and the 1980 Buick that Torres drove to Mahwah Tuesday were stolen, Detective Lt. Ray McGill said.
Clark asked that the Sable be towed to the station for repairs when it stalled on the New York State Thruway about 8:15 a.m., McGill said, adding that she also told the mechanic that the car was a 1985 Sable.
The mechanic became suspicious and notified police when he realized the Ford Motor Co. did not start building Sables until 1986.
McGill said the Sable was reported stolen from Manhattan on Feb. 7.
Officers from the Mahwah police force and the Bergen County Sheriff Department’s Auto Crime Unit were on hand to arrest Clark when she arrived about 11:50 a.m. Tuesday to claim the car.
Noticing that an identification tag in the Buick had been altered, an officer checked and found it had been stolen from Manhattan on March 15, McGill said.

Keywords: MAHWAH; MOTOR VEHICLE; THEFT

3 MEN ARE ARRESTED IN EQUIPMENT THEFTS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, February 22, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS| Page B04

The FBI, with help from borough police, on Wednesday arrested three Long Island men who authorities believe are connected to a ring that stole heavy equipment in New York and then resold it.
John T. Sieber, 29, of Mastic Beach; Julio Santo, 24, of Selden; and Carlos Chavere, 22, of Huntington Station were confronted by three FBI agents and four Mahwah officers at the International Motor Plaza on Route 17 in Mahwah.
Special Agent Gary L. Penrith said the men arrived at the plaza about 2:30 a.m. with a stolen John Deere backhoe. They tried to flee on foot, but Santo and Chavere were apprehended. Meanwhile, Sieber ran north on Route 17, jumped a fence, and ran along a railroad line into New York before he was arrested by Ramapo, N.Y., and Suffern, N.Y., police.
Elliot Peters, an assistant U.S. attorney, said the arrests were the result of an investigation into the theft of farm-type tractors and trucks. Seven other suspects have been arrested, and some of them have pleaded guilty, he said.
Ring members scratched out vehicle identification numbers, stamped the vehicles with new numbers to make it difficult to identify them as stolen, and then sold them in New Jersey and New York State, Peters said.
The three are charged with transportation of a stolen motor vehicle, and may face other charges. Santo was released on $25,000 bail Wednesday. Sieber was held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan on $10,000 bail. Chavere was also transferred to the center and held on $25,000 bail.

Keywords: MAHWAH; THEFT; EQUIPMENT; CONSTRUCTION

NJ TRANSIT TRAIN KILLS MAN IN MAHWAH

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, December 20, 1990

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

A man was struck and killed by a northbound NJ Transit train as he was lying on the railroad track Tuesday night, police said.

Mahwah police Lt. Jim Bartelli said police were not ruling the death a suicide at this time, adding that the identification of the victim would be withheld until it could be confirmed with the family. Bartelli gave no description of the victim, other than to say he was Hispanic.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene, Bartelli said.

The engineer of the train, which left Hoboken for Suffern, N.Y., at 10:15 p.m., applied the brakes and sounded a whistle as soon when he saw the man on the track, said Sandra Check, an NJ Transit spokeswoman.

“The person failed to move,” Check said. “There was just no way to stop.”

The accident occurred about 11:21 p.m., about 1 1/4 miles from the Ramsey station, Check said.

None of the 10 passengers and about five NJ Transit employees on the train was injured, Check said.

The passengers were put on a bus and taken to their destinations. The tracks in both directions were closed for about two hours, until emergency vehicles were cleared from the scene.

Bartelli said Mahwah police were trying to determine where the man was going and what he was doing on the track at the time of the accident.

“We have a tentative identity but we are not a hundred percent sure until we speak to next of kin,” he said.