CRASH KILLS ONE, INJURES THREE; Teen in Stolen Car Dies Fleeing Police

By David Gibson and Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writers | Wednesday, March 11, 1992

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | B01

A car theft in Paterson ended tragically in Elmwood Park near midnight Monday when the stolen car, driven by an unlicensed driver who had arrived from Puerto Rico four months ago, tried to elude pursuing police and slammed head-on into a car driven by a Garfield woman.

The driver of the stolen car, 19-year-old Manuel Cardona, was killed on the spot, and his two teenage passengers were badly injured. The Garfield woman, Sophie Soltys, 45, of Summit Avenue, also was seriously injured, authorities said.

Soltys suffered head injuries and bruised ribs and was listed in stable condition in the intensive care unit of St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Paterson, where the two other survivors were taken.

A 14-year-old passenger in the stolen car was in stable condition in the pediatric intensive care unit with multiple trauma. A 16-year-old passenger was on life-support, said Bergen County Prosecutor John J. Fahy.

Cardona, who was driving the steel-gray 1986 Hyundai, was pronounced dead at 12:06 a.m. at the River Drive and Summit Avenue accident scene, Fahy said.

Fahy, whose office is investigating the crash along with the Clifton and Elmwood Park police departments, said the Clifton and Elmwood Park police officers who chased the teenagers followed state guidelines regarding pursuits.

Police said Cardona had arrived in Paterson from Puerto Rico with his family two months ago and was not licensed to drive in New Jersey. He was living with relatives at 163 Redwood Ave. His family said Cardona had never been in trouble before.

The chase, which covered about two miles at speeds approaching 60 mph, came after a surveillance that began in Clifton about 11:40 p.m. Monday, said city Detective Capt. James Territo. He gave the following account:

Patrolmen Warren Lee and Pat Ciser, who was behind the wheel of their squad car, were parked at Randolph and Knapp avenues when the Hyundai passed them on Randolph Avenue moving toward Passaic. The officers began to follow. Noticing that the passengers were behaving nervously, they decided to check the police computer to see if the Hyundai was stolen.

The officers continued to follow as the car proceeded at the speed limit to Parker and Ackerman avenues. There, it abruptly made an illegal left-hand turn from the right-hand lane and headed over the bridge above the Passaic River, and into Garfield.

The car went north on River Road toward Elmwood Park, with the Clifton officers still following. At that moment, the officers were able to confirm that the car had been stolen in Paterson.

The officers then decided to pull the car over and issue a summons for the illegal turn made earlier.

“They activated their lights and, `Boom, the car takes off,” recounted Territo. The Clifton car gave chase and put out a bulletin for area departments to watch for the vehicle.

As the cars passed into Elmwood Park at Market Street and River Road, Elmwood Park Patrolwoman Debra Lysiak joined the pursuit. Two blocks later the car Cardona was driving sped up, police reports said, and went airborne as it hit a rise at a railroad crossing by River Drive and Summit Avenue. It was 11:53 p.m.

“As it came down on the pavement, the driver seemed to lose control,” said Elmwood Park Police Chief Byron Morgan II. “He veered into the oncoming traffic and hit a car in the southbound lane.” The car was a 1986 Oldsmobile driven by Soltys.

The fire department had to use the “jaws of life” to extricate the drivers of both the Oldsmobile and the Hyundai.”

Police said the Clifton patrol car was about 150 feet behind the Hyundai, followed immediatley by the the Elmwood Park police car, when the crash occurred.

No charges have been filed in the case.

Territo said the two Clifton patrolmen remained on duty and said they acted properly: “At this point we’re not looking at it as if anything was done wrong. We’re really looking into it as a matter of course.”

“It wasn’t like a high-speed, lengthy chase,” he added. “It was almost over before it started.”

Fahy called the pursuit a “proper chase,” and said the police did not exceed the speed limit.

Anna Cardona, the victim’s mother, was leaving late Tuesday for Puerto Rico, said Cesar Adorno, with whom she has lived for several years. Adorno said he would follow today with Cardona’s body, which will be buried in Puerto Rico.

“If this hadn’t happened we would have stayed here,” Adorno said. “Maybe to make a life.”

The dead man was a “real good guy” who had “never been in trouble with the police anytime or anywhere,” said Cesar Adorno, who has lived with the victim’s mother, Anna Cardona, for several years.

Cardona’s family, including his younger brother, came to Newark in November to be with an ailing cousin, Adorno said. They moved in with relatives in Paterson in December.

Adorno said Manuel Cardona, who was born and raised in the Bronx until his family went to Puerto Rico when was 4 years old, was studying for his high school equivalency diploma and was working part-time in construction. Adorno said the family did not know the juveniles

involved in the crash, or how Cardona came to be behind the wheel of a stolen car.
They last saw Cardona early Monday evening before he went to “hang out” with friends.

Police arrived at the home about 2 a.m. Tuesday with the news of his death.

Caption: The wreckage of the 1986 Hyundai whose teenage driver was killed Monday in a crash while reportedly fleeing police. Police said the car was stolen in Paterson. 2 – Below, police investigating the scene of the accident Tuesday. 3 – (4s, 3s, 2s, 1s) PHOTO – Manuel Cardona and his family moved to New Jersey in November. 2 COLOR PHOTOS – PETER MONSEES / THE RECORD

2 ARRESTED IN USED-CAR DISPUTE

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

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

A mechanic and his son-in-law face charges following a yearlong dispute with a Teaneck man over a used car that disappeared and a check that bounced.

Theft charges have been filed against George Nicolaou of 26 E. Madison Ave., Dumont. Nicolaou was released Saturday on $2,500 bail from the Bergen County Jail, said a spokeswoman for the county Sheriff’s Department. His son-in-law, Anthony Mamalian, who faces fraud charges in the case, also is out on bail.

Dumont Police Detective Sgt. Robert Fischer said Nicolaou, 53, who owns G. N. Auto Electric in Dumont, sold a 1971 Mercedes-Benz to Carmello Bellia in December 1990. The car, for which Bellia paid $3,000, was supposed to have a rebuilt engine and transmission, Fischer said.

Bellia told police that after he got home, “he went to his own mechanic to check the car out,” Fischer said. “He found out that the car did not have a rebuilt engine or transmission. ”

Bellia returned it the next day and asked that it be repaired or that his money be refunded, Fischer said. About a month later, Bellia was given $1,000, but a $2,000 check written by Mamalian bounced, Fischer said.

Fischer said Bellia told police he tried three times but was unable to cash the check because of insufficient funds. A civil court awarded Bellia, 51, a $5,000 judgment in June, but he has not collected, Fischer said.

Then, Fischer said, Bellia noticed that the car, which had been sitting in the lot at G. N. Auto Electric during the dispute, was missing. Bellia signed complaints against Mamalian and Nicolaou. .

Mamalian was arrested Dec. 28 on a complaint of fraud for the bounced check, and Nicolaou on Jan. 11 on complaint of theft for the missing car, Fischer said. The men will appear in Dumont Municipal Court at a date to be determined, Fischer said.

COPS CHASE STOLEN CAR, ARREST DRIVER

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

The Record (New Jersey) | 6 Star | NEWS | Page B03

A 21-year-old Englewood man led township police on a short car chase, then fled on foot after a crash before being captured and charged with possessing a stolen car on Wednesday.
Fritz Beauharnais of 120 Englewood Ave. was sent to the Bergen County Jail after he failed to convince police that he did not know the gray 1986 Acura Legend was stolen and that he was driving it to Englewood for a friend, Capt. Gary Fiedler said.
The car’s ignition was punched out, and police found no key in it, Officer Thomas Sullivan said in his report.
Sullivan and Officer Robert Carney were on patrol about 3 a.m. Wednesday when they saw the car getting onto Route 4 east from Queen Anne Road. They followed it because it suddenly speeded up.
The car left the highway at Teaneck Road, passing a car on the ramp by jumping the curb and driving on the grass median, and then turned onto Cranford Place, police said.
Beauharnais jumped out of the car on Cranford and fled on foot. The car was left in drive and struck another vehicle, police said.
In a search that involved about eight township officers, police surrounded a house at the southwest corner of Cranford Place and Prince Street. Beauharnais, who was hiding in shrubbery, was captured soon afterward, the report said.
The car belonged to a New York City man who had left it in the service lot of a Hackensack Acura dealership, police said.
Beauharnais was being held at the jail on $5,000 bail.

Keywords: TEANECK; MOTOR VEHICLE; THEFT

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 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

REPAIR SHOPS CALL HIM STINGRAY; CON MAN TAKES 3 SPORTS CARS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, March 8, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Four Star B | NEWS | Page B01

Investigators in Paramus, Englewood, and Englewood Cliffs are looking for a con man who stole three sports cars two in one day that were brought in for repairs at automobile dealerships.
Posing twice as the owner of the cars and once as the son of the owner, the man stole two Corvettes and a Pontiac Firebird, police and dealership officials said Thursday.
“I’ve got to tell you something, this guy was cool,” said Greg Garabed, service manager at Stillman and Hoag Inc. of Englewood, where the man drove away with a red 1990 Corvette that had just had paint work done on its roof.
“Thirty years in the business and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Garabed said.
About 5:50 p.m. on Feb. 7, 10 minutes before closing, the man marched over to the Corvette and began examining the work. He said he was the son of Michael Knee, the 48-year-old Ridgewood man who had brought the car in.
“There were four Corvettes parked in a row in a secured area in the building,” Garabed said. “This guy walked right in and went over to the car. He had a lot of information about the car.”
After arguing that the painting should have been under warranty and initially refusing to pay, the man paid $200 and left with the car. About two minutes later, the actual owner arrived.
Knee said the service people did not believe him when he told them he had not sent his son to pick up the car.
“It’s an embarrassment for us,” Garabed said, adding that Knee was a longtime customer of the dealership.
The descriptions of the man in the three thefts were similar: 27 to 30 years old, about 6 feet, with an olive complexion and dark, slicked-back hair, a long, thin face, and a mustache.
On Feb. 7, a man fitting that description walked into Steven Nacht Cadillac in Englewood Cliffs and picked up a 1986 Pontiac Firebird that was in for repairs, although the work had not been completed, said Al Glinbiezi, the assistant service manager.
The man said he needed the car right away and that he would bring it back later, Glinbiezi said.
On Feb. 21, a man fitting the same description, but this time wearing some type of police insignia around his neck, insisted on picking up a 1987 Corvette brought to Malcolm Konner Chevrolet Geo in Paramus for transmission repairs, although the work had not been done.
Lt. Donald McNair of the Paramus Police Department said he wrote letters to automobile dealers in Bergen County and to national dealership associations to warn them about the scam.
“There’s a common denominator there, but I can’t put my finger on it,” McNair said.
“I’ve never had this happen before. I’m up against the wall and I don’t have any idea.”

Keywords: PARAMUS; ENGLEWOOD; ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS; MOTOR VEHICLE; THEFT

DAD SAYS MIX-UP LED TO ARREST

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, March 3, 1991

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

A Bronx man whose 16-month-old son was found alone and crying in a van at a shopping mall last week says he did not intend to leave the infant there but police arrived before he could take the child with him.
“Right when I dropped my tools off and I came back to get my kid, the cops were already there,” Godwin Chow said Saturday at the Bergen County Jail Annex, where he was being held on $75,000 bail.
Chow, 39, said that when he saw city police Sgt. Frank Lomia and Officer John Carroll next to his van at Riverside Square mall, he panicked, and decided to wait until they left before bringing the boy into the restaurant where he was to repair equipment Wednesday night.
But police and mall security officers said the infant, David Chow, had been in the van in front of Au Bon Pain restaurant at the mall for at least two hours when Lomia and Carroll found him about 9:50 p.m.
Mall security officers, dispatched to look for the van’s owner in nearby businesses because the boy was crying, returned with Chow as Lomia and Carroll were about to smash the window to get to the child, police said.
When he took the boy out of the van, Lomia said, the child appeared to be in good health but was cold, his clothing was in poor condition, and his diaper had not been changed in some time.
Chow was charged with endangering the life of a child and disorderly conduct.
A spokeswoman for Hackensack Medical Center said Saturday that the infant, who did not require treatment, had been released Friday night to the custody of the New York City Child Welfare Administration. An attorney for the agency said he could not comment on any case it might be involved in.
Chow said he usually had a baby sitter look after his son when he went to work but did not do so Wednesday because he was going to be with the infant and did not plan on working long. In the past when he went to work at the restaurant, Chow said, he brought the boy in with him.
Ray and Raphie Gutierrez, brothers who are managers at the restaurant, said Chow often brought a baby in when he came to repair stoves.
“I really cannot tell you how many times he brought the baby to work here, but I remember I’ve seen the kid a couple of times,” Ray Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez said Chow arrived at the restaurant about 9 p.m. Wednesday to repair the steamer on an oven.
“I don’t know what was going on outside,” Gutierrez said. “The only thing I know is that every five minutes he was going outside.”
Chow said he had known the child’s mother only briefly, and did not learn she was pregnant until she came to him seven months after they met while experiencing complications with her pregnancy. He said he took her to a hospital, where she gave birth, and then she abandoned the child.
Chow said he had not seen a lawyer since his arrest.
“The jail is overcrowded. Right now, I’m sleeping on a cold plastic mat. There is no pillowcase, no towel, no nothing. The only thing I have is this,” Chow said, tugging contemptuously at the collar of his jail uniform.
The officers involved in the arrest and Police Chief William C. Iurato could be reached Saturday for further comment on the case.

Keywords: HACKENSACK; NEW YORK CITY; CHILD; MOTOR VEHICLE; STORE

HOSPITAL ESCAPEE IS CAPTURED; FLED IN DUMP TRUCK, THEN IN STOLEN CAR

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, December 9, 1990

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A08

A 24-year-old man who escaped from a New York mental hospital by driving a dump truck through a fence and then stole a car in Hackensack was being held in lieu of $15,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail after Atlantic City police captured him Thursday.

Hackensack police charged James Coyle of New City, N.Y., with robbery for stealing the car, and with receiving stolen property the dump truck, which he discarded at a gas station. Atlantic City police charged him with resisting arrest, driving with a revoked driver’s license, and receiving stolen property.

A spokesman for Hackensack Police Chief William Iurato said charges are also pending against Coyle in New York in the theft of the dump truck.

Coyle had been involuntarily committed to the Rockland County Psychiatric Hospital in Orangeburg, N.Y., on Dec. 3, according to a police report by Hackensack Detective Sgt. Hugh J. Farley.

Shortly after dawn Thursday, while workers from P & H Construction Co. of Wanaque were repairing the sewer system on hospital grounds, Coyle allegedly stole the dump truck, which had a trailer attached, and drove it through a fence.

At about noon that day, the truck arrived in Hackensack and pulled into the Exxon gas station at the corner of Johnson Avenue and Orchard Street, Farley said in the report. John Packard, 57, of 630 Main St. was at the pump filling his 1979 Cadillac with gas when Coyle arrived, he said.

Coyle knocked Packard to the ground, finished pumping the gas, and took off in the Cadillac, driving south on Johnson Avenue, police said. After Packard made a report of the robbery, Hackensack police alerted other police departments with a description of the car and Coyle.

At about 6:30 p.m. on the same day, Atlantic City Police Officer Donald Barker responded to a report that a patron at a gas station had refused to pay.

3 ARRESTS IN CAR-THEFT TRY AT GARDEN STATE PLAZA

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, November 14, 1990

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

Three Paterson men who allegedly tried to steal a car in the Garden State Plaza parking lot Monday were arrested after a chase by car and on foot into Rochelle Park, police said.

Manny Torres, 18; John Velez, 19, and Miguel DeJesus, 20, were charged with theft of an automobile and attempted theft of an automobile and were being held in the Bergen County Jail Tuesday.

Torres, facing additional charges of eluding police and resisting arrest, was being held on $7,500 bail. Velez and DeJesus each were being held on $2,500 bail.

Police Chief Joseph Delaney said one of the suspects confessed the three were looking for a car to steal, after stealing the 1990 Hyundai they were traveling in from the Willowbrook Mall in Wayne earlier in the day.

Lt. Don McNair of the Paramus Police Department Street Crime Unit saw one of the men trying to break into a car in the Garden State Plaza parking lot at about 4 p.m. and called for help, Delaney said. They fled when they saw McNair approaching in his car.

McNair, assisted by officers Kurt Massey and Albert Sadro in another patrol car, chased the men as they drove south on Route 17, Delaney said. The men abandoned the car and fled on foot after the car struck an embankment in Rochelle Park, he said. They were arrested a short distance away.