THANKS GIVEN TO DRIVERS; LAW ABIDERS PULLED OVER

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, November 28, 1991

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

Cornell Adams of Hillsdale said he did not know what to think when Bergen County Police Sgt. Vincent DeRienzo told him to pull over on Route 17 in East Rutherford Wednesday morning.

“We thought they were just messing with folks,” Adams wife, Dejuanna, said.

Rather than a summons, DeRienzo handed the Adams family a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne and thanked them for wearing their seat belts.

In a twist, John Pescatore, director of the Bergen County Highway Safety Office, said police were stopping motorists who were wearing their seat belts on the day before Thanksgiving to thank them for obeying the law.

“We thought the best way to get people to wear their seat belts is to enlist the help of those people who are already wearing their seat belts to help us spread the message through word of mouth,” Pescatore said. “It is a positive reinforcement of a good habit.”

About 7 a.m. Wednesday, five officers from the Bergen County Police Department were out handing bottles of a sparkling apple drink imported from Spain to motorists at the Route 17 intersection with Union Avenue in East Rutherford. At the same time, three Mahwah police officers gave out bottles of a non-alcoholic sparkling wine from California at the Franklin Turnpike-Micik Lane intersection.

The champagne, 240 bottles in all, was donated by Goya Foods Inc. of Secaucus and Inserra Supermarkets Inc. of Mahwah.

On a frigid morning, as motorists drove through the rush-hour traffic, the officers would pick a driver at a red light. The drivers looked worried as they pulled over to spots designated by the officers.

A few took the offensive even before an officer spoke. One woman, speaking in rather clinical language, cursed at DeRienzo for stopping her. The officer waved her on.

“People go, `What did I do wrong? ” said Bergen County Police Officer Dwane R. Razzetti, a state-certified seat belt training officer. “Today, we are stopping cars that are properly inspected, where people are wearing their seat belts the opposite reasons that we normally stop cars.”

An exception was a 23-year-old Jersey City woman, who was stopped when an officer spotted her 2-year-old son lying in the front seat, not strapped in. The woman was given a child-restraint seat, instead of a summons.

Most drivers, when they opened their windows to hear the officers announce they were being stopped, were frowning.

“You know why we are stopping you ma’am? ” county police Officer Mark Solimando asked Carlstadt High School guidance counselor Marilyn Persico.

“No,” she answered, frowning.

“We stopped you because you are wearing your seat belt,” Solimando said. He handed her the bottle, and enjoined her not to drink and drive. He also gave her pamphlets with information on how to use seat belts and how to drive in winter conditions.

Like a flower blooming, her face lit into a full smile.

“This is nice,” she said, turning the bottle over in her hand. “This is nice.”

“Have a nice holiday, ma’am,” Solimando said, waving her on.

Caption: COLOR PHOTO – BOB BRUSH / THE RECORD – Officer Chris Zovistoski “citing” Patti Jacobson of Wallington.

RAID AT RACETRACK; 70 SEIZED AS ILLEGAL WORKERS

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, November 20, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page B08

Federal immigration officials on Tuesday seized 70 workers in a sweep of The Meadowlands Racetrack for illegal aliens, authorities said.

Immigration and Naturalization Service agents, working on a tip and after surveillance of the stable area, took 64 men and six women into custody during the 90-minute raid, INS Supervisory Special Agent Allen Kampel said.

The workers mostly grooms and walkers were finishing their workday, which started about 5 a.m., when the sweep began in the stalls and dormitories at 11:30 a.m. They were taken to the INS field office in Jersey City for processing.

Most of the 70 had false immigration papers that they had presented to the New Jersey Racing Commission, which then licensed them to work at the track, Kampel said.

Stable hands are employed by horse trainers, not The Meadowlands Racetrack or the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, said racetrack spokeswoman Ellen Harvey.

Those taken into custody Tuesday face detention and an administrative hearing to determine whether they will be deported, Kampel said.

“If a person does not have the authorization to live and work in the United States, we are mandated to enforce the law,” he said. “The main point of all of this is that we have the hope that American citizens and other people authorized to work here would be hired to do these jobs.”

Kampel said six of the workers had papers allowing them to be in the country but not to work. Four are juveniles, ages 14 to 16. A majority 64 are from Mexico, with two from Peru, two from Guatemala, and one each from Chile and the Dominican Republic, he said.

Workers who were checked and found to have legal papers milled around the stables Tuesday, watching warily as officers led friends and relatives away in plastic handcuffs. Many either could not speak English or said they couldn’t.

Johnny Ortiz, a 24-year-old groom, said fear of being turned in to the INS is a constant in the lives of the stable hands.

Ortiz, a U.S. citizen, said the workers have little or no education and often work seven days a week for $175 to $325 per week, depending on the trainer who hires them.

Almost all live in dormitories at the track, sometimes three or four to a room, Ortiz said. The rent-free, dormitory-style housing is provided by the sports authority for hundreds of stable hands.

Most of them send the money they earn home to the countries from which they came, Ortiz said.

“It’s a shame for me to see this happen to them, just for the simple reason that these people, they struggle so much,” he said. “I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a lot of people from other countries here.”

The agents were assisted in the raid by state police, Bergen County Sheriff’s Department officers, and U.S. Labor Department officials.

MEETING TACKLES TEENAGE DRINKING; GAP IN STATE LAW AROUSES CONCERN

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, October 9, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | 6 Star | NEWS | Page B01

Who is responsible when Johnny throws a keg party for a few of his teenage friends after Mom and Dad leave for the weekend?
That gap in state law which prohibits teenagers from drinking in most places but does not address who would be responsible when they drink on private property was the major topic of a meeting in Hasbrouck Heights on Tuesday.
“This is an important issue for all of us,” Bergen County Executive William “Pat” Schuber said in his opening address to a breakfast meeting of more than 270 people, including legislators and police officers who deal with juveniles.
“On the issue of host liability and teenage drinking, there cannot be any greater priority for government and our leaders than saving a generation,” Schuber said.
Tuesday’s program at the Sheraton Heights Hotel was organized by the Bergen County Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse.
County Prosecutor John J. Fahy, the keynote speaker, said the program was not arranged to deal with issues raised by the death of Coleen Draney, a Fair Lawn teenager who died of heart failure at a New Year’s Eve party where there had been drinking.
But, he said, her death helped focus people’s attention on the issue of teenage drinking.
“The consequences are so serious, because young people can die, if the problem is not addressed,” Fahy said.
He raised the point of the ambiguities in the law concerning private property, saying it sends mixed messages to youths and their parents.
Also, he said, youths are constantly bombarded with messages in advertisements that they can enjoy themselves only if they drink.
“The message is not subtle: To be a better lover, you have to drink scotch; to be a better skier, you have to drink beer; to sit at a table with a beautiful woman, you have to drink wine,” Fahy said.
The law states clearly that no one under the age of 21 is allowed to consume alcohol except in a religious ceremony or with the permission of a parent or guardian.
So some parents allow alcohol to be used as a rite of passage, or allow prom-bound teens to drink at home as a way to prevent them from drinking in public, Fahy said.
“I find that to be complete insanity,” Fahy said.
“Those parents, perhaps, are well-intentioned, but . . . the message that we have to send out is that teenage drinking is not going to be tolerated.”
The Bergen County Juvenile Officers Association has developed a model amendment to the state law that would specifically include private property among the places where youths cannot drink.
Cresskill police Detective Sgt. William Macchio, a member of the association, said tougher and clearer laws are needed all over Bergen County.
Cresskill, for instance, has an ordinance that closes the loophole in the state law, and has effectively cut down on teenage parties, he said. But it is unclear whether youths move their parties to surrounding towns.

Keywords: HASBROUCK HEIGHTS; MEETING; YOUTH; ALCOHOL; VIOLATION

BIKER LEADS COPS ON TWO-COUNTY, THREE-HOUR CHASE

By David Gibson and Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writers | Wednesday, October 2, 1991

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

A 24-year-old man stole a motorcycle in South Nyack, N.Y., on Tuesday, then led police on a chase across Bergen County before being arrested three hours later in Paterson, authorities said.
Christopher Rea, who faces numerous charges in Passaic County and New York, was being held in the Passaic County Jail in lieu of $35,000 bail on the New Jersey charges and on a detainer on the New York charges.
Bergen County Police Sgt. Paul Hamel said Rea was a blur through Bergen County as he darted on and off highways onto local roads on the powerful 1991 motorcycle. Although officers from several departments allegedly saw Rea, none came close enough to catch him.
Among the highways he was spotted on in Bergen were the Palisades Interstate Parkway, Route 4, Route 17, and Route 46, police said.
He was captured just past 2 p.m. after he rode onto Union Avenue in Totowa and was spotted by a Passaic County sheriff’s officer who had just heard a broadcast of the suspect’s description.
Sgt. Dennis Schlosser chased Rea, who fled at high speed, according to Sgt. Kathy Kryszko, a sheriff’s department spokeswoman.
Kryszko did not elaborate on the speeds reached during the chase. But she said Rea drove quickly through red lights and stop signs as he led Schlosser on a three-mile slalom down Union Avenue, onto Preakness Avenue in Paterson, over to Front Street, and finally to Spruce Street by the Great Falls.
There, Kryszko said, Rea abandoned the motorcycle and plunged into the Passaic River. Schlosser had alerted other authorities, however, and officers from the Sheriff’s Department and the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office persuaded Rea to swim to the riverbank and surrender.
No one was injured in the chase, Kryszko said. She said Rea gave addresses in North Bergen and Weehawken, but said his home base was in Daytona Beach, Fla.
South Nyack Police Chief Alan Colsey said when Rea returns to his town, the charges will include burglary, criminal mischief, grand larceny, resisting arrest, criminal possession of stolen property, and about 10 motor vehicle violations.
He was charged in Totowa with one criminal count of reckless eluding. He faces a similar charge in Paterson, as well as charges of possession of stolen property, possession of burglary tools the screwdriver used to steal the motorbike and resisting arrest by fleeing.

Keywords: MOTOR VEHICLE; VIOLATION; NEW YORK STATE; BC; PC; POLICE

Caption: PHOTO – KLAUS-PETER STEITZ / THE RECORD – Officer Bryan Dalton radioing information on a stolen motorcycle that police chased from New York to Paterson.

NEW LAW ON SWEATSHOPS CALLED WEAK

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, June 23, 1991

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

The strain of trying to regulate the apparel industry in the state and put an end to sweatshops became clear in an unguarded moment Friday, when state Labor Commissioner Raymond Bramucci admitted that even an expected new law isn’t strong enough.
Before retracting that statement, made at a news conference, he added that he did not have enough inspectors to enforce the current law, which expires June 30.
“We have very, very poor means to police this industry,” Bramucci said. “We are trying to make it much more difficult to operate here. It is not easy. . . . We try to do a job with the tools given to us. It took us a whole lot of arguing to get this [the new law] through, and I don’t think it is strong enough.”
Someone asked how many people would be needed to inspect the thousands of sweatshops in the state. He declined to say.
“I want to work this out first,” he said. “I’m sorry I said that. Scratch it. I want to try to enforce this law first, vigorously.
“We have enough people to give a powerful signal. We don’t have to hit every factory, every minute of every day. But if we have means like we’re going to have with this new law, which gives us the right to seize goods and close down factories after repeated violations, we will have the beginning of the tool to have a reasonable control of the industry.”
Bramucci had invited the journalists along for raids Friday by federal and labor officials on two sweatshops. Since the crackdown started on Monday, 23 shops have been cited for violations of the state Apparel Registration Act, and for various federal and state wage, hour, child labor, home work, and records infractions.
Legislation awaiting Governor Florio’s signature would establish an Apparel Industry Unit, which would investigate violations of state laws and exploitation of workers. Starting this fall, the Labor Department will train industry workers at regional technical and vocational schools, Bramucci said.
At the first stop on Friday, state, federal, and city inspectors followed by about 25 journalists entered a garage with red roofing shingles for siding behind 4002 Palisade Ave., Union City. The shop was about 70 feet by 25 feet. Inside was an operation known as Lucy Fashion, with 11 sewing machines and, on several clotheslines, hundreds of blouses and skirts tagged “Made in USA.”
Lucy Fashion was one of the worst examples of the shops inspectors visited in Hudson and Essex counties last week, Bramucci said. A Union City fire inspector also cited the shop for building and fire code violations.
Bramucci said the shop would probably be long gone before the state could make it comply with regulations. Fly-by-night operations are rampant in the industry, making it difficult to keep count of the sweatshops. He estimated that about 10,000 people work in North Jersey sweatshops.
Bramucci blamed the conditions on New York garment manufacturers who farm out work to contractors without paying them enough to adequately compensate workers.
The renewed enforcement would help combat one of the plagues that the legitimate apparel industry faces: low labor costs in the sweatshops, said Aleta Hernandez, assistant political education director in New Jersey for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
The low labor costs in foreign countries drove the jobs in the industry underground, and made doing business legally difficult for local companies that often have to pay at least minimum wage, health insurance, and other benefits, Hernandez said.
Hernandez also blames greed on the part of the manufacturers because the low costs do not necessarily translate to low prices for consumers. All profits go into the pockets of manufacturers, she said.
Labor lawyer Craig Livingston said he sees at least another culprit in what he called an assault on the American worker: the U.S. government.
“The United States is probably unique in the world in not protecting its basic industries from cheap imports,” Livingston said. “Our basic industries are being crucified on the cross of free trade.”

Keywords: CLOTHING; EMPLOYMENT; LAW; STORE; VIOLATION; NEW JERSEY; UNION CITY

TERROR, A CRASH, A CHASE, AND ARRESTS 3 TOWNS, 20 CARS, 100 MPH

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, May 15, 1991

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

Two men were captured Tuesday after breaking into an Oradell home, tying up and robbing two women, and leading police on a chase involving about 20 patrol cars through three towns, police said.
Robert J. Davis, 37, of Little Ferry and Gary M. Pereira, 29, of Hackensack had entered a Soldier Hill Road home sometime before 10:30 a.m., tied up the residents, and stole their jewelry, Oradell Detective Sgt. Scott Bonsper said.
The victims, whom Bonsper declined to identify, were not injured. One of them removed the tape the suspects had used to cover her mouth, and then she called police.
Bonsper said he went to the house with other Oradell police officers and interviewed the victims. “I came out of the house to go to my car, and I was flagged down by a witness to an accident that had just happened a block away from the house,” he said.
The descriptions of the people in the car matched the suspects described by the victims, Bonsper said. They apparently had parked in a parking lot at an office building on Kinderkamack Road; when they tried to make a hasty escape, their car collided with another northbound car.
Bonsper said he then radioed area police departments. A Rochelle Park officer saw the car traveling south on Route 17, and a chase began, he said.
“The speed at which the men were traveling, they could not be allowed back on a main thoroughfare,” said Bonsper, who added that the cars drove as fast as 100 mph during the chase. The suspects were going through stop signs and red lights without stopping, he said.
By the time the chase ended at a police roadblock on Pascack Road, at the Paramus-Washington Township line, police from the two communities and from Oradell, Emerson, Rochelle Park, and Westwood had become involved.
Jewelry from the home was found in the car, Bonsper said.
Davis and Pereira were each charged with kidnapping, robbery, theft, and burglary, and their case will be referred to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, Bonsper said. Paramus police are expected to charge Davis and Pereira with resisting arrest, he added. They were being held in the Bergen County Jail on $100,000 bail each.

Keywords: ORADELL; ROBBERY; MOTOR VEHICLE; ACCIDENT; VIOLATION

Caption: 2 COLOR PHOTOS – JOHN DECKER / THE RECORD – Police handcuffing the two suspects in a robbery in Oradell that led to a high-speed car chase through three towns Tuesday.

HI-TECH LASER SNAGS SPEEDERS COPS EYE `TOTALLY ACCURATE DEVICE

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, December 15, 1990

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

Lead-foots and speed demons, beware.

New Jersey law-enforcement agencies are examining a laser speed-detection device that its manufacturer says will render radar detectors obsolete.

While radar emits a wide microwave beam, the new device uses a narrow, infrared laser beam that can be detected only after the target car’s speed has been measured. No longer will a motorist be able to argue,”Officer, are you sure you’ve got the right car?”

The device, made by Laser Technology Inc. of Englewood, Colo., can target a vehicle out of a group because of its narrow, 3.5-foot beam at 1,000 feet, compared with the radar-beam width of 200 to 400 feet at the same distance.

The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, several police departments from Bergen County, and one from Passaic County were at a demonstration of the device, which costs $3,625, in Fair Lawn on Friday. Earlier in the day, Mike Phippen, marketing director for the company, gave a demonstration to the state police.

“It’s amazing; it’s totally accurate,” said Oradell police Lt. Edgar Brennen. “The biggest hurdle that this thing faces is in the courts, and the fact that it has to be recognized as an accurate tool. Once the courts accept it, it will be all over.

Caption: PHOTO – ROBERT S. TOWNSEND / THE RECORD – Bergen County Police Officer Dwane Razzetti testing a new laser speed-detection gun on Friday.

YOUTH WHO HAD GUN IN HIS LOCKER TO BE HELD

By Michael O. Allen and David Voreacos, Record Staff Writers | Wednesday, November 28, 1990

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

A 17-year-old Teaneck High School senior, arrested this week after officials found a loaded semiautomatic pistol in his locker, will be detained until a juvenile court hearing scheduled for Dec. 7, police said.

The student, whose identity was withheld by police, faces a juvenile delinquency charge of possession of a weapon within an educational institution, said Capt. Gary Fiedler.

He was arrested Monday morning and was being held Tuesday in the Bergen County Juvenile Detention Center in Paramus.

The student also has been suspended from school, said Judy Distler, a school spokeswoman who said she had no further information on any disciplinary measures.

Authorities were alerted to the location of the gun by Principal James DeLaney, who called police at 9:15 a.m. Monday after receiving a confidential tip, said a report written by Detective Frank McCall of the Youth Bureau.

McCall went to the school and, with DeLaney and Assistant Principal Joseph White, removed a California-made .380 Kurtz semiautomatic pistol from a first-floor locker. The gun was loaded with four bullets in a magazine and one in the chamber, McCall said.

Police were attempting Tuesday to determine how the youth got the gun, Fiedler said.
He said the senior has a police record but he would not elaborate on it.

MAN, 27, IS CHARGED WITH DEATH BY AUTO

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Thursday, November 22, 1990

The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A76

A 27-year-old Jersey City man has been charged with death by auto stemming from an alleged drag race with a Plainfield youth that killed a Ridgefield woman.

Franco Castella of 135A North St. was also charged with assault with an automobile and driving on a suspended license, stemming from the Nov. 7 crash on Tonnelle Avenue in North Bergen, said North Bergen Police Officer George Alburtus.

Castella, whom police originally identified as Antonio Castella, was released on $1,000 bail following his arrest Tuesday, police said.

The Plainfield youth, who is 17, was charged on Tuesday with the same felony counts that Castella faces. The teenager, whose identity is being withheld by police because of his age, also faces a charge of driving without a license.

He remained in stable condition at the Jersey City Medical Center Wednesday.

Alburtus said at least one more person involved in the pileup on Tonnelle Avenue and 49th Street faces motor-vehicle violation charges. Allen Betancourt, 19, of Piscataway will be charged with allowing an unlicensed driver to operate a motor vehicle and allowing people to sit in a compartment not designated for passengers.

Betancourt borrowed the red 1985 Porsche, driven by the 17-year-old, from its owner, and was one of four people packed into the two-seater when the accident occurred, Alburtus said.

Carmela Berardo, 49, of 414 Abbott St., Ridgefield, was killed instantly when the Porsche crossed into the northbound lane of Tonnelle Avenue and struck the car she was riding in. Her husband, Florindo, who was driving, suffered a broken right foot and facial abrasions. His mother, Michelina Berardo, 69, broke both legs, suffered a fractured skull, and remained unconscious in critical condition at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City on Wednesday.

MAN ARRESTED IN BERGEN WANTED BY FEDS

MICHAEL O. ALLEN | Saturday, October 20, 1990

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

A 30-year-old Israeli who was arrested in Cliffside Park on burglary charges is wanted by federal authorities for illegally reentering the United States, officials said. Eliyahu Shalom, being held Friday in the Bergen County Jail in Hackensack on $20,000 bail on the burglary and theft charges, was convicted of illegally entering the country in 1986 and was put on probation, on condition he keep immigration officials appraised of his whereabouts.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Rosato said Shalom moved from his known address in Brooklyn without notifying probation officials, and he was deported to Israel in 1987.

A woman arrived at her Cliffside Park home Thursday and found Shalom there, police said. Shalom fled and was arrested in Edgewater. He is to be delivered to the U.S. Marshals Service after his case is disposed of in Bergen County, Rosato said.