EXCLUSIVE: A judge in Hackensack today set a Dec. 19 hearing to determine whether Lodi Fire Marshal Paul Wanco belongs in a pre-trial intervention program following his indictment on charges of leaving his fallen 85-year-old mother on the floor in her own waste for nearly 15 hours.

Wanco and his niece, Jennifer Wanco, were both indicted by a grand jury in Hackensack on elder abuse and attempted serious bodily injury counts in July in connection with the incident four months earlier.

Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Jessica Gomperts told Superior Court Judge Edward A. Jerejian this morning that she didn’t oppose Jennifer Wanco’s acceptance into the diversionary PTI program. If she follows its requirements, the younger Wanco will be cleared of the charges.

At the same time, Gomperts insisted that Paul Wanco face prosecution in the neglect of his mother, Florence.

A committee ruled that he was eligible over her objections, the prosecutor said, adding that she was preparing for next month’s formal hearing before Jerejian.

Gomperts told CLIFFVIEW PILOT that the elderly woman, who spent time in the hospital after the incident, “is not doing well.” After her discharge back home with her son and granddaughter, she said, Florence Wanco had to be transferred to a rehabilitation facility, where she has remained.

According to Gomperts, Jennifer Wanco telephoned her uncle at work on March 5 to tell him that she couldn’t get her grandmother off the floor in the home that the three shared.

The 20-year firefighting told her to leave her there, and that he would handle it when he got back, the prosecutor said.

Under PTI, as it’s known, defendants without prior criminal records can have charges removed if they follow certain conditions for a specified time period, ordinarily a year. Depending on the offense, PTI can require community service, restitution and/or fines, psychological testing, urine monitoring and alcohol evaluations.

If a participant fails to complete the program, the charges go to a grand jury in Hackensack.

STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

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EXCLUSIVE: A judge in Hackensack today set a Dec. 9 hearing on a defense lawyer’s request to dismiss the charges against a Long Island father and son accused in a string of cat burglar-like break-ins in Saddle River and Morris County.

Attorney Brian Neary said one of three grand jury proceedings against both his client, Jerome Shaw Jr., and the man’s father, Jerome Shaw Sr., ended without charges being brought.

Another led to an April 23 indictment charging both with 10 counts of burglary and related offenses.

Superior Court Judge Edward Jerejian (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)

“We want to see the other grand jury presentments,” Neary told Superior Court Judge Edward A. Jerejian.

Alerted by a resident, a borough police sergeant pulled over the Shaws’ pickup truck on West Saddle River Road just after 1:15 a.m. on Oct. 21.

Both were wearing black coverall jumpsuits, and Shaw Jr. had a handwritten list of addresses of residences in Saddle River and Mendham with him — a violation of state statute, according to the indictment.

Inside the truck, which had North Carolina license plates, police reported finding “a sledgehammer or large mallet, a pipe wrench, pry bars, cutting pliers, plastic zip ties, black gloves, black ski masks, goggles, flashlights, and five small rocks,” it says.

Earlier that night, homes were broken into on Warewoods Road, Stoney Ridge Road, High Meadow Road and Eugene Drive in Saddle River and Chapel Road and Stevens Road in Mendham, the indictment says.

Other charges against the Shaws, who have previous burglary convictions out of Nassau County, include counts of conspiracy to commit burglary and illegal weapons possession.

Records also show that both were arrested under similar circumstances in Montgomery County, Md. in 2006. The disposition of that case couldn’t be determined.

They remain free on $50,000 bail each in the Bergen County case.

Brian Neary, Jerome Shaw Jr., Jerome Shaw Sr. (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)

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YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A Fort Lee man has admitted his role in what the government said was one of the nation’s largest, longest-running frauds of its kind — all sparked by a pair of arrests by members of the Bergen County Police Department.

The scheme in which 75-year-old David Pinski said he participated caused more than 8,000 fraudulent U.S. income tax returns to be filed, which sought more than $65 million in tax refunds — and cost Uncle Sam more than $12 million.

“No matter how sophisticated, these crimes are pure theft,” U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said. “They victimize all members of the public, especially those whose identities are stolen.”

The case began on Sept. 17, 2012 when BCPD Sgt. Rob Escobar was flagged down near the Palisades Park section of Overpeck County Park by an elderly man who reported “two suspicious males peering into parked vehicles in the Shop-Rite parking lot,” Lt. James Mullin said.

Escober spotted the pair sitting in a silver 2007 Chrysler 300.

Officer Salvatore LoCascio assisted Escobar after the men signed search consent forms for the sedan. Inside, the officers found the three checks worth $24,700, Mullin said. Federal agents took both men into custody.

Soon after, a multi-agency task force was formed, composed of investigators from the IRS, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the U.S. Secret Service, with assistance from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

An investigation found that Pinski, Michael Senatore, 43, of Moscow, Pa., and others obtained personal identifiers, such as dates of birth and Social Security numbers, belonging to Puerto Rican citizens.

They used those identifiers to create bogus 1040 forms, which falsely reported wages purportedly earned by the “taxpayers” and taxes purportedly withheld, to create the appearance that the “taxpayers” were entitled to tax refunds.

Because the returns were filed electronically, the IP addresses could be traced.

Law enforcement officers learned that just a handful of IP addresses created many of the fraudulent 1040 forms that lead to the issuance of tax refund checks.

Conspirators purchased mail routes — lists of addresses covered by mail carriers.

In applying for refunds, the crew inserted addresses along the mail route as the purported home addresses of the “taxpayers,” and obtained the refund checks sent to those addresses.

They also applied for checks using addresses otherwise controlled or accessed by certain conspirators and collected them after they were delivered to those addresses.

The ringleaders then got people to open bank accounts so the checks could be taken to cashing businesses and the proceeds deposited into the dummy accounts.

One of the defendants “purportedly worked in the grocery business, resided in a house worth more than $1.6 million, and paid more than $13,000 per month in mortgage payments,” Fishman said.

The defendant “gambled more than $250,000 at casinos in New Jersey and elsewhere… purchased three Mercedes-Benz automobiles …. [and] spent thousands of dollars a night on luxury hotels,” he said.

Another defendant, a school teacher, in one year charged $123,000 on a single credit card, including tens of thousands of dollars in hotel and airfare for luxury getaways, the U.S. Attorney said.

Identifying particular “hot spots,” the task force worked with the Postal Service to intercept more than $22 million in illicit refund checks. Hundreds of them  were mailed to just a few different addresses in a few different towns, including Nutley, Somerset and Newark, N.J., and Shirley, N.Y.

Pinski, who pleaded guilty in federal court in Newark yesterday, is scheduled for sentencing on March 3, 2014. Senatore, who pleaded guilty today, is to be sentenced two days later.

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A Cliffside Park man today admitted raping two pre-teen sisters, biting one of them on the back, after breaking into their home.

Serkan Seyrek — who will be sentenced to 28  years in prison under a plea deal with prosecutors — described in horrifying detail the early-morning Feb, 2012 attacks that put the East Bergen community atop the Palisades on edge for seven months before he was caught.

Seyrek, 22, said he attacked the 9-year-old girl first, threatening to kill her if “she told anyone or made any sound.”

He said he then ran to her 11-year-old sister’s bedroom and assaulted her the same way before the girls’ mother woke up, discovered what was happening and fought him off.

Seyrek, who lived around the corner from the victims, left fingerprints on doorknobs in the house — and on other those he tried in the neighborhood — as well as blood on the girls’ bedsheets, according to his attorney, Savyon Grant.

The blood came from cuts he sustained earlier that morning when he pulled a knife on his mother and the two struggled over it, the lawyer explained.

Seyrek said this afternoon that he heard helicopters after he returned home hours after the attacks, indicating that police were looking for him. Although his mother wanted to take him to the hospital for treatment of his cuts, he said he refused.

“I believed it would implicate me [in the rapes],” Seyrek told Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi.

Serkan Seyrek in court today
(STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT)

He also said he later had trouble sleeping because of what he’d done.

Seyrek originally contended that police caught the wrong man after an extensive manhunt led to his Sept. 7, 2012 arrest.

The girls’ mother called police after waking up at 6 a.m. Feb. 22, interrupting the attacks and chasing him out the front door, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli and Cliffside Park Police Chief Donald Keane said in a joint statement later that morning.

“A passerby in a motor vehicle heard the homeowner screaming to stop” the assailant and ran after him, the statement said.

Others on Washington Avenue, seeing what was happening, joined in.

The attacker headed west, turned south on Grove Street and then bolted into a backyard at the corner of Lincoln Avenue before vanishing.

A necklace he was wearing was broken off by the girl’s mother as she pulled Seyrek off her daughter. A piece of it was found inside the house and another near a fence that he jumped as he fled, prosecutors said.

Authorities released images of the string-type necklace during the manhunt. It had an attached piece of circular black colored cloth with “serv_n” engraved on it. The second-to-last letter was missing.

Seyrek became a “person of interest” after Cliffside Park police arrested him for breaking into the Elks Club on Anderson Avenue and stealing a bottle of cognac.

Keane credited Detective Sgt. Sean MacKay with obtaining enough information in an interview with Seyrek for authorities to bring the charges.

McKay today told CLIFFVIEW PILOT today that Seyrek “was very anxious, more than for the crime he was accused of would warrant.”

Suddenly, the sergeant said, Seyrek asked him whether anyone had been arrested in the assaults. McKay took his fingerprints and kept in contact with Seyrek until authorities could draw up an arrest warrant.

Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Catherine Fantuzzi said Seyrek traveled to Turkey after the assaults and planned to return if he wasn’t arrested.

Seyrek has remained held in the Bergen County Jail even after his bail was reduced from $1 million to $600,000.

Under his deal wiht prosecutors, he must serve 23 years, nine months and 22 days of his sentence before he will be eligible for parole, in exchange for pleading guilty to two counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of burglary. Seyrek also must register as a Megan’s Law offender upon his release and remain on lifetime parole supervision.

Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Catherine Fantuzzi, defense attorney Savyon Grant, Serkan Seyrek during today’s plea in Superior Court, Hackensack
(STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A husband and wife from Westwood were both convicted today by federal jurors in Newark after two hours of deliberations for scamming lending companies out of $3.4 million in mortgages — $269,000 of which the government said they pocketed.

Linda Yarleque, 44, and 46-year-old Fabio Moreno Vargas face up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine when they are sentenced on March 11, 2014 by U.S. District Judge William H. Walls, federal authorities said.

According to a release from U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman:

“Yarleque and Moreno obtained 10 fraudulent loans over a period of three years.

“They falsified their employment and income, failed to disclose their debts and other properties that they owned, and lied about where they lived.

“They fraudulently obtained a total of $3.4 million in mortgages this way and personally pocketed approximately $269,000, through ‘cash out’ refinancings that they directed to their own bank accounts.

“They then spent that money on vacations, cars, and to buy more properties.

“The defendants made up a phony business where Moreno was supposedly employed (My Limousine). They then obtained a phone line in the name of My Limousine and had it forwarded to their personal cell phones.

“When mortgage lenders called to verify Moreno’s employment, the defendants lied, posing as fictitious employees, using names such as ‘Janet Alvarez’ and ‘Casandra Sterling’.”

Fishman credited special agents of the FBI for the investigation and thanked IRS-Criminal Investigation for its role in the case. Representing the government are Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Jamari Buxton of the general crimes unit and Rachael A. Honig, counsel to the U.S. Attorney.

EXCLUSIVE: A judge in Hackensack asked deadlocked jurors this afternoon to return tomorrow and “work together” to reach a verdict in the case of a self-styled Santeria priest accused of breaking into his former lover’s Wallington home and beat the man’s father nearly to death.

Jurors informed Superior Court Judge James J. Guida at 4:30 this afternoon that they were of “totally deadlocked” on all charges against Julio Pina-Catena (above, left), including attempted murder.

However, they said they’d reached a verdict on charges of destroying evidence against his roommate, Kenny Cabrera (above, inset). That decision will remain undisclosed until charges against Pina-Catena have been resolved or a hung jury is declared.

“It’s your duty to consult with each other, and to reach a decision, as long as you can do so without violence to yourself or others,” Guida told the jurors. “Don’t surrender your honest conviction solely for the purpose of reaching a verdict.

“In other words, I’m going to ask you to continue,” the judge said. “I am going to ask you to go home, come back tomorrow and to continue to deliberate.”

An assistant Bergen County prosecutor said revenge over a failed romance prompted Pina-Catena, of East Rutherford, to break into the home, trash the place and attack his former lover’s father.

Pina-Catena’s lawyer, in turn, arged that it wasn’t “a fair fight” that his client was waging against “all these assistant prosecutors and all the detectives.”

Besides attempted murder, Pina-Catena is charged with various other crimes in connection with what authorities said was a vicious assault on May 4, 2011 that left the victim with a fractured skull and eye socket and no memory of the incident.

The older man was hospitalized for 10 days, then had to spend several weeks in a rehabilitation facility where he slowly regained his health, said Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Danielle Grootenboer.

The crime scene included couches stained with blood, blood pooled on the carpet, a smashed TV screen, a photo of young girl at communion with its frame cracked and her eyes scratched out with a sharp instrument; another picture of the same girl older on which “U R Filthy Bitch” was carved, among other incidents of vandalism, she said.

A key piece of evidence is a Santa Barbara candle the victim’s son found lighted in the living room. Pina-Catena, Grootenboer said.

The victim’s son told jurors he broke up with Pina-Catena two years earlier and moved on to another relationship, the prosecutor said. He said his former lover exacted revent by creating a lew and false “Man Hunt” online profile characterizing him as promiscuous.

Defense attorney Robert Galantucci countered that his client, first and foremost, was “presumed to be innocent.”

The jurors’ late afternoon message today was their second in several hours. They had told him at noon that they were unable to reach a verdict.

Guida ordered the panel to return tomorrow at 8:45 a.m. and try again.

 STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

RELATED:

Prosecutor in Wallington assault trial: Horrific scene after attack

Rutherford man headed to trial in Wallington attempted murder case

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Mahwah police said they found a stolen 9mm handgun and a small amount of marijuana during a Route 287 traffic stop in the car of a purported Bloods gang member from Pennsylvania who they said was wanted on a warrant out of Mount Olive.

Terence Bethea, 33, of Allentown gave a different account of his travels from his passenger, a Brooklyn woman, after Officer Eric Larsen stopped his Nissan Mini for an obstructed vision violation just after noon today, Police Chief James Batelli said.

A computer check showed that the vehicle had fictitious plates and wasn’t unregistered, the chief said.

After obtaining written consent to search the vehicle, Larsen said he was told by Bethea that the Ruger handgun was in the center console.

“The magazine was also located on a shelf under the steering wheel,” Batelli said.

A computer check showed that the weapon was reported stolen from a residence in Allentown, the chief said.

The officer also found a small amount of pot during the search, he said.

Mahwah police K-9 Dome alerted officers to an area of the vehicle in the front dashboard where Batelli said an undisclosed amount of cash was found.

The money, along with the gun, magazine and marijuana, were all seized, he said.

Mahwah police charged Bethea with:

• Unlawful possession of a weapon;

• Receiving stolen property;

• Possession of marijuana;

• Motor vehicle-violations.

He was then turned over to Mount Olive authorities, Batelli said.

His passenger was released, the chief said.

MUGSHOT: Courtesy MAHWAH PD

UPDATE: It turns out a report by a Ridgewood High School student that he was slashed by a robber in broad daylight on a busy village street was bogus, authorities confirmed last night.

“After an exhaustive investigative effort we can now confirm that there was not, nor is there now any current threat to public safety or our children from the alleged slashing/attempted robbery incident which was reported to our police department yesterday,” Ridgewood Police Chief John Ward said in an official statement last night.

SEE: Ridgewood High School student reports knife assault by robber

“As many of you have witnessed, our community takes the safety of our children very seriously and will mobilize and take all necessary steps to ensure their safety,” Ward wrote to parents last night. “I would like to thank everyone for their support and cooperation in this matter.

“Please be assured that we will continue with our increased presence in and around our schools, along with patrols — both marked and unmarked — which have been in place since the previous attempted luring incident earlier this month.”

Ward was referring to two recent incidents in town.

A village girl said a man grabbed her on her way home from school on Nov. 1, a week after two other girls said they were scared off by a driver who pulled up to them in the same neighborhood.

SEE: Stranger grabs schoolgirl in Ridgewood, parents urged to teach kids street smarts  

A judge this morning refused to lower the $2 million bail for a Hackensack man charged with beating his wife to death.

“The bail remains the same” for 64-year-old Thomas Fabbricatore, Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi told defense attorney Frank Lucianna, who vociferously  objected.

“I have the utmost respect for you, your Honor,” Lucianna told DeAvila-Silebi.

But his client, he said, “has lost the presumption of innocence.”

“When this hits the newspapers, which it will, everyone will think he is guilty because it’s $2 million bail,” said Lucianna, his voice rising.

“In 63 years as a defense attorney, I have never had a $2 million bail in a case between a husband and a wife, in a case that may not even be manslaughter,” he continued.

“$2 million bail is punitive, he can’t pay it, and it will rob the defendant of his will to defend himself,” Lucianna said, adding: “Judge, there will be an acquittal.”

Hackensack police said they went to the Fabbricatore residence Nov. 12 on an anonymous “welfare check” and found Elizabeth Fabbricatore, 58, unconscious and bleeding from a head wound.

She later underwent surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center and died Monday morning.

Fabbricatore was initially charged with aggravated assault and ordered held on the $2 million bail. The charges were upgraded to murder after his wife died.

He contends that she fell and hit her head as they were pushing one another during an argument.

STORY: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

UPDATE: Prosecutors today said a Midland Park man accused of killing his former girlfriend last month after breaking into her parents’ Waldwick home as their 8-month-old son lay in a bassinet nearby raped her two different ways.

Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi ordered that Mark Spatucci remain held on $2 million bail in the brutal killing of Mary Greff.

Prosecutors said Spatucci, 22, climbed into her parents’ home on Oct. 23 through a second-floor window while they were sleeping, got into an argument with her and either strangled or suffocated her before leaving the way he came in.

Leon and Carol Ann Greff called authorities after they found the body of their daughter, who turned 23 two days earlier.

A graduate of Midland Park High School, Spatucci became an immediate suspect. He was found in Midland Park, taken in for questioning and later charged.

Authorities said he washed the clothes he was wearing at the time of the killing and deleted text messages between him and the victim.

Semen samples recovered from two bodily cavities returned positive results against Spatucci, authorities said.

The 5-foot-8 inch, 150-pound Spatucci remained held in the Bergen County Jail.

The additional rape charges today bring the total counts to:

• murder and felony murder

• aggravated sexual assault (2 counts)

• burglary

• hindering apprehension (2 counts)

• child endangerment

The felony murder charge stems from Spatucci allegedly sneaking into the home through the window, which under the law is a burglary. A killing committed during the commission of another felony gives rise to the additional count.

The pair began dating about two years ago, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said.

In February, their eight-month-old boy – named Mark, like his father and paternal grandfather – was born.

The two lived together for a time at Spatucci’s Harrison Avenue apartment in Waldwick, but then Greff returned to live with her parents and the baby, the prosecutor said.
Greff had full custody, although Spatucci had visitation rights, he added.

CLIFFVIEW PILOT first broke the story of Spatucci’s arrest: Ex-boyfriend charged in murder of Waldwick woman

RELATED: ‘We love you, Mark!’ spectator shouts at court appearance for accused killer of Waldwick woman

STORY / PHOTO: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

EXCLUSIVE: An Albanian immigrant from Garfield who went home and got a gun after a bar fight was sentenced to 13 years in state prison today for nearly killing the other man with a bullet in the chest.

Melsi Pajo came to the U.S. after winning a lottery in his native Albania, then worked two jobs and went to school at night on a green card to become an air-conditioning technician, Presiding Superior Court Liliana DeAvila-Silebi noted during today’s sentencing hearing in Hackensack.

He then “squandered away the American dream” by committing “a violent crime that is completely uncalled for,” she said.

“You are 28 years old,” the judge told Pajo through an interpreter. “Your family had hopes you would come here and live a better life.”

Pajo got into an argument with 29-year-old Lukasz Goralczyk after the two met at the Zoom Pub in Wallington the night of June 23, 2011.

STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

Pajo, who’s been in the U.S. the past nine years, said he didn’t know Goralczyk. He admitted later calling friends to come get him, then went to his apartment to retrive a pistol.

As he approached the bar, Pajo told DeAvila-Silebi in April, he saw his victim and a group of friends coming toward him with two baseball bats.

So he aimed the unlicensed weapon directly at Goralczyk and fired once.

“He was scared,” Lucianna said. “But it isn’t self-defense, because the use of force was excessive. There was one shot, not a hail of bullets.”

Goralczyk, who underwent emergency surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center, still carries the bullet in his chest, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Danielle Grootenboer said.

Pajo fled after the shooting, ditched the gun and went from one to another of several friends’ homes, hiding out.

He then drove to Florida, where he planned to hop a boat out of the country, authorities said.

Investigators from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office caught Pajo before that could happen, however.

A tipster told detectives that Christina Hamdan — one of four other people charged with hindering the investigation — drove Pajo to Jacksonville. Investigators tracked him to the Tampa area, where he was staying with friends from high school.

The detectives called in U.S. marshals, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.

They then grabbed Pajo as he walked out of Frank & Freddy’s Pizza in Riverview, Fla., on July 25, 2011 — as CLIFFVIEW PILOT was the first to report: Bergen detectives grab Garfield gunman on the run from attempted murder charges

He eventually cut a deal that led to the April plea and today’s sentence.

Defense attorney Diane Lucianna characterized her client as a man who made a terrible mistake in judgment. Grootenboer, in turn, called him “violent and dangerous.”

DeAvila-Silebi agreed, citing one prior conviction for an assault in Garfield and another for assaulting a fellow prisoner with a shiv while he was in jail for the first crime.

Under the No Early Release Act, Pajo must serve 85% of his sentence — a little more than 11 years — before he is eligible for parole.

He will then be deported, the judge said.

Meanwhile, he remains held in the Bergen County Jail pending his assignment to a state prison.

Also charged with Hamdan were Petrick Agascra, Ervin Keco and Eno Cami, as well as Blerim Kozici, who they said fled to his native Albania after the shooting and was arrested soon after he returned to the U.S.

Kozici was admitted to Pre-Trial Intervention. The other four took guilty pleas and received probation.

Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Danielle Grootenboer, defense attorney Nancy Lucianna, Melsi Pajo, interpreter (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A 25-year-old woman who walked into an Englewood bank wearing a ski mask and gloves has “psychological issues and in no way had any intent to rob any banks,” city Detective Capt. Timothy Torell told CLIFFVIEW PILOT tonight.

As a result of media coverage that included a surveillance image of the woman at the PNC Bank on Wednesday, city detectives “received several calls from concerned citizens regarding [her] identity,” Torell said.

This afternoon, investigators found her working as a temp in a local city business.

IMAGE: Courtesy ENGLEWOOD PD

“The entire outfit she was wearing that was shown in bank still photographs was recovered, including the mask and gloves,” Torell said.

“The woman was interviewed by detectives who determined that she had psychological issues and in no way had any intent on robbing banks,” the captain said, adding that she was taken to a local hospital for a psychological evaluation.

“We appreciate the help from the community in identifying this woman,” Torell told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “Hopefully this will assist her in obtaining the services she needs.

“PNC was notified and the staff there was relieved to find out that their safety was never at risk,” he added.

The woman entered the PNC branch on Engle Street off the corner of busy East Palisade Avenue just before 3 p.m. Wednesday wearing the getup, along with what witnesses said were “skinny jeans.”

“Based on what we could determine from surveillance footage, it appeared the woman lingered outside on the sidewalk and hesitated to enter several times because of pedestrian traffic in and around the bank,” Torell said.

“She finally entered the front doors and walked several yards into the branch where there were customers and employees,” the captain said.

“She stopped and visually scanned the interior of the bank before turning around and leaving in a very hurried fashion,” he said.

Police released the image from the surveillance video in the hopes that someone could identify the woman. Calls began coming in soon after.

SHOUT OUT: You can help victims of domestic violence in Bergen County: Officials are recruiting volunteers for a regional team that will give domestic violence victims necessary information and referrals.

Applicants must agree to a criminal background check, be fingerprinted and attend 40-hour training.

The Domestic Violence Crisis Response Team program is a collaborative recruitment effort between the county and local police departments in:

Allendale
Alpine
Bergenfield
Carlstadt
Dumont
East Rutherford
Elmwood Park
Fairview
Fort Lee
Lodi
Norwood
Oakland
Ridgewood
Rochelle Park
Tenafly
Upper Saddle River
Waldwick
Westwood

(The program is required under the New Jersey Prevention of Domestic Violence Act of 1991 and is funded by a VAWA grant.)

Those interested in applying should go to: http://www.co.bergen.nj.us/forms.aspx?FID=92

Complete, print and fax.

If you don’t have Internet access, call: (201) 336-7577

The Bergen County Department of Human Services Division of Alternatives to Domestic Violence (BCDHS/ADV) has provided family violence prevention, education and training and emergency intervention services in Bergen County for the past 35 years.

A ring that stole and recycled more than $100,000 worth of plastic milk crates was smashed when investigators raided an Englewood Cliffs home and two Fairfield business addresses while arresting a Hackensack man and seven Passaic County associates, authorities said today.

“The operators use stolen crates, reconfigure them and resell them for profit,’’ said Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Nicole Buermann, whose office lead the investigation. “Industry experts say these thefts cost stores millions annually.

Investigators recovered plastic totes and soda pallets stolen from Rite Aid, CVS, Pepsi, Walgreens – even the U.S. Postal Service – all marked with the rightful owner’s company name and a warning against their unauthorized use or theft. All were seized at a pair of Fairfield facilities operated by a company called Farmplast.

Both received the stolen items around the clock from a crew of thieves who operated in New York and New Jersey, Essex authorities said.

Fairfield police had secured the facilities after the search warrants were executed, in fact, when four separate trucks filled with stolen totes pulled up.

Arrested and charged with receiving stolen property were Alfredo DeDios, 53, of Hackensack, Richard Ferreria, 32, of Haledon, and six Paterson men: Armando DeDios, 29, Fernando Marzan, 20, Elvis Fermin, 20, Luis Hernandez, 24, Michael Malave, 19 and Victor Tejada Jr.

Additional charges are expected as the two-month investigation continues, authorities said.

Murray praised Buermann, ECPO Detective Patrick Todd and Fairfield Detective Sgt. Charles Zampino for “outstanding” work on the case.

SPECIAL THANKS to MyVeronaNJ.com

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? Leonia police are seeking the public’s help finding a man who they said followed and then approached two different girls on the street, asking one “inappropriate” questions and another to get into his vehicle.

The first girl, a 15-year-old, told police she was walking home on Thursday when she noticed a black van slowly following her, Police Chief Thomas Rowe told CLIFFVIEW PILOT last night.

She turned and walked in the other direction, Rowe said, but the driver got out and “proceeded to ask her a few inappropriate questions,” the girl told police.

She described him as white, 40-50 years old, 6 feet tall, thin, with a scraggly beard.

A 12-year-old girl told police she was walking on Fort Lee Road near Broad Avenue around 11:45 a.m. yesterday when spotted a “dirty” older-model black or blue Chevy Tahoe behind her.

The driver was “aggressively honking the horn to get her attention,” Rowe said.

The driver then pulled alongside of her and asked for directions to Overpeck Park, she told police, adding that she shrugged her shoulders without speaking.

“Why don’t you get into my car and show me where it is?” she said he asked her.

The girl said she ran to a local business to get away, as the driver sped off westbound on Fort Lee Road.

The New Jersey license plate on the truck included a “W,” she told police.

She described the driver as white, in his late 40s, with long, brown shaggy hair at ears’ length, a large nose, a scruffy face and a gray shirt.

Rowe asked that anyone with information about either or both incidents, or the man involved, to call Leonia police: (201) 944-0800

“Until the subject has been identified, we will be increasing both our marked and unmarked patrols,” the chief said.

SKETCH: Fort Lee Detective Lt. Kenneth Porrino

YOU READ IT  HERE FIRST: A Lyndhurst man who’d locked the keys in his car was arrested after he tried to hide an illegal handgun from an officer who stopped to help him, Saddle Brook police said.

Dominick Agueros-Rega, 18, was trying to get into his car on Market Street around 8:40 p.m. when Sgt. Leigh Cadigan stopped to help, Deputy Chief Robert White said this afternoon.

Cadigan used a “lockout” tool to get in, then asked Agueros-Rega for ID to prove that the car was his, White said.

Augeros-Rega “became frantic and began rummaging through the vehicle for his wallet,” the deputy chief said. “At one point [he] reached into a backpack on the front seat and removed an item, which he quickly concealed in his pants pocket. He repeated the same action again a few seconds later.”

Concerned for his safety, Cadigan ordered the driver away from the vehicle and looked inside.

Shining his flashlight on the backpack, he spotted a black, semi-automatic handgun, which he seized, the deputy chief said.

He also saw three plastic bags of pot in the center console, White said.

The Walther P22 pistol “had been rendered inoperative,” he said, but “the law prohibits it, and [Agueros-Rega] had no legitimate reason for having it.”

At headquarters, police found a prescription bottle of Xanax pills in another person’s name and several empty glassine bags commonly used to carry prescription drugs, the deputy chief said.

Agueros-Rega was later released pending a Dec. 3 appearance in Municipal Court on charges of unlawful possession of the handgun, the pot, the Xanax and drug paraphernalia, he said.

EXCLUSIVE: A River Edge man was sentenced to 364 days in the Bergen County Jail and three years probation for crashing his car into a good Samaritan and two vehicles in Paramus while drunk.

Gregory Komporlis, 31, had been free on $50,000 bail since hours after his arrest last Dec. 14.

Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said at the time that Komporlis was drunk when he caused the collision just after 2 a.m. in the northbound lanes of Forest Avenue near Norman Way.

A 21-year-old good Samaritan had gotten out to help another motorist who’d crashed her car into a utility pole when he and both vehicles were struck by a 2010 Volkswagen Jetta driven by Komporlis, the prosecutor said.

The good Samaritan sustained severe head and lower-extremity injuries, Molinelli said.

Superior Court Judge Eugene H. Austin sentenced Komporlis on the motor-vehicle assault conviction on Friday.

STORY: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

MUGSHOT: Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A Garfield municipal sedan was stolen from the worker using it this afternoon, police confirmed.

The white, four-door 2000 Saturn, belonging to the “Clean Communities” program, was running when the worker got out on River Drive and Semel Avenue just after 1:45 p.m. to pick up some trash.

“When he turned back, it was gone,” Police Capt. Darren Sucorowski told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.

Sucorowski said the vehicle (above, left) has the City of Garfield logos on both front doors and the license plate: MG81004.

It also has the “CC1″ under the exterior mirrors on both sides of the car.

Anyone who spots the vehicle is asked to call Garfield police: (973) 478-8500

EXCLUSIVE: Four members of a large-scale prescription fraud ring used the names of five legitimate doctors from North Jersey and Rockland County whose signatures were forged, an indictment returned by a Bergen County grand jury alleges.

The four were in the middle of a series of buys at a local pharmacy using forged signatures of physicians from Rutherford, Saddle River and Secaucus when they were snatched up in July, according to the 19-count indictment filed in Superior Court in Hackensack.

Rochelle Park Detective Jim DePreta said he and fellow investigator Chris Bermudez spotted them while passing area pharmacies on the lookout for suspicious people.

“They were parked in the CVS lot, but they were walking back and forth on Rochelle Avenue,” DePreta told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.

One of them had already filled a prescription for a three-month supply of Oxycontin when another man entered the pharmacy, the detective said.

“They basically exchanged places,” he said.

Suspecting fraud, the pharmacist declined to fill the second script. The detectives then grabbed the would-be customer, 35-year-old Lamont Dean of Garfield (above: middle), on his way out the door.

DePreta, Bermudez and four uniformed officers converged on the other three in the CVS lot.

One of those arrested, Kinner Harris, 44, of Elizabeth (above, left), was the mastermind of the group, DePreta said.

Harris — who already was facing charges out of Union County for distributing heroin and prescription pills — provided the scripts, the detective said.

“The others provided the manpower,” he said.

Harris sat in one vehicle in the lot, communicating via cellphone with Blerim Krasniqi, 35, of Garfield (above, top), who was in the other car with the “runners,” DePreta said.

The runners’ job was to fill the prescriptions and give them to Krasniqi in exchange for a couple hundred dollars, he said.

DePreta said he then passed them to Harris, who sold the drugs for $10-$20 a pill. At that rate, they could fetch upwards of $2,400 for a 120-day supply.

Although the prescriptions themselves had genuine physicians’ names on them, the listed call numbers came back to pre-paid phones, DePreta told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.

“It was a pretty sophisticated operation,” he said.

Harris, who was initially charged with being a leader of organized crime, has remained free on $50,000 bail since July 25, two weeks after the bust.

Krasniqi, Dean and a fourth man, 29-year-old David Buczek of Passaic, were released on summonses.

Buczek was arrested on burglary charges a month later in Garfield and released on $5,000 bail. That case is pending, as well.

The indictment returned Friday charges the four with various drug- and fraud-related charges. They first hit the Rochelle Park pharmacy on April 6 and then returned on June 16 and July 11, when they were arrested, it says.

In addition to the other physicians, the indictment charges, the crew had forged signatures of doctors from Nyack, N.Y. and West Orange.

STORY: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

MUGSHOTS: Courtesy ROCHELLE PARK PD (Kinner Harris, left. Top to bottom: Blerim Krasniqi, Lamont Dean, David Buczek)

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A Rutherford family was burned out of its home by a fire last night that brought several companies.

Rutherford firefighters had the Santiago Avenue blaze under control within an hour, with assistance from their colleagues in Lyndhurst, North Arlington and Wallington.

Also responding were Rutherford and Lyndhurst ambulance corps and the Rutherford Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary.

No injuries were reported in the blaze, which broke out just after 7 p.m.

The cause doesn’t appear suspicious, Rutherford Police Capt. Patrick Feliciano said this morning.

Responding Officers Frank Ingles and Michael Merli found the residents and their family pet outside, Feliciano said.

“They will be temporarily staying with relatives,” he said.

PHOTO: Courtesy MICKEY TRAVAGLIO