YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Ten people are named in an indictment returned by a grand jury in Hackensack with using an Englewood flophouse as a gambling den, recording studio and marijuana stashhouse.
Officers Lester Martin and Michael McCue were on patrol on June 22 when they spotted ex-con and former basketball star Sean Banks of Englewood (photos above) sitting on the front stoop of the foreclosed home on Mattlage Place with Anthony Obuobisa and David Sarakin, both Englewood residents.
Shawon Goodall (MUGSHOT: Courtesy ENGLEWOOD PD)
Aware of warrants on Banks for ducking court, they approached the trio, who ran inside, Detective Capt. Timothy Torell told CLIFFVIEW PILOT at the time. From inside police could smell burning marijuana.
Spotting several people inside, city officers requested backup from Englewood Cliffs, Teaneck, Tenafly, the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office and the Bergen County Police Department.
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Reoffend, release, reoffend, release — the saga of onetime Englewood basketball phenom continues
SPECIAL REPORT: Englewood police were surprised when a woman told them that she was assaulted before dawn yesterday by basketball phenom Sean Banks. They thought he was behind bars. READ MORE….
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Everyone was ordered out and arrested — including Banks, Obuobisa and Sarakin. The house was then sealed off as detectives applied for a search warrant.
Soon after, Torell said, police caught Shawon Goodall of Teaneck trying to sneak in a rear window.
CVP
She’d been asked to do so “to search for and remove any contraband not recovered by police,” he said.
Searching the home, detectives found “insect infestations and rotting garbage throughout the entire house,” Torell said. “There was no running water and it appeared that people had been using the commodes for months without the ability to flush.”
Found in the home was a gambling operation, complete with a large craps table and poker tables, as well as a basement recording studio where “a significant amount of marijuana was found secreted under some clothing, as well as a digital scale, suspected cocaine, narcotics packaging materials, prescription drug materials, drug usage paraphernalia and hundreds of full and empty liquor bottles,” Torell said.
The city’s Code Enforcement Unit sealed the residence as a result of the infestation, human waste, raw sewage and “structural issues,” the captain said.
A relative of the former owner, Candace Rector, “knew what was going on in there and didn’t make an effort to stop it,” Torell said. She was charged with maintaining a nuisance.
Named in the indictment along with Banks, Obuobisa, Sarakin and Goodall are:
Daryl L. Williams
Jamal Sermon
Michael Lockett
Charles Williams
Daivon S. Hooks
Sharief D. Brown
Banks also was charged in the indictment with fleeing.
Over the past two years, Banks has been jailed — and freed — no fewer than a half-dozen times. READ MORE….
