YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Hasbrouck Heights police nabbed a heroin-addicted ex-con from Wyckoff hiding in a Dumpster behind a Route 17 hotel overnight after he’d stolen his second vehicle of the day.
Police began looking for 48-year-old Gregory Prior after he swiped an unregistered 2003 Jeep Liberty from the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot on Prospect Street in Glen Rock around noon yesterday, investigators told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Gregory Prior (MUGSHOT: Hasbrouck Heights PD)
Prior had been released from state prison this past December after serving five years in connection with a string of Bergen County burglaries and thefts committed while he was on parole for a pair of 1999 crime sprees.
In one of the thefts, he snatched a purse at a Teaneck restaurant, took off in a stolen BMW and sped across the George Washington Bridge into New York City, where he was chased down on Riverside Drive after crashing at 168th Street.
Soon after the Jeep was taken early yesterday afternoon, Prior cruised the lot of the ShopRite on West Passaic Street in Rochelle Park before grabbing a woman’s purse from a shopping cart and taking off, authorities told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Just before midnight last night, Prior drove the Jeep to the Riverside Square Mall in Hackensack and stole an orange 2010 Honda Civic, they said.
Hasbrouck Heights Officer James Loos spotted the Civic on southbound Route 17 moments after Hackensack police issued the alert.
He activated his lights, after which Prior “immediately pulled over and bailed,” Detective Lt. Michael Colaneri told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Wood-Ridge police quickly joined their Hasbrouck Heights colleagues in establishing a perimeter and a Bergen County Sheriff’s K9 unit was brought in, Colaneri said.
The 6-foot-1-inch, 195-pound Prior was found in the trash bin behind the Holiday Inn just before 12:30 a.m., he said.
Prior — who has dozens of arrests and convictions dating back decades — was being held on $50,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail this morning.
Hasbrouck Heights police initially charged him with eluding, obstruction, receiving stolen property and possession of a hypodermic needle.
Additional charges were expected from Glen Rock, Hackensack, Rochelle Park and possibly other jurisdictions.
