The NJ Blog

A [North Bergen, New Jersey] man who allegedly took a cab to and from a holdup Wednesday at a Bank of American branch on 69th Street - robbing the bank while the cab waited - was arrested Thursday, authorities said.

The suspect, Eduardo Quevedo, 44, was being questioned by FBI agents in Newark who are investigating several armed robberies in New Jersey and New York during the past eight months, FBI spokesman Steve Siegel said.

After the robbery, the cabdriver, who did not know a crime had been committed, drove Quevedo to two pawnshops before dropping him off at his parents' house, according to a complaint filed by FBI Special Agent Carl M. Priddy.

During the ride home, the cabdriver told investigators, Quevedo said he was originally from Cuba, had served time in prison and was staying with his family, according to the complaint. The driver also overheard Quevedo on a cellphone say, "It's me, Quevedo."

Darryl J. Impalli, 19, of Manetta Drive has been arrested and charged with stealing items and cash from the girls locker room at Point Pleasant Boro High School during basketball games, police said.

Lt. Richard Larsen said Impalli was charged with the thefts, which occurred Jan. 3 and 9.

The arrest was made after an investigation into two thefts from the locker room during basketball games, Larsen said.

In the Jan. 3 theft, three victims reported the theft of $860 in cash and property including two iPods, a cell phone and numerous gift cards.

On Jan. 9, six victims reported thefts totaling $1,351. The items, taken from a room adjacent to the high school's auxiliary gym, included three iPods, two cell phones, nine gift cards and cash, Larsen said.

A male high school student can wear a skirt to school after the American Civil Liberties Union reached an agreement with school officials.

The ACLU announced the deal Tuesday. It will allow a Hasbrouck Heights School senior to wear a skirt to protest the school's no-shorts policy.

The district's dress code bans shorts between Oct. 1 and April 15, but allows skirts, a policy 17-year-old Michael Coviello believes is discriminatory.

"I'm happy to be able to wear skirts again to bring attention to the fact that the ban on shorts doesn't make sense," Coviello said in a statement.

The Hasbrouck Heights superintendent, Joseph C. Luongo, did not return telephone messages left Tuesday seeking comment.

Coviello first wore a costume-style dress but high school officials told him to go home and change. The district's superintendent then advised the Coviello to purchase everyday dresses and skirts at a retail store, which Coviello did, the ACLU said.

But after a few days, he was sent home with a note from his principal saying if he wore a dress, kilt or skirt, he could no longer attend school.

More than a decade after 16-year-old Amy Fisher had a sexual relationship with a much-older car mechanic and shot his wife in the face, the one-time "Long Island Lolita" and Joey and Mary Jo Buttafuoco have agreed to appear together in a televised reunion.

All three have signed on for the appearance, which has yet to be sold to a network, television producer David Krieff told the New York Post for Monday editions.

"It's time to just put it behind us," Fisher, now 31, told the newspaper. "We played this all out in a public eye. It'd be interesting to let the public see the healing process at the end. They saw everything else — why not let them see the final product?"

A Stafford Township man, accused of bludgeoning two children to death with a hammer, was arrested at a Garden State Parkway rest area in Wall Township early this morning, following a manhunt by scores of law enforcement officials.

Richard Toledo, a boarder at a Middie Lane home in Stafford's Ocean Acres section, apparently killed 7-year-old Zabdiel Gonzalez and 14-year-old Carlo Gonzalez last night, police said. Toledo then abducted the children's mother and forced her to use her debit card to take money from an ATM, police said.

Police said the episode started about 6 p.m. Thursday. After the children were killed by the suspect in their home, Toledo drove his vehicle to pick up their mother from work. He abducted her, tied her up and took her to a Commerce Bank branch to take money out of her account, State Police said.

posted by G'stater @ 11:15 AM  0 comments

Actor Stephen Baldwin has his shorts in a bunch over a sex shop opening near his estate in Rockland County — so much so, he plans to destroy the lives of its patrons.

The least-known of the Baldwins, Stephen, a born-again Christian, parked himself outside the store's Route 59 location in Nyack on Friday and took snapshots of construction workers walking in and out of the building.

Once the smut shop opens in a few months, the 39-year-old star of "The Usual Suspects" plans to photograph patrons' license plates and run their names in the local newspaper to shame them from ever returning.

"We're going to notch it up and notch it up until we run this guy out of business," Baldwin told The Post last night.

Franklin Kincey, the man wanted for the murder of Hudson County corrections officer Samuel Broughton, was nabbed Friday night in an Edison hotel room, authorities said.

Friday's arrest brings to an end a month-long search for the 27-year-old East Orange resident who allegedly shot and killed Broughton and wounded fellow off-duty corrections officer Brandon Holmes the morning of Dec. 10 outside the Blue Ribbon restaurant on Summit Avenue in Jersey City.

Police had been searching for Kincey in and around central New Jersey for several days but finally located him in the Holiday Inn in Edison on Friday after learning that he was to meet a prositute there, said Hudson County First Assistant Prosecutor Guy Gregory.

Instead of a prostitute, Kincey was confronted by officers from the U.S. Marshals New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, Edison and state police, who burst into Kincey's room using a hotel pass-key, Gregory said.

"It's going to murder our business," said Dominique Hernandez, 24, who dances at a lounge in Florence. "A lot of people want to get off of work, have a drink and a smoke and watch some pretty girls. There's nothing wrong with that."

This magnificently attractive, intellectually and physically beautiful young girl, was a sophomore, was showing us around,a nd I fuigured, man we got a lock now. My son is gonna really be interested, and, I know, senators aren't supposed to say things like that but, ah, if he hadn't been interested, I would have been worried.

Bowing to pressure brought on by a string of recent accusations, state Assemblywoman Evelyn Williams said yesterday she will not continue serving in the Legislature.

In a three-paragraph letter faxed to Essex County Democratic Chairman Philip Thigpen yesterday afternoon, Williams said she would step down when the current session ends Monday, citing a need to resolve the "misunderstandings and misperceptions" that have plagued her over the past three weeks.

Williams' problems began on Dec. 20, when she was arrested on a charge of shoplifting at an Irvington discount store. Two days later, Williams was fired from her $70,060 job at the Essex County Detention Center after county officials said they found out she had retired and started collecting pension checks without telling them.

That revelation sparked an investigation by the state Department of the Treasury into whether Williams knowingly defrauded the state pension system. If Williams is found to have defrauded the state, her $45,000-a-year pension could be revoked.

Most recently, Williams has been accused of not paying a group of electioneers she hired to push the Democratic ticket during this year's gubernatorial campaign.

The first investigation into this incident will no doubt involve Williams, the shoplifting arrest, and her pension, which she appears to have been receiving improperly.

The issue regarding her pension seems to be what has gotten Williams in serious trouble with not just the law, but her county employers. Williams was fired as director of social services for the Essex County Juvenile Detention Center after it was found that the Assemblywoman was illegally collecting her pension while still working for the county.

Upon further investigation, it seems Williams should not have even qualified for the pension plan, reserved mainly for firemen and police officers in the line of duty.

That may raise an entirely new investigation that could go well beyond Williams herself. Sources both inside and outside of Essex County seem to believe that Williams may not have been the only person to improperly be allowed take advantage of this pension.

The Police and Firemen's Retirement System Board of Trustees is empowered to designate what county and state workers are eligible for inclusion in the plan, of which Williams found herself a part. But, to be included, Williams would have still had to have filed a special application for membership, explaining why her position in social services qualified her for the title of "policeman", a requirement to participate in the plan. The burning question is how Williams was able to join the Police and Fireman's Retirement System, and for what reasons, political or otherwise?

Another issue that may arise as part of that investigation is how diligent Williams was on her job. One of the key factors in the sum total of Williams' pension is the number of service credits she accumulated – that is, the number of months Williams made a full pension contribution. Receiving a full pension from the Police and Firemen's retirement System can take service of twenty years or more. It has been suggested that someone as politically active as Williams, who at one time served as a Deputy Mayor of Newark, may have not been as diligent with her job as someone with more free time, and, at times, she may have turned her county position into a no-show job.

Of course, until a full investigation can be mounted by the state, these are all rumors and allegations.