TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – It is safe to say that Jeremy Arrington, after N.J. Superior Court Judge Ronald Wigler handed him a 375-year sentence here April 8, will die behind state prison bars.
Wigler sentenced Arrington, 31, of Newark to three consecutive 50-year sentences for the Nov. 5, 2016 shooting of Sayasia McBurroughs, 23, and the stabbing of Ariel Little Whitehurst, 7 and Al-Jahon Whitehurst, 11. The sentencing, under the No Early Release Act means that the State Parole Board will not consider Arrington’s case until 2303.
A Superior Court jury, after listening to a 10-day trial here, had convicted Arrington March 22 of the above three murders plus 25 other counts including attempted murder, criminal restraint, burglary, the unlawful possession of a handgun and a knife and possession thereof for an unlawful purpose.
Arrington, who has no history of mental illness, is accused of illegally entering the Whitehurst apartment on the 100 block of Hedden Terrace with a gun that Saturday morning. For the next 90 minutes, he tied up the visiting McBurroughs and five Whitehursts and tortured them with kitchen knives. He would flee to a residence along the 200 block of Pomona Avenue where he barricaded himself until Newark police arrested him Nov. 6.
Arrington had become enraged over a Facebook posting that said he was a wanted man. The 10-time 2006-16 arrested man had served four felony sentences and had three other pending charges against him Nov. 6, 2016.
The three survivors testified against Arrington in March’s trial and the April 8 sentencing. They were the 29-year-old mother of the two killed children plus the twin 13-year-old brother and sister siblings of the mother.
A seventh occupant, a visiting girl with autism, had sheltered herself in a closet during the ordeal. She called police about the incident on her cell phone.
“You committed perhaps the most horrific, heinous, cruel and depraved murders this county has ever seen,” Wigler told Arrington Friday. “This case may be the worst I’ve ever seen.”
IRVINGTON / MAPLEWOOD – Police detectives here and in adjacent towns are looking for whether the suspects arrested for armed robberies on the Irvington-Maplewood border March 5 and in Newark March 8-9 are responsible for other stickups.
The Irvington and Maplewood detectives who have been working on the March 5-6 armed robbery of an Orange woman at 1013-16 Chancellor Ave. got a call from their Newark colleagues March 9. City detectives said that they had a couple of teenagers – one driving a black SUV and the other making the actual robbery – in custody.
Newark Public Safety Director Brian O’Hara said the duo had held up two women along the 200 block of Grafton Avenue 11:50 p.m. March 8 and a woman along the 200 block of Mt. Prospect Avenue 12:15 a.m. March 9. Both suspects took cell phones, wallets and purses.
Patrol officers, said O’Hara, stopped an SUV that matched reports along the 200 block of Peshine Avenue later March 9. They found the stolen cell phones, a wallet and a purse. Driver Janae Baker, 18, and passenger Zykee Gregory, 19, both of Newark, have been charged with robbery, conspiracy, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession thereof for an unlawful purpose.
Maplewood Police Chief Jimmy DeVaul, noticing thew similarities, had his detectives interview Gregory at Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility. They came back matching Gregory to the border holdup. Gregory had been charged with armed robbery possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose and possession thereof without a permit.
Detectives in Orange and East Orange may also be called since one of the stolen phones was activated while the SUV was on their streets.
EAST ORANGE – The Dionne Warwick Institute was evacuated and closed for 24 hours until fumes from an adjacent gasoline station excavation had abated.
East Orange School District Superintendent AbdulSaleem Hasan had closed 120 Central Ave. on April 5 and, on the East Orange Fire Department’s direction, kept the three-story building closed until April 7.
Hasan said that he had learned April 5 that excavation at the Lukoil at 100 Central Ave., began to get fumes entering the 1912 core school building. Those fumes began to irritate the magnet elementary school’s students and staff.
A contractor for 100 Central Ave. Associates, of West Orange, and Onkar Oil was called in to perform excavation work to at least the service bay part of the station. A March 3 fire there damaged the 1971 building to where its fuel dispensing and convenience store retail sales were closed by officials.
100 Central Ave. started life as a Mobil station. It became a Lukoil after ExxonMobil sold it, among other gasoline stations, to meet FTC merger requirements. Lukoil had also bought many former Getty Oil stations.
Lukoil has been in the news as being a Russian-owned oil company. The Newark Municipal Council had voted to pull the business licenses of the two Lukoils in their city to protest the Feb. 23 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
It is not known whether 100 Central Ave. Associates will renovate or permanently close its station.
ORANGE – “In my almost 40 years of being a pastor,” said Christian Faith Center Senior Pastor Emeritus John Esposito to the mourners of Orange native and East Orange Police Sgt. Derrick Moses April 9, “I’ve never seen so many people say so many good things about their departed.”
Relatives, friends, classmates and colleagues of Moses came to the church at Bloomfield’s 139 Montgomery St., that Saturday to celebrate his life. Moses, 60, had died from a lingering illness March 25.
Those who came up to Pastor Esposito’s pulpit, including East Orange Police Chief Phyllis Bindi, told of Moses’ being “the good cop” 1992-2017. They recalled his starting a William Street neighborhood basketball league until it was absorbed by the EO PAL. His beat included The Fifth Ward’s Springdale Avenue and North Grove Street, on the Community Services Unit and as East Orange Campus High School’s resource officer.
Moses, who was born here on Nov. 8, 1961, was an East Ward resident who worshiped at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. The Orange High School Class of 1979 graduate was a star basketball player at OHS (under Al Thompson and the late Clifford Blake), Hampton University and Rutgers-Newark.
Moses’ story, as we know it, nearly did not happen. He left Hampton when his younger brother, Jerome, suddenly died. Although he was part of Orange’s “Weed and Seed” neighborhood program, Derrick juggled several jobs – including Star Auto Parts (formerly R&S) for 10 years.
Star Auto owner Steve Newmark and two of Moses’ cousins persuaded him to resume college and try out for the Essex County Police Academy. He graduated from RU-N with a degree in biology.
Companion Lethea Berry, son Donte Moses, daughter Danyelle Moses, goddaughter Deandre (Terrell) Williams and sister Patricia Moses are among his survivors. Wife Wendia Gatling Moses is among those who predeceased him.
WEST ORANGE – Patrons may be temporarily experiencing even less of the Turtle Back Zoo here since a shark’s biting a girl’s finger on April 9.
Zoo staff told Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo that the girl was feeding stingrays in the touch tank that Saturday afternoon when the small shark bit one of her fingers. Epaulette sharks accompany stingrays in the tank.
TBZ staff promptly added a topical antibacterial cream and a bandage while calling local EMS. The bleeding had stopped before the medics’ arrival, leading to the girl’s family declining further care.
“Because the family wanted to leave,” said DiVincenzo (D-Roseland), “Zoo staff provided free passes for a return visit.”
The zoo has closed its displays of bald eagles, condors, flamingoes and hawks as a precaution since April 1 over avian flu concerns. It has postponed opening its seasonal Outback Adventure Exhibit until later this year.
Those open-air areas ate in the migratory path of other birds who may carry the light avian flu virus. The U.S. Department of Agriculture found 21 cases of “Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza” were detected among mallards in Cape May County Feb. 23.
Some 36 million fowl, including chickens and turkeys, have been euthanized across the U.S. in the outbreak’s wake. The killings have contributed to increased poultry and egg prices.
MAPLEWOOD – “I have a gun – give me the cigarettes,” said the man who took 10 packs of cigarettes from the Quick Chek here at Midnight April 11.
The suspect, after the employee had put $100 worth of cigarettes in a brown paper bag, left, declaring, “If you call the cops, I’ll come back and shoot you.”
The victim told responding Maplewood police officers and fire EMS technicians that the suspect had entered 1545 Springfield Ave. and waited until other patrons had left before inquiring about a carton of Newports.
The suspect, by the employee’s description and local surveillance camera footage, is around 40 years old, 5-ft., 5-in. tall, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, a light-colored face mask, “a scruff of facial hair” and black pants.
The suspect was last seen fleeing east on Springfield before cutting across the bank of America parking lot towards Jacoby St.
BLOOMFIELD – Authorities are looking for the shooter and an accomplice who killed a Newark man and put two others in a hospital along an Ampere street midday April 10.
ECPO spokeswoman Katherine Carter said, on April 11, that the deceased was identified as Christian Lisaldes Perez, 23. He was declared dead at the scene at 3:18 p.m. Sunday.
Bloomfield police and the county’s Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force descended on the 10 block of First Avenue by 3:15 p.m. They were responding to gunfire reports.
The shooting, between No. 13 and 15th streets, promptly closed that block. NJTransit’s No. 34B buses were among that afternoon’s detoured traffic.
A second and a third person, both Bloomfield police said were in their 30s, were taken to the Morristown Medical Center. They were respectively admitted in critical and stable condition.
Mayor Michael Venezia, speaking on Police Director Samuel de Maio’s behalf, said that the shooting was isolated. Venezia added that the neighborhood has had regular BPD patrols.
A black Chevrolet Equinox SUV was seen fleeing the scene.
MONTCLAIR – Last rites were held here April 12 for the township bicyclist who was fatally struck by an NJTransit train here April 4 while authorities continue investigating the accident.
NJTransit spokesman Jim Smith said, on April 11 that investigators have found the automatic gates and flashing lights at the North Fullerton Avenue grade crossing “were found to be working as intended” that Monday night.
The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, on April 7, had identified the man struck near there by Montclair-Boonton Line Train No. 1087 as Eric Boehlert, 57. A memorial service was held for him here at 1 p.m. Tuesday at the First Congregational Church.
Boehlert may be best known as the 2020 founder of “Press Run” newsletter and “hundreds of talking head appearances” and progressive commentaries on the likes of “Salon,” “Media Matters,” CNN and MSNBC. He was the author of two books, including 2009’s Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press.”
Boehlert, who was born Dec. 6, 1965 n Utica, N.Y., came here by way of Fort Wayne, Ind. and Guilford, Conn. The 6-ft., 4-in. high school basketball guard graduated from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1988 with a degree in Middle Eastern studies before taking a job with “The New Haven Register.” His passion for music led him to write for “High Fidelity” and, in 1992, “Billboard.”
Boehlert’s “truth to power” style was rewarded with an offer to “Rolling Stone” hiring him in 1996 and “Salon” in 2000. He and wife Tracy Breslin moved to a Montclair Avenue house here in 1998 to raise their children.
Wife Tracy Breslin, son Ben, daughter Jane, brothers Bart and Thom and sister Cynthia are among his survivors. Memorial donations may be made in his name to Montclair High School’s montclairscholarshipfund.org.
BELLEVILLE – A majority of township elders approved almost $27 million worth of bond issues at their combined conference-regular meeting here April 12.
Mayor Michael Melham and the four council members present passed a $12.5 million, 30-year bond issue for joint township-Belleville Public Schools capital projects.
That bond issue includes the $5 million joint purchase of 249-251 Washington Ave. from Eastern International College. The 1925 building would be renovated, once EIC moves out, to expand the current Belleville Middle School southward.
The building started life as an Elks Lodge and VFW hall. The lodge moved across the avenue; the VFW moved its lawn statue to the Union Avenue veterans memorial.
Belleville’s elders also passed, by a two-thirds majority, a $14.9 million capital improvement bond issue. It is believed that part of the issue would be used to purchase the former King Window showroom at 259-65 Washington Ave. and replace it with a parking garage.
While the EIC building is atop a crest, the King showroom is “downhill” by the avenue’s sidewalk.
The votes were taken without First and Second ward council members Marie Strumolo-Burke and Steven J. Rovell – who voted against the measures’ introduction.
Strumolo-Burke is mourning the loss of her brother, Peter Strumolo, since April 11; Rovell had a family emergency.
NUTLEY – Mauro G. Tucci, Sr., in one of his last acts as Mayor, completed a month-long municipal justice makeover by recently appointing Public Defender Jonathan Bruno as Nutley’s Township Attorney.
Bruno, who Tucci appointed Feb. 15, is completing the remainder of Alan Genitempo’s term. Genitempo, as of March 1, was appointed as Nutley’s Municipal Judge.
Judge Genitempo succeeds Joanne Coccihola. The former mayor was appointed by Gov. Phil Murphy (D-Rumson) Jan. 11 as State Superior Court Judge through May 15, 2024.
Joseph Donatello, Esq. was appointed as Nutley’s latest Public Defender. Tucci intends to hand over the mayor’s post to fellow Commissioner Joseph Scarpelli.
