TOWN WATCH
IRVINGTON – Fugees founding member Pras Michel may be less inclined to visit his boyhood neighborhood here lately since his April 26 conviction in a Washington, D.C. courtroom.
Michel, 50, has most likely met with his attorney, Daniel Kenner, since a federal jury, after a 23 day trial, found him guilty on all 10 counts put forward by U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors. Kenner, on April 26, said that he was going to file for a mistrial.
The 10 counts against Prakazrel Samuel Michel included making false statements to the Federal Elections Commission and to banks, being an unregistered lobbyist for a foreign government, witness tampering, money laundering and conspiracy thereof.
Michel, since 2018, was accused of receiving some of the $4.5 billion from Malaysian financier Jho Taek Low – who was convicted of stealing from one of that country’s funds. Michel donated some of the ill-gotten proceeds to several Presidential campaigns in his name.
Michel, on the People’s Republic of China’s behalf, was also accused of trying to persuade FBI agents in 2017 to return billionaire Guo Wengui to Mainland China. Wengui fled to the U.S. in 2014 after the Chinese government had charged him on fraud, sexual assault and related crimes.
Michel is facing up to a 22-year federal prison sentence barring a successful mistrial filing or appeal from Kenner. No sentencing date has been set as of press time. The judge may take into account Michel’s on-stand April 18 testimony where he said he had brought information to the FBI.
Michel had said that he was raised in Irvington by a strict Haitian-American family in the 1980s-90s. He met Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean to form The Fugees while they attended nearby Columbia High School. The group went on to record Grammy Award-winning albums in the 1990s.
NEWARK – Somerset County prosecutors and the family of Eunice Dwumfour are hoping that a just-found cell phone’s contents will provide a lead in the Newark native and Sayreville councilwoman’s three-month-long murder investigation.
Former state assemblyman-turned-Dwumfour family lawyer John Wisniewski said, on April 28, that he had learned that Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office detectives had recovered a second cell phone, a laptop computer and a tablet from the family’s storage warehouse unit.
County detectives had scoured the cell phone that was with Dwumfour when she was shot point blank in her SUV about 100 feet away from her Parlin section townhouse Feb. 1. Dwumfour, 30, a Weequahic High School Class of 2010 graduate, mother of an 11-year-old daughter and Sayreville’s first African American councilwoman. was instantly killed.
Camelot at La Mer development cameras had captured a masked male shooting into Dwumfour’s driver side window and fleeing over a fence onto Garden State Parkway property.
No one knew about a second Dwumfour cell phone until Borough Business Administrator Glen Skarzynski had recently asked Wisniewski about it. Skarzynski said that Sayreville’s mayor and council members are among key officials who receive a government-issued cell phone.
Wisniewski believes that the second cell phone was in Dwumfour’s townhouse Feb. 1 and was packed away with the rest of her belongings into the storage unit.
EAST ORANGE – A Newark man is now serving his sentence for an Oct. 28, 2020 triple shooting in the former city that left an East Orange woman dead.
Alfuquan Williams, 28, has agreed on May 1 to serve at least 85 percent of an 18 year state prison sentence before he is eligible for parole. It will be 2038 before he is considered. Williams’ plea bargain was made Monday in New Jersey Superior Court-Newark.
Essex County Prosecutor’s Office attorneys had tied Williams to the shooting of Precious Adams, 23, of East Orange and two other people around Newark’s 381 South 6th St. Oct. 28, 2020.
Newark Police Division officers, who had responded to 911 calls made to them from Newark’s West Side at 7:15 p.m. that Wednesday, found Adams and two others suffering from gunshot wounds. The callers said that a “heated verbal argument” had ended with “multiple gunshots.”
Although the two wounded people were taken to local hospitals for recovery, Adams died “a short time later” from her head wounds.
Adams’ death notice or obituary was never publicly posted.
ORANGE – There are those who may look at Orange Public School’s April 18 update on law enforcement’s April 12 arrival at Orange High School and Orange Preparatory Academy of Inquiry and Innovation and be reminded of how a Polaroid Land Camera photograph develops.
OPS Superintendent of Schools Dr. Gerald Fitzhugh II’s “update to the update” may have provided greater resolution and clarity over time.
Fitzhugh said that he had received a call at 4:40 p.m. April 12 “that there was a potential threat of a potential shooting to occur at the volleyball game being held at the (OHS) gymnasium.” He then put OHS and, by its proximity, OPA into immediate lockdown and called the Orange Police Department. Members from the Essex County Sheriff’s Office and ECPO, including their K9 and bomb units, had also arrived.
Law enforcers, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying rifles, then “safely escorted students and staff from both buildings” and “investigators walked through both buildings to ensure continued safety protocols.” The walk through was also due to “also a bomb threat as well.”
Fitzhugh added that “there was also a medical concern not related to the reported threats and subsequent investigation.” OHS Principal Jason Belton had called for an ambulance when a teacher had collapsed.
The student-supplied and News12 New Jersey-aired cell phone video of students holding up their hands before officers in an orange room was in an OHS locker room. There was no gunfire in or on the OHS-OPA property.
WEST ORANGE – The West Orange Scholarship Fund, said West Orange High School Principal Oscar Guerrero April 28, has dedicated a perpetual scholarship in the late Brad Mitchel’s name.
The Brad Mitchell Memorial Scholarship honors the late 18-year West Orange Public Schools science teacher, who had died April 23. Mitchell, who had spent the bulk of his 18 years as a WOHS honors biology teacher, had also taught in the Solomon Schechter/Golda Och Academy 2000-04.
News of Mitchell’s death that Sunday rippled through the high school the next day. Guerrero made counselors available for students and staff on April 25.
Circumstances of Mitchell’s death and a full obituary have not been posted as of press time.
The Mitchell Memorial Scholarship fund is open to graduating WOHS seniors who intend to study science in college or university. Donations may be made to the West Orange Scholarship Fund, c/o Jim Quinn, 23 Witte Place, 07052 or woboe,org/scholarshipfund.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – South Orange Chief of Police Ernesto Morillo, on April 28, said that his detectives have been getting county and state help in in investigating the alleged March 28 shaking of an autistic Prekindergarten student by a South Orange-Maplewood School District teacher.
Morillo said that officials from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and the New Jersey Department of Child Protection Permanency have joined the investigation since March 28. The trilateral investigation is following due process in gathering evidence that “might support criminal charges if appropriate.”
Morillo’s Friday announcement and discussion came between several public speakers’ inquiries at April 27’s SOMSD Board of Education meeting and the “Justice for Daylan” April 29 rally inside the South Orange train station. The said protesters want more than transparency in the multiagency probe.
JFD organizers and the Wilkins family want the unidentified Montrose Early Childhood Center teacher fired; SOMSD administrators had put that teacher on administrative leave since March 29. The protestors want to know why it took the Montrose principal “two days” to inform mother Devena Wilkins about what happened to her son. The family also wants SOMSD to pay for the son’s out-of-district schooling.
Wilkins said that her non-verbal son came home March 28 with bruises on his ankles and arms. She took her son to RWJBarnabas Health Cooperman Barnabas hospital, where their pediatrician confirmed the injuries. Witnesses said that the teacher, reacting to the child’s biting, held him upside down by his ankles for 15 seconds before an aide intervened at 2:30 p.m. that Tuesday.
Morillo said that Devena called SOPD March 29 and the department called ECPO March 30. The chief confirmed that Montrose Principal Bonita Samuels did not call SOPD until March 30 but did “immediately notify” the DCP&P.
“The principal was apparently trying to determine herself what had occurred,” said the chief, “and whether it met the criteria of automatic reporting to law enforcement.”
BLOOMFIELD – A former township family has recently filed a civil suit against the Bloomfield Police Department in State Superior Court-Newark over what they said was being the victim of a “wrong address” raid.
The family of three, in their March filing, said that BPD officers entered their dwelling without warning by breaking their duplex apartment front door down at 7 a.m. March 29, 2021. Members were told by officers at gunpoint to stay seated in the living room and to keep their hands up while they searched for a suspect.
When it became apparent minutes later that what BPD thought was a murder-suicide in progress was not happening, nor a suspect found, officers rechecked the information given them. When law enforcers realized that they were given the wrong address, one of the officers explained the mistake to the husband, wife and their child and apologized.
Red Bank attorney Loryn Lawson, Esq., representing the family, said that Bloomfield police dispatchers received a telephone call from a male who said that he had shot his mother and was going to shoot himself. Lawson said she has evidence that the message was a prank “swatting” call from out of state.
Police are allowed to conduct a warrantless search when there is a matter of life or death. Lawson said, however, that the responding Bloomfield officers had spent a longer time than necessary to look for the “murder-suicide” suspect.
“Had they asked the landlord’s son, who lived downstairs, if he had heard shooting,” said Lawson to a reporter April 23, “they would’ve known right off the bat this is a situation to be going in.”
The suit asserts that Bloomfield police had violated their own policies and practices – including conducting “an extensive” search. The family is asking for unspecified damages and attorney’s fees, should a jury rule in the family’s favor.
Bloomfield police, as a standard procedure, refrained from commenting on the litigation.
MONTCLAIR – The entire Township Council present – after eight months paid suspension, two filed lawsuits and three unfulfilled public hearing dates – fired suspended Town Manager Timothy F. Stafford in a special April 28 meeting.
All five council members present, led by Councilman Peter Yacobellis, dismissed Stafford in public that Friday morning. Montclair’s elders then granted Stafford a state Faulkner Act 90 days worth of severance pay and elevated Deputy Town Manager Brian Scantlebury to Acting Manager.
The 40-minute meeting, which had also aired on Montclair TV34 and was livestreamed, ended a train of events that started when CFO Padmaja Rao filed a hostile workplace and whistleblower lawsuit against Stafford and the township Oct. 17. The council put Stafford, who had been manager here since 2014, on paid administrative leave Oct. 25.
Former Deputy Clerk Juliet Lee later filed suit, complaining that Stafford’s harassment and bullying had forced her to retire early. The Township Council had introduced a measure Feb. 28 to take Stafford off paid leave and to “show cause” for his impending firing.
The special meeting was anti-climatic; Stafford, in the 11th hour. waived his right to publicly testify and did not show. The session almost did not happen since Mayor Sean Spillar and Deputy Mayor Councilman William “Bill” Hurlock were absent. Councilman Robert “Bob” Russo said he found another instructor to teach his government class in a nearby college Friday.
Acting Township Attorney Paul Burr said that Spillar was away on a family emergency. Hurlock told Burr that, because he was not part of the Feb. 28 removal introduction and vote, he had decided to recuse himself Friday.
Burr added that he was anticipating a tort claim from Stafford’s lawyer. Stafford, who was Fair Lawn’s town manager for a year before his Montclair hiring. He had also been vice president for legal and community affairs for the Trump Organization.
GLEN RIDGE – Dr. Franklyn P. Gerard, 95, who had an active medical, political and public service practice here 1957-97, has died in Singer Island, Fla., April 8.
Dr. Gerard, who was Borough Councilman 1983-86, also was Glen Ridge High School team physician 1972-82, Glen Ridge Athletic Association President and a Glen Ridge Country Club trustee. He and wife Catherine “Cay” Spina-Gerard raised Franklyn, Jr., Dr. William, Robert, Maribeth, Cathy and Joanne here.
The inaugural College/University of Medicine & Dentistry of NJ – Now University Hospital and Rutgers School of Medicine – was also on the boards of Clara Maass Hospital and Cathedral Health Care. Practicing from Belleville and Verona, Dr. Gerard had been on the medical staff of Mountainside, Clara Maass, St. Barnabas, Passaic’s St. Mary’s and Rahway Hospital plus the former East Orange General and Orange Memorial hospitals.
Dr. Gerard and Dr. Adrian M. Sabety co-founded The Thoracic Cardiovascular Surgical Group of Essex County, in East Orange, in 1963. The state’s first professional medical corporation became The Cardiovascular Care Group of Clifton, Morristown, Westfield, Shrewsbury and Rockaway.
Franklyn Patrick Gerard, who was born in Newark Aug. 7, 1927, came here by way of New York City, Korea and Italy. The Regis High School Class of 1945 graduate and Harvard Medical School student enlisted with the Marines at the Korean Conflict’s onset.
The USMC battalion surgeon, who was honorably discharged in 1955, was on a heritage trip in Italy when he met Cay. Dr. Gerard completed his residency at Brooklyn’s Kings County Hospital and fellowship at Boston’s Lahey Clinic. He left the clinic in 1959 with a certification in General and Thoracic Surgery.
Gerard, who has lately summered in Sea Girt and Singer Island, is also survived by 17 grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and sister Joann Larkin. Knighted to the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II, Gerard’s Funeral Mass was held at Spring Lake’s St. Catherine Church April 15. Memorial donations may be made to doctorswithoutborders.org.
BELLEVILLE – Property owners will be seeing a 2.025 percent on their 2023-24 school tax, starting with their July 1 quarterly tax bill, as the result of the Belleville Board of Education Trustees’ April 24 budget approval.
The 2.025 percent increase to pay for the township’s share of the now-$100,328,873 budget, according to Belleville Public Schools’ pre-vote presentation, comes out to an $81 annual increase per $100 on a house with an average assessed value of $278,700.
Also, the 2.025 percent increase will help pay for the 2023-24 $47,278,975 tax levy. Both BPS Superintendent Richard Tomko and Business Administrator Matthew Paladino said that the new $100,328,873 budget includes a $10,432,684 increase in state aid, up to $54,384,062. (Increased state revenue and a change in the state aid allocation formula means that Trenton is sending either an unchanged aid level in East Orange and increases here and in the other nine Local Talk public school districts.)
The outgoing 2022-23 budget, by comparison, was $94,850,699. Its tax levy was $44,429,078 – an increase of 2.455 percent on 2021-22, or a $97 increase per $100 on an average assessed house of $277,600. State aid back then was $43,951,378.
The “new” $100 million budget, first presented to the school board and public on April 21, was a revision of the Tomko Administration’s initially introduced budget. That introduced plan included an initial $256, or a.6414 percent, increase on a home with a $278,700 average assessed value.
Getting the $256 increase to $81, said Tomko and Paladino, came from making $1.95 million in budget cuts in six categories. The reductions include reducing $500,000 in bond payments to Belleville Township for building rentals and forgoing $425,000 to expand an athletic facility.
Tomko and Paladino’s 42-page slide presentation noted the shared service agreement with the Township government to expand Belleville Middle School and build an adjacent joint-use parking garage.
NUTLEY – Police here and in Secaucus, since April 24, now have all four Easter Sunday Dunkin’ Donuts armed robbery suspects in custody.
Lasane Kiason, 21, of Jersey City, said Secaucus Chief of Police Dennis Miller, had turned himself into his police headquarters earlier that Tuesday. Kiason is being held in Kearny’s Hudson County Correctional Facility on a count each of robbery and conspiracy to commit thereof.
Kiason is accused of being one of four men who held up a said donut shop each in Secaucus and Nutley before Sunrise April 9. Miller said the first holdup happened at 2:56 a.m. there at 217 County Ave. Nutley Police Chief Thomas Strumolo said that the other stickup happened here at 177 Washington Ave. at 5:40 a.m.
At least two men entered a store and one of them would show or point a handgun at an employee and demand cash. At least a third would stand outside as a lookout and the fourth kept a silver Chevrolet Equinox at idle. The foursome respectively left with $350 and $740 in cash.
Kiason was not present when a Springfield police officer approached a silver Equinox that was parked in that Union County township Wawa parking lot April 11. The officer interviewed its driver – Ocean Roberts, 19, of Bayonne – and passengers Yanik Pendleton, 22, of Bayonne, and Wilmer Arias-Dejesus, 19, of East Newark.
Roberts was initially charged with unlawful weapons possession when a defaced 9 mm handgun was found in the Chevy after a search. Roberts was remanded to Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility on additional charges of possession of a defaced weapon, armed robbery, conspiracy thereof, aggravated assault, criminal restraint and endangering the welfare of a minor.
Both Pendleton and Arias-Dejesus were remanded to the Hudson County Jail. They are being held for armed robbery and conspiracy.
