TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – A former Newark Housing Authority Information Technology director will have to return before U.S. District Judge Brian Martinotti for sentencing Aug. 4 after pleading guilty on March 30 to theft from an agency that receives federal funds.
Venancio Diaz, 56, of Jersey City, said U.S. Attorney Philip R. Selinger, bought $594,425 worth of electronic devices – usually cell phones and tablet computers – from a telecommunications company using NHA funds Dec. 1, 2013-Aug. 10, 2021.
Diaz., as NHA IT Director, would activate the 1,509 devices on the authority’s account and use them on the department’s network. He would use the items for several weeks or a couple of months before he would resell them online – in his own name – to different electronic marketplaces.
Diaz, said Selinger, would then deposit the resale proceeds in his own personal bank accounts. “Venny,” a De La Salle University graduate, had been the authority’s IT director since April 2000.
The count carries a maximum 10-year federal prison term. There is also a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the pecuniary gain – whichever is greater. It is not known whether federal attorneys will also seek restitution of part or all of the $594,425 on the NHA’s behalf.
Selingerr thanked members of the U.S.HUD-Inspector General, FBI Newark Field Office and IRS-Criminal Investigations for their assistance.
IRVINGTON – The “Township of Irvington vs. Elouise McDaniel” OPRA civil suit has been dropped as of March 31.
A statement from Mayor Anthony “Tony” Vauss’ office late Thursday afternoon declared that “while the township maintains that the litigation is meritorious and not filed for malicious reasons, the township will take steps to withdraw the litigation. The primary reason is to avoid the appearance that the township is discriminating or retaliating against any resident.”
The township, in a Sept. 17 court filing McDaniels disclosed on March 25, was claiming that her 75 Open Public Records Act requests to the municipal clerk’s office 2019-21 were “voluminous, unduly burdensome, time-consuming and expensive.”
The township’s Sept. 17 Superior Court-Law Division filing added that McDaniels’ requests were “frivolous” with “the sole purpose and intent to harass, abuse and harm plaintiffs and employees of the township, including its Mayor.”
March 31’s withdrawal statement added that the state Government Records Council determined that the (municipal) Custodian of Records did not knowingly or willingly deny any requests for information.”
Township Clerk Harold Wiener, who doubles as Irvington’s custodian of record, was the only named plaintiff in the suit. Wiener, on March 24, said that “I haven’t requested the lawsuit” and that McDaniels “files a lot of OPRA requests; it goes with my territory.”
Vauss, on March 25 said, “I didn’t file the lawsuit against McDaniel; Harold Wiener’s then plaintiff.” Township Attorney Rivera declined to elaborate.
The township’s suit dropping came about 24 hours after McDaniels accepted an offer from Hackensack attorney CJ Griffin to represent her pro bono. Griffin, who specializes in public records litigation, then enjoined Newark-based ACLU-NJ.
EAST ORANGE – The “armed and dangerous” city man, who was last seen firing shots at another man just across the Orange border and fleeing on March 25, was captured by Randolph police April 1, ending his one-day crime spree.
The Orange Police Department had put out the “A&D” bulletin on Howard D. Parks, 54, after he had fired several gunshots at another person at 314 Oakwood Ave. that Friday – a block west of the East Orange border. Parks – who had only hit a vacant, parked car – fled north on Oakwood in a 2014 black Dodge Ram pickup truck.
Mount Olive police told Morris County Prosecutor Robert J. Carroll that they were assisting their South Orange colleagues in a carjacking investigation in the Walmart parking lot on April 1 when they were told of another carjacking there at 12:04 p.m. The victim gave the description of the man who threatened to kill him while taking his car.
MOPD officers soon also responded to an attempted Wells Fargo bank branch robbery at 12:24 p.m. Employees at the Flanders section branch described the man who “pretended to possess a weapon and passed a note demanding money.” He left without getting a cent.
Randolph police were then called to Route 10 for a collision between Dover-Chester Road and Eland Avenue at 12:33 p.m. The other driver, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries, told of the colliding driver running away.
Police caught up with Parks, of the First Ward, down the state highway, trying to carjack another vehicle. He is being held in Morris Township’s Morris County Jail on two counts of first-degree carjacking, a count of first-degree robbery, a third-degree count of possessing stolen property, disorderly persons count of assault by auto and a range of motor vehicle violations.
Carroll thanked the South Orange, West Orange, Mount Olive, Randolph and Roxbury police departments, the Morris County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Investigation Unit and the FBI for their assistance.
ORANGE – The remains of a female found in a South Main Street carriage house May 9, 2019, as of March 31, as a name – and so has her alleged killer.
Stephens and Orange Public Safety Director Todd Warren said that Thursday that the remains are of Mawa Doumbia, 15, of Newark. Her body was found on the second floor of the carriage house in the rear of 120 S. Main St. She was last seen alive by her father and sister leaving home on Oct. 7, 2016 and later reported her as missing.
Stephens and Warren added that they had charged Khalil A. Wheeler-Weaver, 24, of Orange, for murdering Doumbia. They said that Doumbia and Wheeler-Weaver had personally met after finding themselves online. Wheeler-Weaver had then driven Doumbia to a place where he strangled her and left her in the carriage/storage house.
The pattern fits with Wheeler-Weaver’s three other meetings, killings and disposals of local women 2016-19. He is serving 160 years in state prison since a jury’s Dec. 19, 2020 conviction for murdering Sarah Butler, 20, of Montclair, Robin West, 19, of Union and Joanne Brown, 22, of Newark plus the attempted murder of a fourth woman and aggravated arson.
Doumbia’s remains were found on the property owned by Mason Cotton, Jr., who also owns Cotton Funeral Home to its north. Cotton has since had the Victorian-era house and rear building at 120 S. Main St., demolished.
West Orange Man Acquitted in Orange Murder
A Superior Court jury, on April 4, returned a not guilty verdict on Christopher Dudley in the Sept. 26, 2019 murder of Katrina Perry. Perry, 34, was found stabbed to death in her 116 S. Main St., apartment here. Dudley, 34, of West Orange, was her ex-boyfriend.
WEST ORANGE – The long arm of the law stretched some 750 miles to arrest a township man in Raleigh, N.C. March 22 for his alleged part in a Nov. 13, 2021 fatal shooting of a Jersey City man in that latter city.
Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said that U.S, Marshals’ North Carolina Eastern Regional District Fugitive Task Force had arrested Damean Bates, 33, in Raleigh 2:05 p.m. that Tuesday. The N.C. force acted on a tip from their New York/New Jersey colleagues.
Suarez, at last word, is seeking Bates’ extradition to the Hudson County Correctional Center. Bates has been charged with attempted murder, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession thereof for an unlawful purpose.
Bates may be joining Anthony King, 35, of Jersey City in that same South Kearny jail. Federal N.C. marshals had also arrested King in Raleigh Jan. 13. He has been charged with murder plus the same two weapons charges as Bates and was extradited.
Bates and King are accused of fatally shooting Ishmaell Alamee McCany, 41, at Jersey City’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and Grant Street at about 4 a.m. Nov. 13. JCPD, responding to gunfire reports, found McCray at that Greenville section street corner with a gunshot wound to his torso. McCany was rushed by local EMS to the Jersey City Medical center, where he died at 4:20 a.m.
The certified painter, HVAC technician and solar panel installer, who was born in Jersey City Oct. 30, 1980, had his services at St. John’s Baptist Church Dec. 3. His mother, a daughter, a son and a grandmother were among McCany’s survivors.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Respective village and township elders, in a span of nine days, ratified a contract to form the “South Essex Fire Department.”
Village President Sheena Collum and the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the SEFD pact at their March 28 meeting. Maplewood Mayor Dean Dafis and the Township Committee likewise carried the legislation April 5.
The ratification, after decades of consideration and two years’ planning, has the two-town department poised for its July 1 first call. The merged entity is to be governed by a three-person panel.
Columbia Student Dies
The South Orange-Maplewood School District community is looking for answers while mourning the March 29 death of a 16-year-old Columbia High School student.
The boy was reportedly found dead in his Maplewood home about 30 minutes after he was taken home by a parent from CHS. The student, earlier that Tuesday, told educators that he “wasn’t feeling well.”
CHS Principal Frank Sanchez had made counselors available March 30-April 1.
BLOOMFIELD – The rash of catalytic converter thefts from vehicles, going by a March 24 blotter report here, has also affected car dealerships.
The manager of Lynne’s Nissan called in a BPD officer to 318 Bloomfield Ave. at 318 Bloomfield Ave. 6:12 a.m. that Thursday. Officers were then shown a surveillance video of two masked males leaving a white Ford Econoline van sometime overnight.
Two “light-skinned males wearing all black with black ski masks,” had removed the catalytic converter from an on-site Nissan NV2 van before returning to the Econoline.
Thieves have been illegally salvaging catalytic converters for their rare metals. Those metals are part of the filtering process for automotive exhausts. The converters, an emission control standard since 1973, cost around $5,000 to replace.
GLEN RIDGE – Borough Council Public Safety Committee Chairman Peter A. Hughes and GRPD Chief Sean Quinn bestowed letters of commendation to the department’s Day Squad 1 March 25 for their lifesaving efforts here Feb. 25.
Patrol officers who had responded to a resident’s 911 call met up with a man on a Ridgewood Avenue driveway 4:30 p.m. Feb. 25. The subsequent interview led to the arrest of Marvin Mixson, 39, of Newark, on burglary, robbery and theft and the aggravated assault of the caller/homeowner.
The case took a different turn when Mixson, while in the squad car, said he had taken PCP and lost consciousness. The officers revived him with two doses of Naloxone (also known as Narcan) while diverting to Mountainside Hospital.
Offs. Christopher Grogan and Joseph Anello, Det. Anthony Re and Sgt. Ryan Schwartz received letters from Hughes and Quinn. Mixson remains detained in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Center.
MONTCLAIR – Authorities, as of press time, have not released the identity of the male bicyclist who was fatally struck by a New Jersey Transit Montclair-Boonton Line train here April 4.
NJTransit spokesman Jim Smith said that the bicyclist was struck by MPL Train No. 1087 just south of the Watchung Avenue station at 9:40 p.m. Monday. The all-stops local left Hoboken Terminal at 8:58 p.m. was scheduled to arrive at Watchung Avenue at 9:34 p.m. and end at Hackettstown at 11:07 p.m.
Montclair and NJTransit police, local EMS and the ECPO Homicide Task Force promptly responded to the scene. All MBL services between Watching Avenue and Upper Montclair stations were suspended for the field investigation until 11 p.m. None of 1087’s crew nor its seven passengers were physically injured.
Westbound train Nos. 1087, 1061 to Mt. Olive and 6295 to Montclair State University plus the eastbound 6278 to New York Penn Station were canceled. Westbound No.6299 to MSU plus eastbound Nos. 6280 and 6202 ran 15 to 35 mins. late.
BELLEVILLE – A funeral service was held for Javier Alfonso Pineda-Chu at Newark’s Alvarez Funeral Home March 26 – six days after and about a mile east of his fatal motorcycle accident here.
Pineda-Chu, said Belleville Police Capt. Frank Pignataro, was riding his 2021 Kawasaki EX4 west on Bloomfield Avenue when he lost control between Belmont Avenue and Heckel Street at 7:08 p.m. March 18. The County road makes the township’s southern tip with Newark and Bloomfield.
Pineda-Chu, 44, of Kearny, was elected from his bike and slid into a four-door late-model grey Honda. He was taken to RWJBarnabas Health Clara Maass Hospital – where he died that night.
Pineda-Chu, also known as “Nighthawk,” was born April 23, 1977.
NUTLEY – “Being held hostage,” said township police, took on a different meaning at a bank branch here March 28.
Nutley officers, at the request of the bank manager, met a 75-year-old Clifton woman, and a man who was claiming to be a law enforcement officer with her, in the lobby early that Monday. The customer had slipped a note to a teller saying that “I’m being held hostage.”
The man told NPD that he was “investigating fraudulent activity on her account.” She was told to stay on her cell phone while she transfered$40,000 from her bank account to a “secure” account he could access.
Officers interrupted the woman’s cell phone call with the suspected scammer. The $40,000 was returned to her bank account. The call, said Nutley Police Chief Thomas Strumolo, could not be traced because scammers now use computers and/or unidentifiable phones.
