TOWN WATCH
MONTCLAIR – The Regional Medical Examiner is conducting an autopsy on the body of a man, who was convicted on May 12 of killing his ex-girlfriend here in 2018, who was found in what authorities are calling “a medical emergency” in his jail cell June 18.
Essex County authorities, on June 19, said that James Ray III, 60, was rushed to University Hospital when he was found unconscious in his Essex County Correctional Facility cell on Father’s Day. A jail guard, said a corrections officers union official, had administered Narcan in his cell. Ray was declared dead later that day.
Both the county jail’s internal affairs office and ECPO’s Professional Standards Bureau, said the same spokesmen, are probing the circumstances of Ray’s death. Attorneys Thomas R. Ashley and Brooke Barnett, who represented Ray and believed he had an in-cell drug overdose, called on June 18 for an independent investigation.
Ray, formerly of Montclair, was facing an up to maximum life in prison sentence by Superior Court-Newark Judge Verna G. Leith June 22. A jury – after a six-week trial and three hours’ deliberation on May 12 – found the former police officer and attorney guilty of first-degree murder plus two weapons offences.
Ray was convicted of shooting Angela M. Bledsoe, 44, in their Upper Montclair house Oct. 28, 2018. He then packed travel bags for their 11-year-old daughter and for himself before picking their girl up from school.
Afterwards, Ray turned over custody of the daughter to his brother, from Allentown, Pa. at a Piscataway restaurant and fled to Cuba. He was extradited back to Havana Nov. 6, 2018.
Ray was a former Marine and an NYPD cop who left the force to study law at the University New Hampshire. The father of three had graduated from UNH in 2008.
NEWARK – Over 100 mourners received three caskets – for an adult and two children – for a June 1 Funeral Mass here at St. Michael’s Church. They were carried by members of the Newark and Newton police and the Essex County Sheriff’s Office.
The larger casket carried retired Newark police and sheriff’s officer Andrew Benavente, Sr., 36. The two smaller ones were for Andrew, Jr., 13, and Madelyn, 5 – a product of a love story that began in a city pizza parlor here 15 years ago.
Both Andrews and Madelyn were on their way to Newark May 26 to have both children dropped off with relatives. Andrew Sr. would then pick up his wife, Dinga Melendez-Benavente, for their Friday date night. The trio never made it.
Andover Police Chief Eric Danielson said that their 2001 Ford extended cab pickup truck was running east on Newton-Sparta Road when the westbound 2021 Jeep of Blairstown’s Bruce Cseh crossed into the Benaventes’ lane by Limecrest Road and struck them head-on at 4 p.m. that Friday.
Cseh was rushed to Morristown Medical Center, where he died from internal injuries; his Jeep’s black box recording is being analyzed. The three Benaventes died at the scene.
Andrew, Sr., who was born April 29, 1987, met Dinga while he was in the Essex County Police Academy and she was getting her cosmology diploma at a pizzeria here in 2008. Andy broke up Dinga’s argument with another person with “A beautiful girl like you shouldn’t be mad.”
The Mass at St. Michael’s was from Belleville’s Megaro Funeral Home on the way to North Arlington’s Holy Cross Cemetery. Police officers closed Broadway between Fourth Avenue and Crittenden Street for overflow parking. Parents Adelino Sr. and Sylvia, brother Adelino, Jr., sister Natalie and brother-in-law Edwin Melendez are among Andy, “AJ” and “Maddy’s” survivors.
IRVINGTON – A 10-car crash here on the southbound Garden State Parkway June 15 further congested that toll road stretched well into the evening hours.
The multi car accident was first reported to the State Police at 8:15 p.m. that Tuesday. State Troopers, Irvington firefighters and contracted EMS, on their arrival found the vehicles blocking four of its five lanes by Exit 144 – South Orange Avenue.
Responders diverted the traffic to the far right lane and shoulder while assessing for injuries and damage. One car, a two-door late model coupe, was lying on its driver’s side against the center divider.
The crash had occurred after a late afternoon to evening rush hour where traffic volume congested the GSP up to eight miles – from Exit 148 for Bloomfield’s JFK Drive to Exit 140 for US Rt. 22 in Union.
The State Police-Bloomfield Barracks reported “no severe injuries” in the pileup. An investigation on the cause of the accident continues.
EAST ORANGE – A city man may be away from East Orange for up to seven years, depending on what sentence New Jersey State Superior Court – Toms River Judge Kimarie Rahill hands down on July 28.
The Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office has been asking for an overall seven-year sentence on Marquis Belnavis, 29, of East Orange since June 5. Belnavis had pleaded guilty that Monday before Judge Rahill to a counts of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute plus the aggravated assault of a police officer.
Belnavis was confessing to attempting to distribute cocaine at Toms River, Ocean Gate and Stafford Township between July 9 and Nov. 10, 2021 and between July 28 and Aug. 31, 2022. He also admitted to biting a Toms River police officer’s hand in an attempted flight from a July 9, 2021 traffic stop.
The TRPD Special Enforcement Team said they had stopped a 2018 Nissan Altima July 9, 2021 where passenger Belnavis “had distributed narcotics to another individual.”
Belnavis was being arrested for drug possession when they said he bit one of the officer’s hands in an escape attempt. He was subdued and taken to the Ocean County Jail until released under the state’s revised bail statutes.
The township police’s team spotted Belnavis entering and leaving a Toms River residence they were staking out for suspected narcotics trafficking Nov. 10, 2021.Their subsequent investigation found that Belnavis had distributed cocaine there and was subsequently arrested. He was also released as per the new bail guidelines.
Rahill may take into account Belnavis being in county custody since Spt. 2. He was arrested then for attempted distribution in Ocean Gate.
ORANGE – Whatever the future holds for 410 Main St., a parking garage is apparently not part of it.
“Local Talk” recalls a city official talking in 2018 about the .501 acre site at Main Street and Scotland road’s southeastern corner being eyed as a site of a several story parking garage. It would be primarily used for the residents and users of the Orange Recreation, Educational and Cultural Center that will replace the Orange YWCA and Rossi’ Paints’ 1876 mixed use building.
The garage’s construction, five years ago, would be a private-public partnership like Orange REC. It would also likely mean the demolition of the two-story mid-20th Century office building that houses a PNC Bank branch.
That garage project, as of latest word, is not on the City of Orange’s radar. Orange’s 2021-drafted Main Street Development Plan has Block 2603 Lot 8 zoned for mid-size mixed use building for residential and commercial use. A photo of 410 Main was used on the 56-page plan’s p-age 25 as an example of a structure that needs either encouraged office space or mixed residential-office space.
“To my knowledge,” said Orange Planning and Economic Development Deputy Director Chris Mobley to “Local Talk” May 23, “the building at the corner of Main Street and Scotland Road is not being considered as a site for a parking garage.”
410 Main has had a bank branch as a main tenant, going back to National Newark and Essex Bank in the 1960s. It was also a Midatlantic Bank branch in between.
WEST ORANGE – A majority of the Township Council told Township Attorney Richard Trenk and Assistant Attorney Kenneth Kayser, on June 13, paraphrased a Waylon Jennings song title: “You’ve Been a Long Time Leaving but You’ll Be a Long Time Gone.”
The council, in a 3-2 vote that Tuesday night, passed Resolution 232-22 that effectively fired Trenk, Trenk’s law firm and Kayser. They then hired Keith Y. Moon to represent the township while its elders search for new attorneys and/or a firm.
The resolution immediately bars the township from paying Trenk, Kayser et. al., prevents future township matters to go to them and refrains from dealing with any entity that has any connection against the threesome.
This resolution ends a five-month saga which started in January with Mayor Susan McCartney forwarding a four-year contract renewal of Trenk. The contract was first approved in March after McCartney broke a 2-2 council tie vote. That vote and the contract were later rescinded when it was learned that McCartney, as mayor, does not have tie-breaking power.
The June 13 firing ends Trenk’s representing the township since 1998. Several council members began questioning his work after a couple of court decisions went against the township.
Council Members Asmeret Ghebremichael, Rev. William “Bill” Rutherford and Susan Scarpa carried the measure. Colleagues Michele Casalino and Tammy Williams dissented.
Mayor McCartney posted a nine-paragraph rebuttal on the township website, calling 232-23 “a statement of vague opinion, bordering on defamation and slander, alleging that each attorney of being unethical or unprofessional.”
SOUTH ORANGE – The peaceful transfer of village government power was served here at the Orange Lawn Tennis Club June 15.
Newly-elected Trustees Olivia Lewis-Chang and Jennifer Greenburg were inaugurated into office that Thursday night. They succeeded outgoing Trustees Steve Schnall and Donna Coallier – who were also recognized for their service.
Summer Jones was then sworn into her second term. Village President Sheena Collum was re-inaugurated into her third term.
Callum headed a “South Orange 2023” ticket with Greenburg, Jones and Lewis-Change in the May 9 nonpartisan municipal election. They, for the first time, ran unopposed on the ballot.
Collum, Junes, Lewis-Chang and Greenburg now join incumbents Bobby Brown and Karen Hartshorn-Hilton in conducting village government business for the next two years. It is the first time in South Orange history.at the trustees panel has had a female majority.
MAPLEWOOD – Police detectives here are reviewing an inventory list of items stolen from a Hilton section store from an early June 12 burglary.
Maplewood Police officers are also comparing notes with colleagues statewide over similar break-ins and thefts.
MPD patrol officers were responding to a 4:14 a.m. alarm activation that Monday from 1847 Springfield Ave. The officers arrived to find the front door windows to Trimarco Jewelers damaged.
Officers then searched the store. They said that it had appeared to them that “gold jewelry had been taken from the display cases.” The store’s owner was meanwhile notified and was advised to take inventory jewelry store.
Similar predawn jewelry store thefts have been reported from Union, Scotch Plains, Linden, Westfield, Green Brook, Eatontown, Hainesport, Long Branch and Robbinsville.
Union Police Deputy Chief Scott Breslow told of a June 2 smash-and-grab from a Route 22 jeweler. The suspects used a white Jeep, later reported as stolen, which UPD officers pursued into Newark.
Anyone with information and/or possesses a neighborhood video recording is to contact Det. J. Zuhowski at Jzhowski@maplewodnj.com 0r (973) 761-7929.
BLOOMFIELD – It appears that the search of a missing township man has ended at the base of the Palisades June 5.
A Palisades Interstate Parkway spokesman said that one of his officers came across a 2010 Nissan Murano parked at Rockefeller Lookout in Englewood Cliffs at 5 a.m. that Monday. The Murano’s New York license plate and registration numbers matched that of a 54-year-old Bloomfield man reported as missing since June 2.
A man who identified himself as the Bloomfielder’s brother reported him as missing to Clifton police that Friday. CPD then posted the person and vehicle’s description on its missing/endangered advisory alert.
The PIP officer called the department’s detective bureau. The Bergen County Sheriff’s Office K-9 Unit, an NYPD helicopter, the Bergen County Medical Examiner, the East Bergen Rappel Team and New Jersey Search and Rescue joined in the search.
New Jersey Search and East Bergen Rappel located a man’s body later that Monday at the cliff base. The Bergen Medical Examiner then took custody of the remains for an autopsy and a toxicological exam.
The autopsy and exam’s results have not been disclosed as of press time. The deceased’s identity has also not been disclosed.
GLEN RIDGE / NUTLEY – “Local Talk” has learned that Matthew S. Ciccolini – a name familiar to Glen Rogers and Nutleyites in the 1980s and 90s – has died.
Ciccolini, 56, who was born in Newark July 22, 1966, was raised in Glen Ridge. The Glen Ridge High School Class of 1984 graduate went on to attain a bachelor’s degree in recreation from St. Augustine, Fla. ‘s Flagler College.
Mathew returned to the borough to start a family with Donna Ambrose Ciccolini. They raised Joseph Peter and Nicholas Matthew Cicciolini here and, after 1998, in Verona.
He started working in logistical sales for the Five Cicciolini Brothers appliance sales and service in Nutley. The Ciccolinis had moved out 537 Franklin Ave. before a 2021 lightning strike and partial collapse sealed the building’s fate. Nutley Township bought and leveled the property in preparation for that block’s residential/commercial redevelopment.
Matthew Cicciolini had also moved on from Nutley to the Verona Recreation Department and that township’s Lakeside Deli. He died in Teaneck’s Holy Name Hospice May 6 from prostate cancer complications.
Brothers Joseph and Bart Ciccolini and sister-in-law Donna Ambrose are also among his survivors. Matthew’s memorial service was held at Verona’s Prout Funeral Home May 8.
BELLEVILLE – Last rites for a township man were held in Newark June 2 although the investigation of what led to his fatal May 27 jet ski accident continues.
The body of Charles Sanchez was brought to Newark’s St. Michael’s Church from the nearby Alvarez Funeral Home June 2. Sanchez’s last trip started after he was declared dead late May 27 at Newburgh, N.Y.’s St. Luke’s Hospital.
Sanchez, 48 and his passenger -Davis Torres, 49, of Lodi- were brought to St. Luke’s in critical condition. The Newburgh area New York State Police Barracks spokesman said that their 2017 Yamaha jet ski had collided with another jet ski with two other Garden Staters aboard on the Hudson River near the Newburgh marina.
All four people were thrown into the river by the impact. Boaters at the marina promptly pulled them from the water while calling for first responders. NYSP troopers arrived at 2:48 p.m.
NYSP only added that alcohol consumption was ruled out as a factor. It is not clear whether the other jet skier – identified as Jorge Arribasplata, 48, of Saddle Brook – and/or his unidentified passenger were injured.
Charles Edgar Sanchez, according to Alvarez’s obituary, was born on Aug. 7, 1974.
