TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Essex County Sheriff Armando B. Fontoura, as of Sept. 1, has given 5,000 more reasons in asking the public’s help in identifying a man’s body found in Weequahic Lake Aug. 29 – and to find his killer.
Fontoura, that Friday, had posted a $5,000 reward on his CrimeStoppers page for information leading to the deceased’s identity and information leading to the identity and successful prosecution of the killer or killers.
Sheriff’s officers were first told of a body in Weequahic Lake just before 11 a.m. Aug. 29. They patrol the lake as part of the 80-acre Essex County park.
They found the male’s body at 11:06 a.m. and, aided by rescue units from the Newark Fire Department and University Hospital, brought him ashore. They pronounced him dead and called for ECPO’s Homicide Task Force.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II, on Aug. 30, confirmed that the male had died from the multiple stab wounds found on his body. His death is being treated as a homicide.
A Regional Medical Examiner’s autopsy results here will help determine how long the body was in the lake and whether he was stabbed there or outside of the park.
IRVINGTON – A township man has been held in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility since his arrest within a Maplewood house Aug. 21.
Maplewood police officers said that they had responded to a call of an individual being inside a house along Tuscan Road that Monday. That house was vacant and had been unoccupied.
Responding officers found the back kitchen door open. They entered – and found a man standing with a knife in one of his hands.
Officers ordered the man to drop the knife, which he did. They ran a records check on Romario Francois, 49, while calling for backup.
Francois was arrested and taken to police headquarters. He is being held on a count each of burglary and weapons possession.
EAST ORANGE – Family and congregants, as of Sept. 5, are praying for Pastor Timothy Huff while ECPO Major Crimes Task Force detectives have been looking for his shooter since Aug. 24.
A community prayer vigil was held for Huff, 57, outside of his Green Pasture Missionary Baptist Church 6 p.m. Aug. 31, with Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green in attendance. A GoFundMe.co page has been established to help with his medical expenses.
Huff, his family and the Green Pasture had been holding special prayers while he recovers from critical chest gunshot wounds at Newark’s University Hospital ICU. They are praying for the shooter, who is one of two women who had confronted Huff and one of his sons at his Lower Roseville, Newark house 2-2:30 a.m. Aug. 24.
Huff was struck by bullets that ripped through a front window and a living room wall while he sat on a couch at 2:30 a.m. that Thursday. Wife Delois Hudson-Huff said that her husband heard the first shots and shielded her.
Video surveillance recordings given to ECPO and Newark Police show one of two women firing a gun from the Fourth Street sidewalk at that time they were the same duo who had confronted Huff and his son 30 minutes earlier.
The Huffs said that the pastor and the son found at least one of the women tearing an outside rear view mirror of a car parked in their gated driveway. They said that the women left after they had called NPD. Delois Hudson-Huff told a reporter Aug. 25 that “my husband wouldn’t be in the hospital if the police had responded to our first call.”
Huff had been Green Pasture MBC’s senior pastor since 2013. The father of eight and grandfather of 18 had reopened the Peck’s Ridge neighborhood church here for in-person worship in May.
ORANGE – A North Carolina man, barring his filing an appeal, awaits his Oct. 9 sentencing for fatally shooting his former Orange landlord here June 24.
A New Jersey Superior Court-Newark jury, after a two-week trial Aug. 9, found James Height guilty of first-degree aggravated manslaughter and two second-degree weapons offenses — including one for being a convicted felon possessing a handgun.
Height, 55, of Burlington, N.C., was convicted of shooting dead Renown Abdur Rahim Wilson, 55, in front of his Orange address at about 10:50 p.m., June 24, 2021. Height had been living in Wilson’s building before moving south.
Height, going by surveillance camera recordings, had returned to Wilson’s place that night and waited on the front porch until the latter’s arrival. He put a .32 caliber revolver to Wilson’s head twice; once on his arrival and again when he tried to enter his premises.
A struggle in the front yard ensued. Height was shot in the stomach and then in the neck. Wilson died of his wounds July 2. His Janazah prayer service was held in East Orange’s Islamic Center of America July 8.
Height was arrested in Burlington, N.C. July 9. He, as a prior felon, is facing a life in prison sentence.
WEST ORANGE – Members of Our Green West Orange are hoping to speak their peace on the intended renovations of “West Orange Plaza” on 235 Prospect Ave. as early as the West Orange Planning Board’s scheduled Sept. 6 meeting.
The Wednesday night Zoom session is a continuation of the July 19 and Aug. 17 presentations by MKW & Associates, of Rutherford. The landscape architect and site planner intends to modify two existing satellite buildings on the former Kmart Plaza shopping plaza property and build a new, third building.
MKW is proposing to subdivide the former Hudson City Savings Bank/now Verizon building into three commercial/retail suites. The new building alongside Prospect Avenue, is to have three restaurants on a concrete pad with a drive-through service lane plus an outdoor food court and customer parking.
The Mavis Tire Center row along the property’s north side would be broken in two and separated by an outdoor public space or food court. The remaining structures are to respectively hold five and four stores with restaurant and drive-through lane capability. The work, if approved, will be done while and after Target moves into the former Kmart / Caldor / E.J. Korvettes anchor store space.
Our Green West Orange, going by its website, objects to adding two “fast food” restaurants on West Orange Plaza in context with the proposed Sonic / Popeye’s to replace the nearby China Gourmet on Eagle Rock Avenue. The environmental advocacy group opines that the proposed four restaurants will aggravate the Prospect and Eagle Rock intersection traffic and urge a township ban on drive-through service.
OGWO also objects in placing dumpsters behind the current Mavis row. They said that MKW’s landscaping plan does not have enough trees to counter the asphalt parking lot `heat islands ‘ – and what trees are planted will take 20 years to mature.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The South Orange-Maplewood School District, going by one of the Board of Education’s Aug. 22 votes, is finding out that some individuals are hard to replace.
The school vote, in a 5-4 split vote, approved a one-year contract district administrators had negotiated with Assistant Business Administrator Andrea DelGuercio. The contract is similar to the one that had expired July 1 – except with a 10-percent increase on her $148,500 annual salary.
DelGuercio had been planning to retire after 27 years’ service, including the last eight here and 15 years in a similar position at Montclair Public Schools. SOMSD, however, had not found her successor before her intended leave.
“The combination of DelGuercio’s years of experience, certifications, institutional knowledge and interpersonal connections,” said Schools Superintendent Dr. Ronald Taylor Aug. 24, “make her by far the best option for us at this time of many critical high-priority projects for the Business Office and the District.”
Dr. Taylor, by “projects,” was referring to the various bonded school construction projects, the institution of a new courtesy bus program and managing $13 million worth of received federal, state and local grants.”
DelGuercio, in the Aug. 24 district release, said that the state certified public schools accountant “is one of the few to hold both a Certified Public Accountant license and a Qualified Pension Administrator certificate.”
Why four board members opposed the contract extension was not immediately known.
BLOOMFIELD – A Queens woman, as early as an appearance this month in Bloomfield Municipal Court, may learn whether her alleged Aug. 25 proposition will end with a sentence.
An undercover Bloomfield Police Detective said that a masseuse at Top Health Spa, 28 Washington St., offered him sexual activity for pay that Friday.
Suijin Huh, 41, was later arrested for “engaging in prostitution.” Huh was also found by BPD and ECPO detectives not to have a masseuse’s license.
Huh, of Flushing, N.Y., was issued a summons to reappear in municipal court and was released. Bloomfield Chief of Police George Ricci said that the arrest was part of a township and county investigation in response to a resident’s quality of life complaint.
There were no further charges against Top Health’s other masseuses or manager.
The Town Centre establishment was among four massage parlors here that resulted in arrests and summonses Jan. 31, 2017.
MONTCLAIR – Unionized Starbucks employees here at 40 So. Park St. were not alone in holding a one-day unfair labor practice strike Sept. 1.
Fellow Starbucks Workers Union-SEIU employees in Summit, Ledgewood and Danbury, Conn. also walked out and picketed that Friday in support of Montclair Shift Supervisor Celeste Cruz.
Cruz, who had been in the South Park and Church streets store for five years, was recently fired by management. SWU leadership contends that Cruz was axed for union organizing efforts that are legally protected.
SWU-Montclair workers filed an open letter to store and district managers that they consider Cruz’s firing is in retaliation for organizing – and to have here reinstated.
Cruz’s firing and the four-store strike comes while the National Labor Relations Board is pursuing Starbucks for failing to bargain in good faith with SWU nationwide. The NLRB is fielding 161 federal labor law violations and 72 complaints, including employee discharges.
SWU-SEIU represents 7,500 workers in 320 Starbucks stores.
BELLEVILLE – The curious case of 355 Union Ave. became even more curious with Mayor Michael Melham, as a private citizen, taking Township Clerk Albert Cabrera and the Township to State Superior Court-Newark over the latter’s response to the former’s OPRA request earlier this summer.
Melham, going by July 27 – Aug. 10 court filings made on his behalf by James R. Lisa, Esq. of Jersey City, is dissatisfied on received documents he had requested from Cabrera’s office regarding 355 Union Ave. 355 Union is a 2.5-story house with a first floor office and a basement owned by Melham.
Melham, as landlord, had leased out the first floor and basement Jan. 25, 2021 to the Belleville Board of Education. The Belleville Public Schools Administration then moved in, only to vacate in June 2023 with the lease still running.
Landlord-private citizen Melham is looking for material from Town Hall that would support his contention that a contractor for the school board and/or the district had done some unpermitted basement electrical work Melham contends that neither BBOE, BPS or the contractor had filed construction permits with the Township.
It is not immediately clear whether Melham had been denied access to his OPRA requested documents or information. It is therefore unknown whether Melham and/or Lisa had filed a denial of access appeal to the New Jersey Government Records Council.
The plaintiffs and respondents are in a 150-day period of discovery. Lawyers from both sides are to report their findings to Superior Court Judge Mayra V. Tarantino on or by Dec. 26. The filings are found under Docket No. ESX L004809-23.
