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Gregory Owen Cannell, 53, and William E. Hafner, 56, were found by city police in Hackensack after the 6 p.m. burglary and assault in the 200 block of Ridgefield Avenue on Sunday, Sgt. Geoffrey Cole said.
Both men “had broken through a window and entered an apartment in order to assault another who was known to them,” Cole said.
Cannell spent four years in state prison for convictions of arson, harassment, burglary, weapons and making terroristic threats before he was released in August 2016, records show.
In one of the crimes, authorities said, he poured gasoline on the floor of an Emerson house before setting it on fire.
Hafner has a much lesser criminal history stretching back 25 years.
Both remained held Tuesday in the Bergen County Jail pending a detention hearing in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack. They’re charged with burglary and assault.
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