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The hearing impaired man told police he was robbed of $150 and his cellphone at knifepoint just after midnight Sept. 9 at the corner of Wilson Avenue and Shaler Boulevard.
He described the robber as a tall white man with a beard, Fairview Deputy Police Chief Martin Kahn told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
A woman told police a similar-looking man tried to take her pocketbook as she walked on Day Avenue around 11:30 p.m. this past Sunday — roughly the same time of day and in the same neighborhood as the previous incident, Kahn said.
By chance, the same woman was talking on her cellphone the next day when another man warned her to be careful: His nephew had recently had his taken at knifepoint, he said.
Advised of this, Fairview police talked to the 15-year-old victim with his mother.
He told them he was robbed of his cellphone and cash around the same time of day on Day Avenue by a man fitting the same description, Kahn said.
The teen also said he’d seen the man who robbed him standing in a nearby apartment window talking on the stolen cellphone sometime later, the deputy chief said.
Sgt. Michael Martic and Detective Jose Rivas re-interviewed the boy last night. He took them to the address where he’d seen the man who he said robbed him.
That’s when they spotted 25-year-old Justin Raul Castillo, Kahn said.
Castillo was being held on $250,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with three counts each of robbery and illegal weapons possession in connection with the two Fairview and one Cliffside Park holdup.
An investigation was continuing, he said. Anyone with information related to it is asked to call Fairview detectives: (201) 943-2134
MUGSHOT: Courtesy FAIRVIEW PD
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