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Michael DeFilippis (COURTESY ESSEX COUNTY SHERIFF)
Michael J. DeFilippis Jr., 29, was being held on $30,000 bail in the Essex County Jail after being picked up in Seaside Heights on a fraud warrant.
Besides Cliffside Park, records show, he was wanted on outstanding warrants out of: Paramus, Elmwood Park, Lodi, Lyndhurst and Bergen County Family Court in Hackensack.
An informant helped lead police to him and a co-defendant, detectives said.
DeFilippis actually made it easier by signing his own name to one of the sub-leases, they said.
“Not the brightest move,” Detective Capt. Michael Russo told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Police at first found that a group of home hunters had been taken for $2,800 in deposits. But another victim came in this past weekend.
The second-floor boarding house apartment at 152 Oakwood Avenue was sub-let on Craigslist, producing an average of $700 to $750 from each victim, Russo said.
Russo warned that there’s “more to this story than just people getting scammed. There’s also the potential danger element when you get involved in things like this….You have to know who you’re dealing with.”
DeFillipis is charged charged with three counts of theft by deception and two counts of conspiracy.
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