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Sgt. John Andronaco was driving through the parking lot of the Capri Inn just off Route 46 around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday when he said he spotted a man leaning back in a Dodge Caravan, apparently attempting to avoid detection.
Circling back, Adronaco said he saw the man do it again. So he called for backup and approached the Caravan – where he said he caught a whiff of burnt marijuana odor.
The occupant, handing the sergeant identification out of California, said he’d been “sleeping in the vehicle because his friends were staying in the motel and he couldn't make it back into the room the night [before],” Andronaco reported.
“When I asked him what he was doing in the area, he stated that he was visiting his wife, who lived in Lodi,” the sergeant added.
He couldn’t explain why he wasn’t staying with her or why they were living separately, however.
Two of the man’s companions came outside, but the sergeant sent them back until Lt. Frank Sciacca and Officers James Rose and Angelo Ratto arrived.
A search of the Caravan at first turned up a wallet with a bogus New Jersey ID card inside, Andronaco reported.
Police then found more fake IDs, all out of North Carolina, as well as credit, debit and gift cards bearing various names and a magnetic card stripe skimmer, the sergeant added.
They also found a label maker that apparently was used on the phony cards, he said.
The man in the mini-van refused to say which room they were all staying in, Andronaco reported. He said he then noticed the two who came down earlier watching from a second-floor stairwell window.
While Sciacca stayed with the man in the Caravan, Andronaco and Rose headed toward the pair, who the sergeant said ran into a room and slammed the door.
Someone eventually opened it at the officers’ repeated demands, he said. Again, he smelled burnt marijuana.
Two of the occupants – later identified as Dorian Morris-Cowley, 23, and Tazmond Sellers, 21 – refused to come out, said Andronaco, who eventually drew his service weapon and cleared the room.
Police found a bag of pot under a mattress and more bogus cards and IDs around the room, the sergeant said.
They also seized $3,195 in cash, he said.
Joined by an investigator from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, detectives determined that the crew came to the area with fraudulent identifications and credit cards that were manufactured with stolen information in order to buy cell phones that they could then sell for cash, Adronaco reported.
Because all are from out of state, a local judge ordered them sent to the Bergen County Jail, where they remained Wednesday pending detention hearings.
The first man, Labaron Carson, 27, was charged with possession of forgery devices. So was Morris-Cowley.
Charged with credit card theft, as well as possession of forgery devices, false government documents and a small amount of marijuana, were:
- Ivery Clemons, 22;
- Jamond Sellers, 21;
- Mariah Odems, 22;
- Tazmond Sellers, 21.
The Caravan was impounded.
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