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Aasim Boone, 35, had only just been released from state prison this past March after serving four years for an Old Tappan home break-in.
He's been in the Bergen County Jail since July 16, when he was arrested and charged with breaking into homes in Englewood, Hackensack, Oradell, Paramus, Teaneck and Tenafly with three accomplices.
"Shortly thereafter, an investigation ensued into Boone and his communications with Charlene Yabut asking her to contact a victim/witness and attempt to have her drop pending domestic violence charges," Acting Bergen County Prosecutor Dennis Calo said Wednesday.
Yabut, 38, of Englewood was arrested and charged, like Boone, with witness tampering -- as well as with hindering her arrest.
Hackensack police tipped off investigators from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Special Investigations Squad in June to a rental van being used by ex-con Boone and his associates during a series of break-ins throughout the county, Calo said last month.
Members of an ad hoc task force assembled a timeline of when and where the burglaries occurred, then watched various suspects and locations, obtained search warrants – and, finally, secured arrest warrants – before busting the quartet, he said.
Charged along with Boone were Joslin Harrington, a 32-year-old cafeteria worker from Irvington, Justin Dahzy, 19, of Bogota and Valerie Joyner, 26, of Wanaque, who works as an aide at a residential care facility.
A conviction on either the burglary-related offenses or witness tampering charge automatically sends Boone back to prison.
He was released on parole on March 15, five months before his sentence was to expire on Aug. 21, records show.
“I’m not coming back to Bergen. I’m not even going to throw a bubblegum wrapper on the ground,” Boone told a judge while pleading guilty in April 2014 to the Old Tappan burglary.
Boone previously had worked with his brother, Akeem, identified as the crew’s main player, as well as with convicted burglar Melvin Collins and three others – Jarrell Bordeaux, Marc Rainey and James Singletary, who were involved with the Boones and Sheffield in the theft of a 600-pound safe from Connecticut.
All were convicted at trial or pleaded guilty and were sent to state prison – which authorities at the time said they hoped marked an end to the decades-long deluge of burglaries committed by original members of the Englewood/Teaneck-based James Bond Gang and their successors.
CLICK HERE: More Stories About the History of the Infamous James Bong Gang
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