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Jeffrey Whitaker, 50, of Teaneck (above, left) and 41-year-old William “Christopher” Collins of Hackensack (right) were joined by an Englewood man, 19-year-old Davae Harrison, along with the teen, the indictment says.
The crew is accused of hitting homes three blocks apart, on Intervale Road and Washington Place in Teaneck, and on West Palisade Avenue between Nov. 19 and Dec. 22 last year.
They then took the goods to an Englewood pawn shop, the indictment alleges.
Detectives from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office and a task force of officers from local police departments arrested the defendants — while taking the juvenile into custody — following a weeks-long investigation.
The investigative group was assembled in response to a string of home burglaries in Teaneck, Englewood and the surrounding area.
Collins, Harrison and the teen were with Whitaker and a fourth man, 18-year-old Steve Wilson of Englewood, as investigators followed Whitaker’s car to the pawn shop, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said at the time.
Both Whitaker and Collins was released into intensive parole supervision in July 2011 after serving only three months of four-year prison sentences.
Detectives watched in January 2009 as Whitaker, already a convicted burglar, cased homes in Teaneck and Englewood before breaking into two Bogota residences and walking out with large amounts of jewelry, Molinelli said at the time.
The investigators moved to cut off his path, but Whitaker threw his car into drive, hitting a police car, before surrendering, the prosecutor told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
In his car, he said, Whitaker had three pairs of gloves, a ski mask, two screwdrivers, and a large amount of stolen jewelry. Detectives who searched the car and Whitaker’s apartment later reported finding pot, drug paraphernalia, and assorted jewelry believed taken in other break-ins.
Task force investigators also watched in October of that year as Collins and another ex-con — “human crime wave” Melvin Collins — cased houses in Teaneck, Leonia, Palisades Park and, finally, the East Hill section of Englewood, where the pair forced open the front door of an unoccupied home on Arch Road, Molinelli said at the time.
Both were arrested after snatching a floor safe and several thousand dollars in cash and bolting out the back door, he said.
Search warrants led to the recovery of the safe, as well as cash, a briefcase and pillow cases stuffed with three jewelry boxes.
Whitaker and Collins remained held on $400,000 bail each in the Bergen County Jail since their arrests in last year’s break-ins.
Harrison and Wilson, meanwhile, remain free on $15,000 bail each.
MUGSHOTS: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY SHERIFF
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