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Officer Benjamin Marceca was flagged down by the victim in the area of Belmont and Pierre avenues just after 7:45 p.m. Saturday, Capt. Darren Sucorowski said.
Marceca learned that she’d been “assaulted by a male acquaintance she was meeting on Cambridge Avenue,” Sucorowski said.
Wilby Tapia, 34, “reportedly grabbed her by the hair, pulling her down, and then assaulted and choked her,” the captain said.
He then “went through her purse and took her belongings [before] fleeing the area,” he said.
An ambulance took her to a local hospital.
Police sent an arrest warrant to their Clifton colleagues, who arrested Tapia and turned him over to them Tuesday night.
He remained held Wednesday in the Bergen County Jail pending a detention hearing.
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