57°
Gus Galianos — who inadvertently ignited a bomb scare at the Westwood K-Mart with a remark he made two years ago — was arrested yesterday by detectives from Molinelli’s Special Victims Unit and Emerson police.
Paterson police investigating a different case called them after they “encountered Galianos and the victim on [Saturday] while investigating a separate matter,” Molinelli said today.
The girl told them “she engaged in sexual activity with Galianos at his residence in Emerson earlier that day,” he said.
Detectives met with the girl at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Paterson, where she “confirmed that she and Galianos engaged in sexual activity on two separate occasions on [Saturday],” the prosecutor said.
The girl’s father reported her missing to the NYPD on Friday when she didn’t return home from school, Molinelli said.
Galianos, of George Road, was being held on $150,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with two counts each of sexual assault and child endangerment.
An arraignment was scheduled for Nov. 14.
* * * * *
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The original story misidentified the defendant’s employer, based on a press release.
* * * * *
Galianos was already having a bad day in December 2011, having just lost a previous waiter’s job, when he posed a question to someone at the Kmart in Westwood that ended up bringing police from three departments and the county bomb squad, leading to his arrest.
“What would you do if there was a bomb in the store?” police said Galianos asked a woman there.
Westwood police were quickly on the scene, along with the Bergen County K9 unit and officers from Hillsdale and Emerson.
Moments later, an Emerson patrol officer spotted Galianos walking south on Broadway — he was hard to miss in his tux — and brought him to Westwood police headquarters.
He was charged with harassment.
The store was evacuated, and no explosives were found.
MUGSHOT: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE
Click here to follow Daily Voice South Passaic and receive free news updates.
