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Sex Workers Robbed, Sexually Assaulted By Trio At Gunpoint In Jersey City: Prosecutor
Three men were arrested and charged on Friday, Sept. 20 with robbing and sexually assaulting two sex workers in Jersey City on Wednesday, Sept. 11, authorities said.
The two women agreed to meet three men, Mohamed Mohamed, 24, Abdalla Abdelsalam Elsayed, 20, and Mahmoud Hegazi, 18, all Jersey City residents, at an apartment on Bergen Avenue in exchange for sex for money, according to a criminal complaint.
After having sex with the men, one of the men pulled out a handgun, held it to one of the women and demanded money. The gun was held as she spoke on a phone call, forcing her to …
Essex County Correctional Officer Took Bribes To Smuggle Contraband To Inmates: Feds
A 36-year-old Jersey City resident and former Essex County correctional officer admitted on Wednesday, July 17, to accepting $14,000 in bribes to smuggle in tobacco and a cell phone to inmates, authorities said.
In January 2023, Efrin Wade, who worked at the jail for three years, began communicating with an individual whom he believed was seeking to smuggle in contraband to sell to other inmates, U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger said.
The individual was actually an undercover FBI agent, Sellinger said. Wade agreed to smuggle in tobacco and cell phones, prohibited for inmates at the facil…
Ex-Jersey Shore Man Gets 20 Years, No Parole For Serial Threats Against Police, Judges, Others
A former New Jersey resident with a cockamamie political history must spend the next 20 years in federal prison for threatening to kill police officers, lawyers and judges, among others, in and around Monmouth County.
Eric G. Hafner, 32, formerly of Fair Haven, also made calls and sent messages to state officials while phoning in bogus bomb threats to local and state government offices, a police department, two law firms and the Monmouth Park Racetrack during a two-year terror campaign, federal authorities in Trenton said.
Hafner told newspaper reporters in 2018 that he was on the lam for d…
Federal Jury Convicts NYC Man In $200,000 Shakedown Of Jersey Shore Dad
Federal jurors in Trenton convicted a Brooklyn man for his role in a plot to strong-arm a Jersey Shore resident into giving him and his accomplices $200,000, authorities said.
Endrit Kllogjeri, 27, and his cohorts were tripped up by an undercover detective posing as the Monmouth County victim, federal authorities said.
Francis Garzon, 31, took a deal from the government rather than risk the consequences of guaranteed prison time if he was convicted at a trial, pleading guilty last month to his role in the plot.
Kllogjeri rolled the dice and lost, however.
He, Garzon and an unidentified co…
‘Bling’ Bishop From Bergen Seized By FBI, Charged With Swindling Retiree Out Of $90,000
A flashy Brooklyn bishop who lives in Bergen County – and was infamously robbed at gunpoint during a live-streamed church service earlier this year – swindled one of his parishioners out of $90,000 in retirement money that he used for himself, federal authorities charged.
Lamor Whitehead, a 44-year-old Paramus resident known for his Rolls Royce, Gucci suits and bling, was arrested by federal agents on Monday, Dec. 19, on an indictment that charges him wire fraud, extortion and lying to the FBI.
The indictment returned by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan accuses Whitehead of …
One Of NJ's 'Most Wanted' Fugitives In Torture Execution Found Dead In Dominican Republic
One of New Jersey's most wanted fugitives in a kidnapping and execution of a Queens, NY man was found dead in the Dominican Republic, authorities announced.
Anthony Mota kidnapped the victim on Dec. 12, 1997, then bound and tortured him with others for days until they got a ransom amount of $23,000 from the victim's family, United States Marshal for the District of New Jersey Juan Mattos, Jr., and NJSP Superintendent Col. Patrick J. Callahan said.
Soon after, Mota took the victim to an area along Interstate 280 in Harrison, and shot him in the head and neck, ki…
MS-13 Members Convicted Of Murder Of Innocent West New York Man, 19, Other Gang-Related Crimes
Three ranking MS-13 members from El Salvador were convicted by federal jurors in Newark of the murder of an innocent 19-year-old dishwasher from West New York, among other charges stemming from their participation in the international gang.
It was one of many offenses that jurors agreed were committed by Juan Pablo “Humilde” Escalante-Melgar, 31, Elmer “Locote” Cruz-Diaz, 33, and Oscar “Snappy” Sanchez-Aguilar, 25 – among them, extortion, witness tampering, and drug trafficking.
Federal prosecutors told the jurors that Escalante-Melgar and Sanchez-Aguilar instructed an MS-13 member and an …
FBI: Four From NJ, NY, PA Charged With Kidnapping Man, Demanding $100,000 Ransom
A group of men from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York kidnapped a man on a Camden street, beat him and held him captive while trying to extort a $100,000 ransom from his family, federal authorities charged.
The victim was grabbed from behind last Thursday night by his abductors, who “covered his head, bound him with plastic restraints, assaulted him and put him into a vehicle,” Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig said.
They then drove him to a city residence where they “continued to beat him with a hard object the victim could not see,” she said.
“After several hours, the kidnappers …
Feds: New Mob Regime Ran Sports Bets, Extorted Victims, Sold Drugs From Philly To Jersey Shore
The mob didn't disappear from Philadelphia and the Jersey Shore after former leaders Joseph Ligambi and Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino were sent to prison, federal authorities revealed Monday.
Over the past five years, in fact, new leadership of the Philly and Atlantic City La Cosa Nostra beefed up the ranks, commanding illegal sports gambling, extorting victims through loansharking, selling cocaine, heroin and opioids -- even conspiring to kidnap a drug dealer who sold them bad dope, they said.
Fifteen reputed mobsters and associates of the organized crime family were charged in a …
LI Moving Company Owner, North Jersey Employee Admit $540,000 Low-Ball Extortion Scheme
A Nassau County moving company owner and a Passaic County woman who worked for him admitted in federal court that they extorted customers out of nearly $550,000 with the old “low-ball” scam.
Lior Atiyas, 42, of Hewlett, Long Island began regularly low-balling estimates to move household goods, then jacking up the price by two to three times once the items were on the trucks, in early 2016, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said Friday.
He then refused to deliver the goods until the customers paid up, Carpenito said.
Atiyas recruited Lola Larios, 37, of Haledon into the scheme when she joined t…
