47°
The 30-year-old victim was leaving the Sylvan Avenue (Route 9W) facility shortly after 5:30 p.m. Friday, June 14, when Harshkuma H. Patel, 29, of Piscataway, approached her in the parking lot, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.
The accused assailant, who 'd previously been seen hanging around the area, tapped on the woman's car window in the CNBC parking lot, sources said.
The victim, who didn't know Patel, opened it, one said.
Patel then reached in with what investigators later called an "edged weapon" as the woman raised her hand trying to defend herself, the source said.
Patel stabbed her five times in the left arm before the woman hit the gas and sped from the lot, according to a complaint filed by Englewood Cliffs Police Sgt. Sean Flannelly.
The woman drove a little ways up Route 9W to the area of a bus stop at Sage Road, according to sources.
Englewood Cliffs police who were first on the scene applied a tourniquet to the woman's arm, saving her life, they said.
She rushed by ambulance to the trauma unit at Hackensack University Medical Center, Musella said.
She was treated there before being released, he said.
"[Patel] was a stranger to the victim, and the attack was unprovoked," the prosecutor noted.
Multiple surveillance cameras "captured the incident, including a clear image of the suspect and suspect vehicle license plate," according to Flannelly's police report.
An independent witness also took a cellphone photo of the vehicle, the sergeant wrote.
Detectives from Musella's Major Crimes Unit and Englewood Cliffs police took the 5-foot-8-inch, 190-pound "Harsh" Patel into custody outside his Middlesex County home at a condominium complex near Possumtown Road on Sunday.
They also seized his cellphone, according to the police report.
Patel was booked into the Bergen County Jail a short time later to await a first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack on charges of attempted murder, aggravated assault, criminal attempt and weapons offenses.
Jail records list Patel as an American citizen born in the United States.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Paterson and receive free news updates.
