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Blake Tannen, 34, of Saddle River, was charged with stalking on Saturday, July 27, the same day that a visibly upset 19-year-old woman approach Ridgewood Police Officer Schumann, while he was on patrol, Ridgewood Police Chief Forest Lyons said.
Around 3:45 that afternoon, the woman told Schumann, who was on patrol, that she was walking to her car in Ramsey on July 18, when she noticed she was being followed by a man, according to Lyons.
The man tried to engage her in conversation, reportedly telling her he'd seen her before, Lyons said. The woman told Schuman she felt unsafe, and left the scene in Ramsey without engaging with the man.
Then, on July 27 in Ridgewood, that same male — Tannen — engaged her in conversation again, Lyons said. The woman recognized him immediately, and a friend of the victim's was able to snap a photo of him before he fled the scene, the chief said.
That's when the woman approached Schumann, and an investigation initiated by Schumann, Detective Killion and Detective Henky ensued.
Tannen was arrested that day. Records show that Tannen is a convicted sex offender in both New York and New Jersey, for physically and sexually assaulting a woman in both states.
As reported by Jerry DeMarco for Daily Voice in 2022, Tannen was initially arrested after Allendale police traced an abandoned 911 cellphone call to his home on Baldwin Road in November 2015.
Officers stopped Tannen's car as he tried to pull away and found a woman in the front passenger seat who'd been sexually assaulted.
Tannen, who worked as a store clerk and had met the victim just hours earlier, was charged with sexual assault by force and minor drug possession. Police then sent him to the Bergen County Jail.
Despite the seriousness of the charges, a Superior Court judge in Hackensack released Tannen two days later, as reported by Daily Voice.
Tannen took a guilty plea in July 2016 and was allowed to remain free pending sentencing.
Less than two weeks later, he attacked another stranger, this time in a vehicle in Manhattan, authorities said. The 21-year-old victim also had her head slammed against the dashboard at one point, they said.
Tannen fought those charges.
In turn, jurors in downtown Manhattan convicted him of first-degree sexual abuse by force and assault in January 2018.
A judge there later sentenced Tannen to seven years in state prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release. Tannen had served 4½ of that sentence when he was paroled this past September from the Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida, NY, records show.
He was immediately transported to the Bergen County Jail and was scheduled to be sentenced in the local case Friday, Dec. 16, 2022. At the time, he faced a minimum four-year prison sentence with lifetime parole supervision and Megan's Law registration.
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