The city of Wildwood’s former and current mayor and a city commissioner broke the law – committing “breaches of the public trust” -- by collecting health benefits that they didn’t earn, state authorities said Friday.Wildwood Mayor Peter J. Byron, former Mayor Ernest V. Troiano Jr., and current City Commissioner Steven E. Mikulski were charged criminally for fraudulently participating in ...

A Leonia man and an accomplice from California were convicted of kidnapping a teenager from Philadelphia and bringing him to Bergen County, where the ringleader of their group was shot and killed during a daring and dramatic rescue by the FBI.Eduardo Castelan-Prado, 39, of Leonia, and Jose Ochoa, 32, of Moreno Valley, CA, and their unidentified partner snatched the 17-year-old victim at ...

A driver was hospitalized following an afternoon crash at a busy Paramus intersection.A Honda Accord slammed into the victim's Nissan Murano at the corner of Paramus Road and West Ridgewood Avenue around 2:15 p.m. Friday.Paramus firefighters freed the man, who was transported to The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood by a Valley paramedic team. His condition couldn't immediately be ...

Two civilians pulled a man from the Passaic River, responders said.How he wound up in the water off Route 23 in Wayne around 8:15 p.m. Thursday wasn't immediately clear.Responders said the man ended up clinging to his rescuers' row boat before they pulled him in.They brought him ashore in the backyard of a home on East Woodcliff Avenue on the Little Falls side of the river and emergency ...

A fast-moving fire gutted a Lodi home.No injuries were reported in the fire, which broke out on Farnham Avenue just off Arnot Street near Harrison Avenue, shortly before 8 a.m.Firefighters were pulled out barely 20 minutes in as flames quickly spread through the 2½-story wood-frame home, compromising the interior of the structure.Firefighters were pulled from the home on Farnham Avenue ...

A Bergen County ex-con with a violent history had been free all of two days when he started up again, authorities said.Justinian Rocco, 25, of Allendale was released from custody only two weeks ago. He’d spent two years behind bars for laying down on a railroad track, stopping NJ Transit service and fighting with police who arrested him.Rocco is already back in the Bergen County Jail, ...

A fugitive who eluded Bogota police during what became an aborted pursuit walked right past another officer the next day and was promptly arrested, authorities said.It began around 1 a.m. Tuesday when a 2021 Mercedes E350 sped past Officer Matthew Luciano at more than 20 miles over the 30-mile-an-hour speed limit on West Main Street, Sgt. Geoffrey Cole said.Luciano tried to stop the ...

A motocross stunt rider who frequented New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania raped children and made videos of it while barnstorming the country in a traveling circus, federal authorities charged.Ryan Meyung, 30, “engaged six different minor victims in sexually explicit conduct to produce images of child sexual abuse” between 2019 and 2021, the Justice Department said.Meyung had already ...

Ruben Wilson had a habit of wandering off and sometimes traveling significant distances from his Englewood home despite dementia and other challenges.The 6-foot, 240-pound Wilson always turned up, though -- from as close as Teaneck, Hackensack and Tenafly, and as far as the Jersey Shore. He was once found with his dog in Englewood Cliffs. Another time, he drove nearly 70 miles to Wall ...

An SUV fell off a car carrier and collided with a sedan on northbound Route 17 on Thursday.The Range Rover apparently got loosened and came crashing down at the Midland Avenue overpass in Paramus, colliding with a Honda Civic around 8:30 a.m. There was no immediate word on injuries to the sedan's occupants.The Range Rover collided with a Honda Civic on northbound Route 17 in ...