Category Archives: Crime

As expected, New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice James Zazzali's black robe came off at Brookdale Community College Thursday. And what was on display, in part, was the Rumson jurist's wit. “My wife said have a good day,” Zazzali told...

A Jersey City police officer who lives in Middletown, already facing DUI charges arising from a car crash on the Pulaski Skyway, surrendered to police this morning in connection with the death of 2 1/2-year-old boy as result of the...

Red Bank resident Jack Westlake, former president of the Monmouth County Board of Taxation, was sentenced to three months in federal prison and seven months home confinement Thursday for tax evasion. Westlake, 76, of Ambassador Drive in the Elk Ridge...

The owner of a now-defunct auto body shop on Pearl Street in Red Bank was the ringleader of an alleged insurance scam that led to federal indictments yesterday of 11 people in three states, authorities contend. John Cotona, 38, of...

The Red Bank trio who last year admitted defrauding Fort Monmouth out of close to $1 million through a no-show-jobs scam have been sentenced to federal prison, the Asbury Park Press reports. The tally: 46 months for Michael Rzeplinski, a...

OK, so he'll probably have a suit on underneath. Still, it isn't every day that a Supreme Court justice doffs his gown and spills about the job for an audience. Rumson's James Zazzali, Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme...

Best Liquors owner Sunny Sharma and an employee of his Leighton Avenue store have each pleaded guilty to one count of selling alcohol to a minor, according to Police Chief Mark Fitzgerald. But Sharma's legals woes are far from over....

A presentation on code enforcement matters drew a pretty sparse and rather muted crowd Wednesday night. But redbankgreen was distracted, we admit, by who showed up and sat together at the table nearest Borough Administrator Stanley Sickels as he spoke...

Red Bankers have heard a lot about code enforcement in recent months. There appears to be a consensus that a lack of vigor in holding absentee landlords accountable for housing violations is at the root of rental-house overcrowding, particularly but...

The Borough Council's trial-like hearing on a series of seven allegations against the liquor license of Best Liquors has been postponed for a month, according to today's Asbury Park Press. The reason: store owner Sunny Sharma's hiring of a new...

Elected officials suddenly went into lips-zipped mode on the topic of Best Liquors last night, asking citizens to refrain from discussing or inquiring about the case of the controversial West Side retailer during the public portion of the borough council's...

Lengthy sentences were imposed last week on two Lakewood men convicted in a 2003 robbery and beating at Katsin's Pharmacy on Shrewsbury Avenue. One of the assailants was sentenced to 40 years in prison, and his accomplice got 16 years....

A New York Stock Exchange floor trader from Little Silver was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison yesterday for his guilty plea to charges of "trading ahead" of clients, or buying stocks for his or his firm's account at...

An architect and member of the Fair Haven Zoning Board was indicted earlier this week on federal charges of shaking down a contractor for $100,000 in connection with his work in Bayonne. Today's Jersey Journal has the details on the...

Former Middletown Committeeman Raymond O'Grady, who purportedly told undercover FBI investigators that he could "smell a cop...a mile away," was sentenced to 43 years in federal prison today for his role in the wide-ranging corruption probe called Operation Bid Rig....

The West Side property that's the site of Best Liquors has been home to retail businesses for 90 years. For a good part of that history, it was a grocery, but since 1965, it's been a liquor retailer, says store...

Shrewsbury police are seeking the public's help in solving a hit-and-run involving a pedestrian from Red Bank earlier this week. Angelica Serrano, 23, suffered a broken pelvis and leg and facial injuries when she was struck by a vehicle shortly...

Jack Westlake, the Monouth Couty Board of Taxation president who last week pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges, will quit his part-time county post, the Asbury Park Press reports, citing Westlake's lawyer. Westlake, whom the Press says is a...

A Rumson man has been charged with trying to lure a person he'd been told was a 6-year-old girl for a sexual encounter in a Bergen County hotel, according to the Star-Ledger. Lee Devinsky, a 35-year-old advertising executive, was arrested...

Thirty-eight graffiti incidents have been reported in Red Bank so far this year, compared to 43 for all of 2005, according to a story by Larry Higgs in today's Asbury Park Press. Click on the image to enlarge it. The...