Bellew’s Campaign Manager Arraigned, Released Without Bail

Dwayne Horner. photo via facebook

Dwayne Horner of Little Elm Texas was arraigned in Monmouth County Superior Court on Identity Theft Charges stemming from a 4am robo call purported to be made on behalf of State Senator Joe Kyrillos, Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon and Assemblywoman Amy Handlin in the early morning of the primary election in the 13th legislative district on June 4, 2013.

Horner was the campaign manager for Leigh-Anne Bellew, Kyrillos’s challenger in the Republican primary.

Horner, 45, was indicted on the fourth degree charge on August 11.  He plead Not Guilty before Superior Court Judge Ronald Lee Reisner.  Horner was released on his own recognizance.

A recording of the call can be heard here.  Horner’s voice can be heard on the voice mail greeting of the Bellew campaign here.

The indictment charges that Horner impersonated another person or organization for the purpose of obtaining a benefit for himself or another or for the purpose of injuring or defrauding another.

If convicted, Horner faces 18 months in prison and a $10,000 fine.  He is represented by Robert Bonney of Lomurro-Davidson.

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Atlantic County Justice

Shaneen Allen and her sons Niare and Sincere. Photo via facebook

The mainstream media will be making a big deal today about the leniency Baltimore Raven Ray Rice received from the NFL after knocking out his then finance in Atlantic City in February. TMZ obtained an released a video of the incident this morning. Sources are quoted as saying that NFL officials saw the video before suspending Rice for the first two games of this season and docking his pay for a third game.

But the NFL would not be subject to the public outrage they are experiencing had the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office not been lenient with Rice first.  Rice was first charged with simple assault.  The charges were upgraded to aggravated assault by an Atlantic County Grand Jury.  Rice faced a possible five years in State Prison.   But the Prosecutor accepted Rice’s application into the Pre-trial Intervention Program for First Offenders and his Not Guilty plea which leaves him off the hook if he stays out of trouble for a year.

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Authorities seize counterfeit merchandise on Jersey Shore boardwalk

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Avon Man Charged in Rumson overdose death

Michael Renna, 25 of Avon-by-the Sea, was charged today with the October 2013 overdose death of Christopher L. Pesce, a 25 year old resident of Oxford House, a drug rehabilitation transitional facility located in Rumson.

Renna is charged with one count of first degree Strict Liability for Drug Induced Deaths and one count of third degree Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous.  He was released from the Monmouth County Correctional Institution after posting $210,000 in bail as set by Judge John R. Tassini, according to Monmouth County First Assistant Prosecutor Marc LeMieux.

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O’Scanlon: Redflex Indictment Should Surprise No one

NJ101.5 photo

Karen Finley, former CEO of Redflex Traffic Systems Inc, one of two Red Light Camera companies operating in New Jersey, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Chicago last week on bribery charges.

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, New Jersey’s fiercest opponent of Red Light Cameras, says that is not a surprise:
“Well this is a shocking turn of events, said no one! If cameras actually increased safety no one would have to bribe anyone for business – we’d all be lining up!  How any public entity can continue to do business with Redflex in particular, but really any of these companies pitching these ineffective, thieving cameras is beyond me.  Is the lure of fast cash so strong we have decided that morality doesn’t matter?  We now have multiple pieces of evidence of corruption reaching the highest levels of one of the two companies operating these cameras in New Jersey.  Both companies are guilty of blatantly lying about their products and misrepresenting data.”

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Murder suspect checked in with law enforcement one week after the double murder

Brian R. Farmer’s mugshot taken August 6, 2014, one week after the murders of Joan Colbert and Veronica Roach, for which he is accused.

The man accused of murdering Joan Colbert and her 10 year old foster daughter, Veronica Roach, in their Long Branch home on July 30, visited the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office one week after the murder occurred, as part of his mandated monitoring as a registered sex offender.

Brian R. Farmer was convicted in 1996 of aggravated assault for engaging in sexual penetration of a 15 year old girl while he was armed with a knife.  Farmer confined the victim and her mother for three days, keeping them tied up.  The victims escaped and Farmer burned down their house, according to the New Jersey State Police Registry of Sex Offenders.

Farmer was arrested early this morning for murders of Colbert and Roach. He was additionally charged with first, second and third degree Endangering  the Welfare of a Child.  Photos of Farmer engaging in a sex act with the 10 year old Roach were found on his phone.

Sex offenders are monitored by the County Prosecutor’s Offices of the county where they reside, according to State Police Information Officer, Trooper Jeff Flynn.  As part of that monitoring, their photos are updated periodically for the Sex Offenders Directory.

Farmer’s most recent mugshot was taken on August 6, 2014, one week after the July 30th murders occurred.

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Bellew’s Campaign Manager Indicted For Identity Theft

townhall.com photo

Dwayne Horner of Little Elm, Texas was indicted by a Monmouth County Grand Jury yesterday.  Horner was the campaign manager for Leigh-Ann Bellew of Union Beach in the 2013 Republican Primary challenge to State Senator Joe Kyrillos.

A copy of the indictment can be found here.

At 4am on June 4, 2013, Republican voters in the 13th legislative district of New Jersey were awakened by a robo call purporting to be from the campaign of Kyrillos and his running mates, Assembly Members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon.   The caller, allegedly Horner, said they were reminding voters that they still had four hours to get to the polls, as if the call was being make at 4pm.

A recording of the call can be heard here.  Horner’s voice can be heard on the voice mail greeting of the Bellew campaign here.

The indictment charges that Horner impersonated another person or organization for the purpose of obtaining a benefit for himself or another or for the purpose of injuring or defrauding another.   The fourth degree crime has a potential sentence of 18 months in state prison and/or a $10,000 fine.

MMM could not find a current phone number for Horner.  Bellew could not be reached for comment.

O’Scanlon said,“I’m glad to see that this matter was taken seriously and did not slip through the cracks. Those who would play these types of desperate games during campaigns need to know that there are consequences and they will be mete.  It is hard enough to get eligible candidates interested in running without the threat of these juvenile type pranks. This indictment will hopefully be a message to anyone who would attempt it in the future –  grow up.”

Kyrillos declined to comment.

UPDATED BELOW THE FOLD

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Breaking: Indictment in the 4am robo call incident

UPDATE: DWAYNE HORNER, LEIGH-ANN BELLEW’S CAMPAIGN MANAGER IS NAMED IN THE INDICTMENT

MMM has learned that at least one individual was indicted by a Monmouth County Grand Jury today in the investigation into the 4am robocall that occurred on the morning of the 2013 Republican Primary in the 13th legislative district on June 4, 2013.  The 13th, represented by Senator Joe Kyrillos and Assembly Members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon, is compromised of Middletown, Marlboro, the Bayshore and the Two Rivers area of Monmouth County.

The call, a recording of which can be heard here, was purported to be on behalf of the incumbents Kyrillos, Handlin and O’Scanlon. The caller said that he was reminding voters that they had four hours to get to the polls, as if the call was made at 4pm instead of 4am.  The callers voice sounds very much like the recorded voice of the person on the Leigh-Ann Bellew for Senate’s voice mail greeting.  That recording can be heard here.  Bellew was Kyrillos’s opponent in the primary.

MMM was told that fourth degree identity theft was the charged the grand jury delivered.  Fourth degree identity theft is punishable by up to 18 months in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.

Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Charles Webster said he had not yet received a copy of the indictment and that he would provide it promptly upon receiving it from the prosecutor.

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Christie vetoes gun control legislation, Re-writes bill as mental health reform measure

Calling a bill that would have reduced permitted ammunition magazine sized from 15 rounds to 10 “reform in name only,” Governor Chris Christie conditionally vetoed A2006   this afternoon.

In his conditional veto message, Christie said the bill follows the well worn path of empty rhetoric, political self-promotion and polarizing intolerance in the face of violent crimes committed with guns:

“Difficult choices are brushed aside
in favor of empty rhetoric. Uncomfortable topics are left
unexplored, while easy soundbites and videoclips are packaged
for consumption. Appropriate empathy for victims, and their
suffering survivors, blurs with politics and elected officials’
self-promotion to create a polarizing intolerance. We ignore
the hard for the expedient, the controversial for the safely
familiar, and the costly for those cheaply recycled answers that
never really address the root causes.”

Christie sent the legislation back to the General Assembly as a bill that he says addresses violence by fixing critical short comings and crack in the mental healthcare system.

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Red Bank Regional substitute teacher charged with bedding 16 year old student

Accused rapist is founder of a youth advocacy organization

Darnell Lewis recruiting youth to make the right choices in Newark, August 2010. photo via I.M.P.A.C.T.’s facebook page

A substitute teacher and assistant football and basketball coach at Red Bank Regional High School is facing charges of sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child after it was learned that he engaged in sexual intercourse with a 16 year of girl in his Red Bank home, Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni announced from Afghanistan yesterday.

Gramiccioni is on a six month deployment with the Naval Reserve JAG Corps.

Darnell Lewis, 37, is charged with three counts of second degree Sexual Assault and one count of second degree Endangering the Welfare of a Child. He is being held at the Monmouth County Correctional Institution on $200,000 bail with no 10 percent option, as set my Superior Court Judge Angela White Dalton. He is to have no contact with the victim, should he make bail, according to White Dalton’s order.

Described as a hall monitor, substitute teacher and coach by Gramiccioni’s statement, Lewis recently resigned from Red Bank Regional and has not returned to the school.

Lewis is the founder of I.M.P.A.C.T., an organization he founded in 2010 that purports to help people make better choices.

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