Attorney General Chiesa Announces 1,500-Plus Guns Obtained In Weekend Gun Buyback Initiative in Monmouth County

Photo credit:Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office

TRENTON–Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa announced today that more than 1,500 guns were turned in by Monmouth County residents during a state-sponsored gun buyback event held at churches in Asbury Park and Keansburg this past weekend.

According to Chiesa, county residents turned in a total of 1,581 guns – including 15 assault weapons –during the two-day buyback held at the Shiloh Community Fellowship Ministry in Asbury Park and the Saint Ann Catholic Church in Keansburg.

The number of guns obtained in Monmouth County brings to 7,092 the total number of firearms collected so far as a result of four state-led gun buybacks. A buyback held in Camden County last December yielded 1,137 guns, and a buyback in Mercer County in January brought in another 2,604 firearms. A February buyback held in Essex County resulted in the collection of another 1,770 guns.

Attorney General Chiesa said this past weekend’s strong turn-out by Monmouth County residents demonstrates continued support of the State-led buyback initiative by citizens concerned about gun violence and eager to help rid their communities of dangerous firearms.

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Colts Neck Bank Robbery Suspect Caught In Alabama

The man suspected of robbing the Colts Neck branch of the JPMorgan Chase Bank has been apprehended in a Birmingham, Alabama hotel, according to a statement released by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office.

Waleed A. Saleh, 32, of Staten Island, was found Monday at the Sheraton Hotel in Birmingham, Ala. where he was arrested by investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Birmingham Police Department, as part of the joint investigation led by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and Colts Neck Township Police Department Detective Richard Zarrillo.

Saleh is charged with first degree Armed Robbery, and the second degree offenses of Possession of a Weapon for an Unlawful Purpose and Unlawful Possession of a Weapon. Saleh has waived extradition. Bail has been set at $750,000 with no 10 percent option as set by Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Richard W. English.

The bank robbery occurred around 5 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 24, 2013 when Saleh allegedly walked into the JP Morgan Chase Bank, located at 290 Route 34 in Colts Neck, pointed a firearm at a teller and demanded money. The teller handed over an undisclosed amount of cash before fleeing the area.

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Prosecutor Seeks Publc Help In Indentifying Bank Robber

The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office is seeking the public’s help in indentifying the man suspected of robbing the JP Morgan-Chase Bank branch in Colts Neck yesterday afternoon, Acting Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni announced this afternoon.

The bank robbery occurred around 5 p.m. on Thursday when a light-skinned male, standing approximately 5-feet,   11-inches tall, with a medium build, brown hair and glasses, walked into the JP Morgan Chase Bank, located at 290 Route 34 in Colts Neck, pointed a firearm at a teller and demanded money. The teller handed over an amount of cash before the suspect fled the bank in a dark colored, two-door Infinity with New York license plates and tinted windows. The vehicle was last seen traveling south on Route 34 and entering onto Route18 north.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office Detective Kevin Condon at 732- 431-7160, Colts Neck Police Department Detective Richard Zarrillo at 732-462-4343, or the Red Bank FBI Field Office at 732- 741-0006.

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County Employee Charged With Embezzling $3,000 From Millstone Golf Course

Carol Hobbs, 34, of Jackson, was arrested and charged with third degree theft on Thursday following an investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office.

Hobbs was responsible for maintaining the cash register in the pro shop, collecting greens fees and managing the schedule of golfers to the starting point to begin their round of golf. The investigation revealed Hobbs would modify a transaction so it appeared the golfer received a refund after the golf course patron paid for a round a golf when they had not asked for or received a refund. After modifying the transaction Hobbs retained the money. An audit revealed Hobbs embezzled over $3,000 from September 2012 through December 2012, according to a statement released by Acting Prosecutor Christopher A. Gramiccioni.

Hobbs was not charged with Official Misconduct, a second degree crime if the benefit of the infraction exceeds $200, that carries up to a 10 year prison sentence upon conviction, according to attorney Matheu D. Nunn:

Under New Jersey’s Official Misconduct law, N.J.S.A. 2C:30-2, a public servant can be prosecuted for acts committed in their official capacity and, if convicted, imprisoned for up to ten years.

A public servant includes any officer or employee of government including legislators and judges as well as any person participating as a juror, advisor, consultant or otherwise, in performing a government function; it does not include a witness. The test is whether the person is performing a “government function.”

Under New Jersey Official Misconduct law the public servant’s action or omission must be coupled “with a purpose to obtain a benefit for himself or another” or a purpose to injure another or deprive another of a benefit….

…Here is the scary part–Official Misconduct is a crime of the second degree. As a result, the official faces up to 10 years in state prison if the benefit involved exceeded $200 in value. If the benefit is less than $200 in value it is a crime of the third degree and the official faces a term of imprisonment up to 5 years.

If the purpose is to injure another it will be a crime of the second degree no matter how slight the injury.

And, unlike many other “non-violent” crimes, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:43-6.5, a person convicted of Official Misconduct:

“shall be sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment without eligibility for parole as follows: for a crime of the fourth degree, the mandatory minimum term shall be one year; for a crime of the third degree, two years; for a crime of the second degree, five years; and for a crime of the first degree, 10 years; unless the provisions of any other law provide for a higher mandatory minimum term.”

Former Brookdale Community College President Peter Burnham is serving at least two years of a five year prison sentence due to his guilty plea to Official Misconduct.

Gramiccioni declined to say why Hobbs was not charged with Official Misconduct, citing work product confidentiality.

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John Kaye is President of the Monmouth Republican Affiliated Club

By Art Gallagher

Former Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye is the new president of the Monmouth County Affiliated Republican Club.

Kaye takes over from Wayne Pomanowski who served as president for the maximum two years allowed by the club’s bylaws.  1st Vice President Gerri Popkin and 2nd Vice President Bob Burlew were unable to step up to the presidency due to other obligations.  Howell Chairman John Costigan, the club Sergeant-At-Arms, declined the post because he is running to replace Monmouth GOP Chairman John Bennett on the GOP State Committee. Pomanowski said he suggested Kaye to Bennett.

Bennett said that Kaye was the unanimous choice of the club’s trustees at their January meeting.  All other officers, except Pomanowski, retained their previous club offices. Pomanowski remains on the board.

The choice struck me as odd given 1) the wealth of up and coming talent in the Monmouth GOP and 2) Kaye’s rocky historical relationship with Govenor Chris Christie including the controversy surrounding Kaye towards the end of his distinguished 23 year career as Monmouth County Prosecutor.

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More Strange Justice: A Warning to Public Servants

By Art Gallagher

Last November I wrote Strange Justice, a piece about my observations of the criminal sentencings of former Brookdale Community Community College President Peter Burnham and former Eatontown Detective Philip Emanulle.

Both men were charged with Official Misconduct. Burnham pled guilty to the Official Misconduct Charge and to Theft.  He charged $24,000 on the college’s credit cards for personal expenses over an eight year period and used a $20,000 federal grant for his son’s tuition at Monmouth University for personal use after Brookdale had already paid the tuition. In addition to Official Misconduct, Emanuelle was charged with Sexual Assault, Criminal Coercion and Tampering with Evidence.  The Sexual Assault and Official Misconduct charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement. Emanuelle pled guilty to Coercion and Tampering.  Emanulle got five years probation.  Burnham was sentenced to five years in prison with the stipulation that he serve at least two years before he is eligible for release.

Burnham is in State Prison now.  A mutual friend tells me prison has not been easy for Burnham.  That is an understatement.   It hasn’t been easy for his family either.  Burnham had already lost his job and pension.  What was unexpected by his family is that he also lost his Social Security Benefits as a result of his conviction.

On January 8, Marlboro resident Mark Trawinski was sentenced to five months in prison for tax evasion.  Between 2002 and 2008, Trawinski didn’t pay the employment taxes withheld from his employees wages or the business’s employment taxes. He beat the government for $713,759 and used the money in part to purchase a $1 million home in Florida that he tried to hide from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and the IRS.   In addition to his five months in prison, after Trawinski is released this spring he will be confined to his home for five months and he will undergo three years of supervised release.  He must also pay back the $713,759 to the IRS.

Why is Burnham doing two years hard time for stealing $44,000 while Emanulle got off with probation for Sexual Assault and and Trawinski got five months  for stealing $713,759?  Official Misconduct.

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Strange Justice

Two former public servants were in Judge Thomas F. Scully’s courtroom this morning to be sentenced for crimes to which they had negotiated plea bargains.

The courtroom was crowded for former Eatontown detective Philip Emanuelle’s sentencing.  On one side of the gallery were Emanuelle’s wife, and many supporters.  On the other side was the 25 year old woman who said she was raped by Emanuelle while he was armed, the woman’s family and many supporters.   The tearful and tragic emotion in the room was raw.

Emanuelle, 33, of Brick Township, served in the Eatontown Police Department for eight years.  He was charged with one count of Sexual Assault, two counts of Official Misconduct, a count of third degree Criminal Coercion and a fourth degree count of Tampering with Physical Evidence.

The Sexual Assault charge and the Official Misconduct charges were dismissed as part of his plea agreement.  He was sentenced to five years probation, the loss of his job, and prohibited from public employment for life for the Criminal Coercion and the Tampering with Physical Evidence charges.  Emanuelle left the courthouse with his family and friends.

A different and smaller crowd was in the courtroom a short while later.  There were no tears shed by former Brookdale Community College President Peter Burnham or his family. Burham quoted Kipling’s The Road Less Traveled, while pleading with Scully to give him a lesser sentence than the one to which he had already agreed to serve.

Burnham, who presided over Brookdale for more than two decades, pled guilty to stealing roughly $44,000 from Monmouth County’s community college;  $24,000 in charges for personal expenses to the college’s credit cards over an 8 year period and $20,000 in tuition reimbursement for his son that had already been paid for by the federal government.   He was sentenced to five years in State Prison with no eligibility for parole for the first two years. Burnham was taken into custody after sentencing.

Monmouth County Acting Prosecutor, Christopher J. Gramiccioni, described Burnhman as “a king who ruled Brookdale with an iron fist,” a greedy arrogant man compensated very generously with a pay package worth over $300,000 per year who still betrayed the public trust by stealing $44,000.

In contrast, Emmanuelle’s victim graphically described being forcibly raped after she declined to perform oral sex on the detective who was still wearing his gun during the act.  She said another victim had come forth.  Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Schweers told Scully that his office did not believe they had sufficient evidence to prosecute Emanuelle for the other woman’s allegations.

The victim asked Scully to disregard the plea bargain that she agreed to and send Emanuelle to prison.

Scully told Emanuelle that his actions were “utterly hideous.”  The judge repeatedly expressed his shock at the high level of support Emanuelle was receiving from his wife, family and friends. Then Scully gave Emanuelle a longer probationary term than callled for in the plea agreement.

Burnham went to jail today.  Emmanuelle went home.

The fact that these two sentencing hearings occurred back to back is legally irrelevant. While they occurred moments apart, they seemed like alternate realities playing out on the same stage after a brief intermission.

Each case was probably disposed of justly on its own merits.   But viewed together, back to back, by a layman, it seemed that the cop got away with rape while the college president went to jail for a relatively minor infraction.  Burnham’s infraction seemed very minor compared to Emanuelle’s crime. Yet Burnham’s next five years will be much harsher than Emanuelle’s.

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Monmouth Court House Will Reopen Tomorrow. Bomb Threat Was An Apparent Hoax

Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden said that the K-9 search for explosives in the Court House this afternoon came up negative and that normal operations will resume tomorrow.

A male caller using a cell phone in Freehold Borough called 9-11 at 12:40 this afternoon and said that there were pipe bombs in the Court House that would explode this afternoon.

Investigators from the sheriff’s office and the prosecutor’s office are investigating the call.

Golden said there is no indication that the incident is in anyway related to the unsolved chemical/environmental event that closed the Court House for a week last June.

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Jersey Style Appointments and Hearings

Monmouth County Prosecutor Peter E. Warshaw, Jr was nominated by Governor Chris Christie to become a Superior Court Judge on June 14.  The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold his confirmation hearing today.  He is likely to be confirmed by the full Senate before the end of the week, ending his 18 month tenure as county prosecutor.

First Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni is expected to be nominated to replace Warshaw as the chief prosecutor in Monmouth County.  Word in the legal community is that Gramiccioni, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney under Christie, was the governor’s first choice to become Monmouth County Prosecutor in 2010 but that he was 18 months short of the residency requirements.

Former Monmouth County Sheriff Joe Oxley, also former Monmouth GOP Chairman, was nominated to the Court on May 14. Oxley’s confirmation has yet to be scheduled by the Democratically controlled Judiciary Committee, due in part to a Star Ledger report that federal informant Soloman Dwek accused Oxley, Senator Joe Kyrillos and Assemblywoman Amy Handlin of trading favors for campaign contributions.  

Dwek’s allegations were revealed in discovery documents in the civil case of former Hudson County Assemblyman Louis Manzo who unsuccessly sued the U.S. Attorney’s office to recover $100K in legal fees that resulted Manzo’s 2009 Operation Bid Rig indictments. Manzo was accused under the Hobbs Act of accepting bribes from Dwek in exchange for future help in zoning and permit applications should Manzo be elected Jersey City Mayor.  Manzo was running for Mayor for the fifth time when the alleged bribe occurred.  Federal Judge Jose Linares threw out the charges on the basis that the Hobbs Act applied only to elected officials, not candidates.  The Appellate Court affirmed Linares’ ruling.

The discovery documents in Manzo’s civil case miraculously found their way to the Star Ledger in what Kyrillos called an “oppo (opposition research) dump” by U. S. Senator Robert Menedez’s reelection campaign.  Kyrillos is the GOP nominee to unseat Menendez and a minority member of the State Senate Judiciary Committee which reviews judicial nominations.

Expect the Judiciary Committee to schedule Oxley’s confirmation hearing in September or October as the general election campaign is heating up.  Democratic Senator Ray Lesniak has called for Dwek, who is in federal prison, to testify at Oxley’s hearing.  That would put Kyrillos, as a member of the committee and also accused by Dwek of trading favors for contributions, in a hot seat at the height of the U.S. Senate campaign.

In another potential twist in this tangled web, Gramiccioni was one of the federal prosecutors working on the Bid Rig investigations, including Manzo’s, according to Bob Ingle and Michael Symons in Chris Christie: The Inside Story Of His Rise To Power (page 90).  Should Gramiccioni be nominated Monmouth County Prosecutor, as expected, his nomination will also be subject to a Judiciary Committee hearing.

Gramiccioni’s wife, Deborah, is Governor Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Cabinet Liason.

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