YOU SAW IT HERE FIRST: Surveillance cameras caught grainy images of two men who kicked their way into a Wyckoff home last night, ripped the alarm system and siren speakers from the walls and took jewelry from the master bedroom — the town’s fourth burglary in 10 days.

Both had their heads wrapped to prevent identification during the 7 p.m. break-in on Bridle Path, Police Chief Benjamin Fox said this afternoon.

Even homes with alarms systems and cameras can be burglarized — requiring increased vigilance on the part of neighbors, Fox said.

“In Wyckoff or any community, the greatest defense against burglaries are residents reporting suspicious persons and vehicles that they observe,” he said.

“We are now approaching the holiday season when homes tend to be unoccupied more often and there are early hours of darkness, both of which lead to increased instances of burglaries,” the chief said. “The eyes and ears of an entire town can assist the police in apprehending burglars who invade the privacy of homes and steal personal property.

“If you think it’s suspicious, report it,” Fox said.

IMAGES: Courtesy WYCKOFF PD

ONLY ON CVP: No serious injuries were reported in a head-on collision in Washington Township this afternoon.

The collision between a Subaru Outback and Nissan Altima occurred shortly before 2 p.m. at the intersection of Colonial Boulevard and Washington Avenue.

The Altima driver was treated at the scene for minor injuries as a result of air bag deployment. The Suburu driver was uninjured.

Township police, firefighters and EMS workers responded. Firefighters tended to a fluid spill.

STORY/PHOTO: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Correspondent Boyd A. Loving

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A judge in Hackensack today sent a Fort Lee ex-con towing operator for 13 years, with no parole eligibility for eight, for a cache of illegal weapons found in his home during a domestic violence check.

Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)

Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi also fined Konstadin “Dean” Bitzas $10,000 as part of a sentence that the defense attorney criticized as “very heavy-handed.”

Jurors in Hackensack convicted Bitzas in August of owning five weapons, large-capacity magazines, and ammunition that he was prohibited from having because he has a conviction for cocaine possession on his record.

Bitzas, who has a 25-year history of arrests for crimes that include burglary and theft, beginning in 1984 when he was 15, insisted the weapons were planted.

Despite being convicted, he still refuses to take responsibility for them, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Vered Adoni said.

In his pre-trial sentencing interview, Bitzas told the probation officer he has a right to bear arms, and that most of his arrests were “trumped-up charges by the state police,” the result of “a corrupt political system” and “a jealous girlfriend,” she told the judge.

Konstadin “Dean” Bitzas, defense attorney Ron Bar-Nadav (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)

Bitzas was arrested after his girlfriend of the time, Peggy Kalfaian, accused him of domestic violence. When police searched his home, as required by state law, they found the cache of weapons — which he said she deliberately put there.

Bitzas claimed they belonged to former boyfriend of Kalfaian’s who he said is now in prison in New York.

The domestic violence portion of Bitzas’s trial was severed and dismissed by the judge after Kalfaian repeatedly defied instructions from the judge and prosecutor not to make incriminating remarks about drug use while testifying (SEE: Gun trial shocker: Judge dismisses domestic violence charges against Fort Lee businessman after ‘victim’ misbehaves).

The case had other strange developments, including DeAvila-Silebi accusing Bitzas of keeping the case file from his attorney in a deliberate attempt to delay his trial (SEE: Judge accuses Fort Lee man in gun case of keeping trial file from lawyer).

This came after Bar-Nadav requested a psychiatric evaluation for his client (SEE: Lawyer seeks psych exam for Fort Lee ex-con towing operator charged with threatening girlfriend with gun).

DeAvila-Silebi today said she was sentencing Bitzas to:

• 10 years for possession of an assault rifle, a weapon that she said is “illegal in New Jersey and has no purpose other than violent crime,” with no parole eligibility for five years;
• 18 months each on five of 4th-degree weapons possession convictions, with no parole eligibility;
• 18 months each on two convictions for having high-capacity ammunition magazines, also with no parole.

With concurrent terms for some of the sentences, the total to 13 years — which defense attorney Ron Bar-Nadav called “very heavy-handed.”

“I don’t think the [certain persons] law was fairly applied,” Bar-Nadav told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “He had a conviction over 20 years ago for simple possession of cocaine. That shouldn’t bar you from owning weapons for life.”

“He never used them, and there was no harm contemplated.”

Bar-Nadav said when Bitzas was on probation before, and he did very well. An old charge of burglary and theft, he said, arose from a dispute over a car he towed off the highway, at the direction of the driver, who subsequently refused to pay the fee. He took the vehicle to an impound yard, and six months later was arrested.

Bitzas declined the opportunity to speak.

Konstadin “Dean” Bitzas, defense attorney Ron Bar-Nadav, Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Vered Adoni (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)

FILE PHOTOS: Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Vered Adoni, defense attorney Ron Bar-Nadav, Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)

ONLY ON CVP: A 52-year-old Ridgewood woman who said her foot got stuck under the brake pedal drove her Lexus sedan through a closed door of her garage, out the back wall, through a neighbor’s yard and chain link fence, down the block and back into her driveway today.

The Walthery Avenue resident wasn’t injured in the late afternoon mishap, which brought village police, firefighters, EMS workers and a code inspector.

Freeing her foot, the woman turned the car around in her neighbor’s backyard and drove down their driveway to the street and back to her house.

She then dialed 911.

The vehicle sustained moderate to heavy front-end and undercarriage damage.

The code inspector deemed the garage structurally sound, despite the heavily damaged back wall.

Village police were investigating.

STORY/PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Correspondent Boyd A. Loving

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A maintenance worker at a private Englewood Jewish school who sold several stolen Ipads to a Saddle Brook pawnshop was nabbed moments later by an alert township detective and Garfield police officer before he could unload more, authorities said.

It began when Saddle Brook Detective Sgt. Thomas Johnson stopped a car being driven carelessly out of the Saddle Brook Center on Route 46 around 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Police Chief Robert Kugler told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.

Garfield Officers Marc Amos and Christopher Strabone backed him up, and they spotted several 16G I-Pads in the vehicle with covers from the Moriah School, Kugler said.

With the consent of the driver, identified as 31-year-old Christopher Gasser, the officers discovered 18 additional covers without iPads, he said.

They contacted Englewood police, who quickly found that the iPads had been stored but not recently used at the school.

The officers then went to Cash Converters, a pawn shop in the shopping center, where Kugler said Gasser sold four of the stolen iPads for $200.

Gasser was charged with receiving stolen property and released without bail pending a Municipal Court appearance this coming Tuesday and further investigation, the chief said.

The Moriah School, a Modern Orthodox school, says it educates nearly 900 students from preschool through 8th grade.

Englewood police were following up after learning that at least 40 more iPads and 20 or more Ipods were missing from the school.

UPDATE: A 23-year-old Cliffside Park man who killed a World War II veteran during a Fairview burglary can’t expect to taste freedom until he’s at least 70 after being sentenced for the break-in and murder yesterday in Hackensack.

Calling the crime “heinous,” Superior Court Judge Edward A. Jerejian sentenced Edwin Estrada to 60 years in prison — 52 of which he must serve before being eligible for parole — for killing Vincent Leuzzi. Estrada has four years and three months jail credit, which could reduce his time in prison to about 47¾ years.

Estrada smashed the retired 88-year-old mason and bricklayer in the head with a cooking pot in July 2010 after Leuzzi found him rummaging through is house for drug money.

Defense attorney John P. Pieroni, speaking with CLIFFVIEW PILOT afterward, called the sentence “greatly excessive” for a defendant who “has never been convicted of a crime, nor has a prior criminal record on any level — adult, juvenile, domestic violence — and who was 18 years old at the time.”

Pieroni said he will be appealing the sentence, the entire two-month trial and a judge’s rejection of a plea deal that preceded it. He said he will challenge evidence about Estrada’s upbringing, including allegations of sexual assault against him and his sister by their father, a convicted sex offender in Florida.

Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor John Higgins, who worked the case the entire four years, said: “I am grateful that this matter is finally closed for a wonderful, yet grieving, family.”

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STORY/FILE PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia

*      *      *      *      *      *

The victim’s stepdaughter, Filomena Mazzone, yesterday called Leuzzi “a simple yet remarkable man” who enjoyed music, growing his own vegetable and making his own wine.

He was “an American through and through” who served in the U.S. Army, became a naturalized citizen and “took pride in showing us all the buildings he helped to build throughout Bergen County,” she said.

Estrada broke into Leuzzi’s Jersey Avenue home to steal money for himself and the victims’s grandson. Both were drug addicts hoping to support their habits.

Leuzzi died nine days later of what a medical examiner said were eight to 12 blows to the head.

Estrada was arrested in New York City and originally charged in Hackensack with attempted murder and armed robbery. He made things easy for investigators by using Leuzzi’s credit card to buy clothing in Washington Heights, in a transaction captured on surveillance video.

The charges were upgraded to murder after Leuzzi’s death.

Pieroni told jurors during the trial that Estrada came from an abusive family, suffered from bi-polar and anti-social disorders, and first attempted suicide when he was eight. He’d been homeless for weeks and was strung out and hungry, said the lawyer, who blamed Leuzzi’s grandson.

Higgins, in turn, called the attack “extensive and particularly brutal” and Leuzzi “as vulnerable as anyone you will ever see.”

Estrada contended that he’d smoked PCP in Leuzzi’s bathroom, got paranoid and began hitting him with the pot while hearing “the devil” say “do it, do it” in his head.

A state psychiatric expert called by Higgins rejected the account.

After 10 months of negotiations, Estrada pleaded guilty in March 2013 to aggravated manslaughter in exchange for a 27-year prison term. But Presiding Superior Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi nixed the deal and scheduled a trial after family members called for the death penalty.

Jerejian, the sentencing judge, yesterday said Estrada “brutally, viciously and senselessly” bashed in the elderly man’s head after he’d “served his country and his family and was enjoing the simple things of life at that age.

“To invade someone’s home to steal, to rob and to kill is a heinous crime,” the judge said.

STORY/PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Correspondent Boyd A. Loving

ONLY ON CVP: A motorist was taken to the hospital after her car was broadsided on her side by a tow truck in Fair Lawn this morning.

Members of the Fair Lawn Heavy Rescue Squad freed the driver using the Jaws of Life after a flatbed from Classic Towing in Paterson struck her four-door Honda Accord at the corner of Broadway and 17th Street just after 10 a.m.

Fair Lawn EMS tended to the woman before she was taken to St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson with injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening.

Also responding were Fair Lawn and Elmwood Park police and paramedics from Hackensack University Medical Center.

Traffic on westbound Broadway was temporarily diverted onto side streets.

STORY/PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Correspondent Boyd A. Loving

UPDATE: A disbarred Englewood Cliffs lawyer serving federal prison time for health-care fraud got plea-bargained probation in state court in Hackensack yesterday for stealing $88,000 from his client.

“Judge, I’m an addict and I never got control of my addiction problem,” Jeffrey P. Squitieri told Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi.

“I lost everything,” he said, including “three beautiful children” who haven’t spoken to him in four years.

“I come from a family of attorneys and they have turned their backs on me,” Squitieri, 48, added. “None of them are here today.

Jeffrey P. Squitieri (STORY/PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia)

“I should have gotten help for my problems years ago, but I didn’t.”

He’s on the right path now, he said.

“The best thing that happened to me was going to [prison],” Squitieri told the judge, referring to a 30-month federal term imposed in December 2012, which he said has gotten him off drugs and taught him how to better cope.

Squitieri said he’s looking forward to “getting out, securing employment, maintaining my sobriety and restoring my relationship with my children.

“I want to make my children proud of me,” he said.

A grand jury in Hackensack indicted Squitieri in June on charges of siphoning $88,000 from a severely injured client’s $100,000 insurance settlement for his own use.

Squitieri was disbarred and sentenced in December 2012 in Manhattan to 30 months in federal prison after admitting that he filed a $1 million claim against the FBI for a man who he thought was a car accident victim. The man actually was an undercover agent working with a healthcare fraud task force.

Wearing a wire, the agent met with Squitieri and made repeated visits to a medical clinic and received unnecessary MRIs and medical treatments over a few months to boost the claim.

Meanwhile, in Bergen County, an investigation by prosecutor’s investigators found that Squitieri illegally diverted the tens of thousands of dollars in 2009.

The victim, Guillermo Henao, suffered a severe head injury and several broken bones when he was hit by a BMW in front of his Englewood apartment building that November 2009, records show.

While Henao was hospitalized and comatose, his 24-year-old son Victor signed his father’s name to the retainer agreement without authorization, according to a suit filed against the disbarred lawyer.

Around December 2009, with Henao recently out of his coma, Squitieri got the son to sign a release settling the case for $100,000 while falsely certifying that he saw Henao sign, records show.

Squitieri then allegedly kept $88,000 of the settlement proceeds, paying the other $12,000 to Care One of Wellington, where Henao spent a month in rehabilitation.

STORY/PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia

ONLY ON CVP: A former Westwood man taken into custody last week after he skipped his sentencing for punching a Hillsdale man and kicking his dog was expected to remain free following his release from jail.

Under a plea deal with prosecutors, 23-year-old Christian Sapp will be sentenced to time served and must pay the veterinarian bill for the dog’s injuries.

Westwood police arrested Sapp last Saturday on a warrant forwarded by the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office for not attending his originally scheduled sentencing on Sept. 12. He was freed following a brief court appearance on Friday after being held nearly a week.

Sapp punched the 34-year-old man and kicked his dog outside the Wendy’s Restaurant on Hillsdale Avenue and then fled on May 7, Hillsdale authorities said at the time.

Officer Alex Kaplan interviewed the victim and quickly pegged the 5-foot-5-inch, 155-pound Sapp, whose criminal record includes several random attacks. Records show charges dismissed in at least two of those cases.

STORY/PHOTO: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia

ONLY ON CVP: Three people were taken to Hackensack University Medical Center following a crash this afternoon in the turning lane from westbound Route 46 to Industrial Avenue in Teterboro.

Both vehicles had to be towed following the 1 p.m. collision.

The Moonachie First Aid and Rescue Squad responded, along with HUMC EMTs and Bergen County Police.

PUBLIC SAFETY: More than 100 police departments, sheriff’s offices and State Police barracks across New Jersey now have safe, anonymous receptables for disposed prescription drugs after the dedication of a Project Medicine Drop box at Teaneck police headquarters this morning.

“We are expanding Project Medicine Drop in response to an overwhelming demand from law enforcement agencies that want to engage directly with their communities in the fight against opiate abuse,” Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman said.

“We are seeing an equally strong and growing demand from New Jersey residents who understand the potential dangers posed by unused medications, and who wish to dispose of them safely and securely,” Hoffman said.

Since the launch of Project Medicine Drop three years ago, New Jerseyans have dropped off 18.3 tons — 36,533 pounds — of unwanted medications.

Of those, 48% were disposed of during the first eight months of this year.

So far in 2014, a total of 17,417 pounds have been safely discarded in NJ, compared with 12,216 pounds last year and 6,500 pounds in 2012.

“Project Medicine Drop gives New Jerseyans a safe and environmentally sound way to dispose of medications, and more and more residents are using it to get rid of their unneeded drugs,” Division of Consumer Affairs Acting Director Steve Lee said.

Bergen has 15 Project Medicine Drop locations, more than any other county in the state, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said (Ocean County is second, with 11; Monmouth has eight).

This is because of a “deep commitment” on the parts of the county Department of Health Service and Municipal Alliance Program, its Office of Alcohol and Drug Dependency, his office and police departments countywide to fight heroin and prescription drug abuse, he said.

“Direct engagement with the public is an important key to preventing and reducing the abuse and diversion of prescription drugs,” Teaneck Acting Police Chief Robert A. Carney said.

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BERGEN PROJECT MEDICINE DROP POLICE LOCATIONS:

Allendale PD / (201) 825-1900
Dumont PD / (201) 387-5000
Lodi PD / (973) 473-7600
Leonia PD / (201) 944-0800
Montvale PD / (201) 391-4600
Oakland PD / (201) 337-6171
Palisades Park PD / (201) 944-0900
Paramus PD / (201) 262-3400
Park Ridge PD / (201) 391-5400
Ridgefield PD / (201) 943-5210
River Vale PD / (201) 664-2346
Teaneck PD / (201)-837-2600
Tenafly PD / (201) 568-5100
Township of Washington PD / (201) 664-1140
Waldwick PD / (201) 652-5700

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The federal government in September gave authorized pharmacies, hospitals and other facilities the ability to accept unwanted medications for disposal, adding to the large number of law enforcement drop boxes. READ MORE…. 

Collections now continue round-the-clock at all police stations, as the number of boxes continues to grow.

Covanta Energy, a nationwide operator of energy-from-waste and renewable energy facilities, destroys the dropped-off medications from across New Jersey at no cost to taxpayers or to the participating police departments.

Before this, most people flushed their unused prescription drugs down the toilet, threw them in the trash, or kept them in the household medicine cabinet. This contaminated the water supply, helped start and feed habits — often for children — and tempted thieves.

“The medication can either be disposed of in its original container or can be removed from its container and placed in the disposal box,” Fair Lawn Police Sgt. Brian Metzler said. “Liquid products should be disposed of in its original container with the cap tightly sealed, to prevent leakage.”

The drop box method is “anonymous and made to protect anonymity,” Lyndhurst Capt. John Valente said. “No questions or requests for identification will be made.”

In fact, Valente said, you should “remove the prescription label if it contains any personal identifying information.”

New Jersey last year had nearly 6,700 admissions to state-licensed or certified substance abuse treatment programs due to prescription drug abuse, an increase of nearly 300% over the past decade.

According to the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, approximately 6.8 million Americans currently abuse pharmaceutical controlled substances – almost twice as much as the combined number of those who use cocaine, hallucinogens, heroin, and/or inhalants.

Nearly 110 Americans die every day from drug-related overdoses, and about half of those overdoses are related to opioids, a class of drug that includes prescription painkillers and heroin.

In addition, 22,134 Americans died in 2011 from overdoses of prescription medications, including 16,651 from narcotic painkillers, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The government warns that the majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet.

(The state Division of Consumer Affairs says it plans to install additional Project Medicine Drop boxes at participating agencies in the near future.)

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: One Garfield police officer chased off four men — two of them Polish nationals —  who were beating on two others and another stopped their car a short distance away, leading to arrests yesterday.

Both victims were hospitalized, one with facial fractures and the other requiring stitches, following the assault yesterday afternoon after a party at the Wisla Center, a Polish social center, Detective Capt. Darren Sucorowski told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.

Officer Sebastian Tyburski was at the corner of Main and Union as the party let out when a passerby alerted him to the brawl nearby, Sucorowski said.

Tyburski dashed two blocks and ordered the four to stop as they ran off, got into a black four-door Volvo with New York license plates and fled.

He then broadcast a decription of the vehicle and began rendering medical aid to the victims, the captain said.

Almost immediately afterward, Officer Radoslaw Kata spotted the Volvo as it headed north on Shaw Street toward Route 46 and stopped it at Mill Street.

Backup officers from Garfield and Elmwood Park arrived and helped take all four into custody.

Being held on $60,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with various counts of aggravated assault and obstruction, were:

Krzysztof Majewski, 38, of Garfield (above, left);
Andrzej Paszuda, 40, of Wallington (above, right);
Ryan Hoebel, 32, of Galloway, NJ;
Drew Logan, 40, of Newark, DE

MUGSHOTS: Courtesy BERGEN COUNTY SHERIFF

ONLY ON CVP: A back-seat passenger was taken to the Valley Hospital this afternoon after the car she was in crashed into a utility pole in Ridgewood.

No outages were reported as a result of the 12:30 p.m. crash at the intersection of Linwood and Jeffers avenues. The driver wasn’t injured.

The four-door Mercury sedan was removed by a flatbed tow truck.

Linwood Avenue was closed in both directions from Paramus Road to Jeffer Avenue for 90 minutes after the 12:30 p.m. crash.

Ridgewood police, firefighters and EMS workers responded. PSE&G stabilized the pole after the vehicle was removed.

STORY/PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Correspondent Boyd A. Loving

ONLY ON CVP: Both drivers were hospitalized following a crash in Wood-Ridge that sent one car barreling across a sidewalk, a lawn and into the stoop of a nearby garden apartment.

Witnesses told police the driver of a Toyota sedan pulled suddenly onto Hackensack Avenue from the post office and was slammed by a Toyota SUV around 5:45 p.m.

The SUV continued on, knocking down a lamp post and crashing into the apartment steps, Detective Joseph T. Rutigliano, Jr. told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.

Firefighters had to cut her from the car, he said.

Both she and the other female driver were taken to Hackensack University Medical Center, one by Moonachie First Aid & Rescue and the other by Wood-Ridge EMS.

Neither had injuries that were considered life-threatening, Rutigliano said. No one else was in either car, he said.

ONLY ON CVP: A Ford Escape slammed into an impact attenuator on Route 3 in Rutherford around noon, sending the SUV driver to the hospital.

None of the J. Fletcher Creamer crews working the Ridge Road bridge renovation project was injured in the left-lane crash.

The Escape was towed, while Creamer employees drove away the truck with the damaged attenuator.

Attenuators — more commonly known as crash or cowboy cushions — are designed to protect workers and reduce damage to structures in the event of a crash during a bridge or road project. They absorb the colliding vehicle’s energy.

STORY/PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Correspondent Bryce Simpson

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: They seemed like good Samaritans at first, but two sanitation workers from Paterson who found a wandering 4-year-old boy on a Ridgewood street and returned him and his grandmother’s wallet — with items missing — were arrested soon after, police said.

The youngster wandered off from the South Maple Avenue home Sunday afternoon, Police Chief John Ward told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.

After bringing him back, the men got back into their truck and left — but returned later that day.

Michael T. Jordan, 27, gave the woman back her wallet, which he said the boy had been carrying. He then requested a reward, Ward said.

Police arrested Jordan on charges of receiving stolen property after finding money, a driver’s license and a house key missing from the wallet, he said.

The man waiting in the car for him, 32-year-old Matthew McKnight was arrested, as well, after Officer Christopher Mormino found him under the influence of alcohol, driving with a suspended license, with an open alcohol container in the car.

Both were released pending Municipal Court dates and the vehicle was impounded.

Meanwhile, an investigation was continuing.

CLIFFVIEW PILOT Correspondent Boyd A. Loving contributed to this story

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A 10-week-old Palisades Park boy remained hospitalized with brain injuries that authorities said were caused by his mother.

The infant was in serious but stable condition at Hackensack University Medical Center this morning after suffering a seizure on Saturday, Palisades Park Police Chief Benjamin Ramos told CLIFFVIEW PILOT this morning

He has “bruising between the skull and brain and suffered from subdural hematomas and hemorrhaging,” the chief said.

The child’s panicked babysitter ran to the landlord, who dialed 911.

An ambulance then took the boy to the emergency room of Hackensack University Medical Center, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said.

After doctors examined the child, hospital authorities notified police.

A joint investigation with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office followed.

“The injuries appear to be non-accidental,” Ramos told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “They appear to have taken place over a period of time.

“The child had the seizure and was brought to the hospital — and that’s when we became aware of it.”

Mirna Balan Cusanero, a 24-year-old manicurist, was being held on $75,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with child endangerment and hindering.

Held on $10,000 bail was her brother, Marco Balan Cusanero, a car wash worker who authorities said “went along with her story” and was charged with hindering.

The INS has issued detainers on both for possible deportation proceedings. Both are Guatemalan nationals who speak no English.

Both Cusaneros live with another brother, Ramos said. The 19-year-old father, who moved out early this month, wasn’t involved, he said.

An investigation was continuing.

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Elmwood Police responding to residents’ complaints of neighborhood drug dealing arrested a borough woman and a Tenafly man and seized nearly two ounces of pot, 28 prescription pills and $2,000 in alleged proceeds following a traffic stop.

Undercover officers were watching the area around 8 o’clock last night when they spotted and stopped a car on Kipp Avenue driven by Nelson Quesada-Aristy, 23, Police Chief Michael Foligno said this morning.

They immediately noticed a strong odor of raw marijuana and turned up the pills, in a clear plastic bag, along with the pot and cash, he said.

The officers arrested both Quesada-Aristy and 19-year-old Blanca DeGregorio of Elmwood Park on various drug possession charges with the intent to distribute.

Both were released without bail pending court hearings.

ONLY ON CVP: South Hackensack police charged three Paterson men — one who calls himself “Murder” and wore a belt that hid a knife in the buckle — in separate undercover heroin buy-and-bust operations off Route 46 last night.

Arrested were:

Tymier Wells, aka “Murder,” 28 (above, left);
Quadir Richardson, 24 (middle);
Antrone Moody, 42, “aka” Destiny (right)

Moody was carrying 200 bags of heroin stamped with street name “I MISS YOU,” Police Capt. Robert Kaiser told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.

Wells and Richardson were each carrying 50 bags of heroin stamped “LEVELS” and “Magoo,” he said.

Wells also “was wearing a belt that had a buckle that comes out to a four-inch knife when you pull it apart,” the captain said.

Moody and Richardson were being held on $30,000 bail each in the Bergen County Jail, charged with drug possession with the intent to distribute it. Richardson also was charged with eluding.

Wells, meanwhile, was charged with possession of both heroin and the weapon. His bail was $40,000.

MUGSHOTS: Courtesy SOUTH HACKENSACK PD

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A Lodi police detective investigating the theft of a resident’s camera equipment in Newark set up a sting and arrested a Jersey City man earlier today, authorities said.

Detective Sgt. Justin Bertone arranged to “buy” the stolen items after the victim spotted them on Craigslist, Lt. Robert Salerno said this afternoon.

Bertone set up a meeting in Lodi, then arrested Raul Ovalles, 31, of Summit Avenue, on charges of receiving stolen property.

The victim got his property back and Ovalles was released pending a court hearing.

MUGSHOT: Courtesy LODI PD