EXCLUSIVE: Officials preparing for the 60th anniversary of St. Philip the Apostle Church in Saddle Brook this Sunday didn’t think much of a coat hanger they found sticking out of the poor box — until they saw a CLIFFVIEW PILOT story about a hanger-wielding thief arrested by Maywood police.
“We didn’t file a police report at first. We probably would have just totally ignored it,” St. Philip parishioner Raymond Abel told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “But after seeing your story, we’re investigating further.”
Church officials intend to review surveillance video to see whether they spot 36-year-old Rolando Giz, who was arrested by Maywood police after they said they caught him using a bent coat hanger to fish cash out of the donation box at Our Lady Queen of Peace Church in their town.
SEE: Maywood PD: Man caught fishing cash out of church collection box
Although he admitted to the Maywood theft, police said, Giz didn’t cop to any wrongdoing in Saddle Brook.
Abel, a retired 30-year veteran of the Port Authority at Newark Airport and a volunteer firefighter in town, says he’ll see about that.
“We gave our police chief a photo of the hanger,” he told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “Now we want to look at the videotape.”