NORTH BERGEN — A legislative aide for an Essex County assemblywoman was arrested last week when a month long investigation that began with finding $700,000 and filed-down handguns in a North Bergen storage unit ended with an arrest. $100,000 was hidden in a fishtank, from which officers obtained fingerprints.
Middlesex County sheriff’s officers arrested Ekow Yankey, 33, of New Brunswick last weekend after North Bergen Police released a warrant. Yankey had worked as a legislative aide for Essex County Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker. Tucker has since terminated Yankey from payroll.
This warrant stemmed from a sequence of occurrences at the Extra Space Storage Facility on River Road near 83rd Street in North Bergen. A storage locker’s contract had expired, and after numerous written requests for the individual to vacate the storage unit or pay the bill, management cut the lock, said Capt. Robert Dowd.
Management found a gym bag, a fish tank and a wooden fish tank stand. Inside of the gym bag were two handguns that had their serial numbers defaced with what police believed to be a drill.
In the fish tank was $100,000, while hidden within the wooden stand was an additional $600,000.
Police were able to lift fingerprints from the fish tank. Dowd said that while Yankey allegedly rented the unit in a false name, the storage facility had fingerprinted him.
Both fingerprints brought up Yankey, along with his 1998 drug distribution conviction, police said.
For more on this story, read this weekend’s North Bergen Reporter, here at www.hudsonreporter.com.
Legislative aide busted by funky fish tank
