HOBOKEN AND BEYOND — Hoboken police said on Thursday that they had nabbed a man with a record as a sex offender and violent kidnapper on Tuesday in Pier A Park on the waterfront.
According to a police report, around 9 p.m. on Tuesday, four officers went to Pier A Park to locate a man whom they had been told was wanted for a parole violation. They found the man “on a blanket on the grass [who] appeared to be getting ready to go to sleep,” according to the report.
The man said his name was Samuel Perez, 38, and he produced a Puerto Rico identification, according to the police report.
The man said he had arrived in Hoboken from Atlantic City the previous day, and had been “trying” to stay at the Hoboken homeless shelter, according to the report. He also said that he was “attempting” to go to New York so he could get transportation to Seattle, Wash., where he was preparing to move.
Police did a background check and determined that the man was a sex offender who was required by law to register. Police asked if he had registered, to which the man replied that he was registered in Atlantic City, according to the report. The man also presented paperwork stating he had been granted a change of address from Atlantic City to a location in Seattle. But the document was dated July 8. Based on that information and the fact that Perez allegedly said he had been in Hoboken for at least two days, police arrested him on a charge of failure to register as a sex offender.
Police said that after arresting him, they discovered a Western Union receipt on Perez that was dated July 22, showing that the money was picked up in Hoboken, meaning he had been in town at least since then.
Then, according to Police Sgt. Anthony Falco, police learned that there apparently were more troubling incidents in his past.
“Through further investigation it was determined that he [allegedly] had an extensive violent criminal history in the state of Florida,” Falco noted in an e-mail on Thursday with the report, “which included [alleged] aggravated kidnapping, false imprisonment and carnal intercourse, which constitutes having intercourse with an unmarried and underage female according to Florida State Statute and is a second degree felony in Florida. He also had several violations of probation and was also charged with failing to register as a sexual offender in Florida during the year of 2007.”
“The diligence of the Anti-Vice Squad paid off by putting a[n alleged] violent person back behind bars,” Falco said, “and possibly thwarting a sexual/violent attack on an innocent Hoboken citizen.”