Man found on stoop probably died of a heart attack
The Hoboken Police Department is investigating the death of an elderly man who was found on the front steps of a Bloomfield Street building Monday morning, Chief Anthony Falco Sr. said on Tuesday. (The death is not related to the ongoing search for a missing man, 27-year-old Andrew Jarzyk, who disappeared in the wee hours of Sunday morning after drinking at a local supper club with friends. See cover story.)
By Wednesday, police had ruled out foul play. The cause of death was ruled a probable heart attack, said Sgt. Anthony Falco Jr., noting the man was in a seated position when he was found.
The dead man’s identity is being withheld at the request of his family, who live in Hoboken. A medical examiner’s report is forthcoming.
He was found on the stoop of 419 Bloomfield St. Monday morning, said a Hoboken resident who witnessed the scene. Earlier that morning, police had been called to that same man’s home on the 800-block of Bloomfield after residents complained of noise, according to a police report.
The man was unconscious and unresponsive when he was found, but it isn’t clear whether he was pronounced dead by an ambulance crew on the scene or a medical examiner.
The Hoboken Police and Fire Departments were on the scene by 8:30 a.m., the witness said, and a sheet was placed over the body. A spokesman for the Hudson County Prosecutor’s office said that his office was not involved because there is no homicide investigation underway.
Couple locked in Rite Aid hit with multiple drug charges
Two Hoboken residents who apparently were left locked in an uptown convenience store Wednesday morning were charged with multiple drug offenses after they were allegedly found with marijuana and crack cocaine, according to a police report.
Itandegui Perez, 27, and Roxanne Uchino-Malecki, 20, both of Hoboken, were charged with possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession within 500 feet of a park, and trespassing. Uchino-Malecki was also charged with aggravated assault of a police officer.
The pair was discovered early on Wednesday morning after the manager of the Shipyard Lane Rite Aid called police because he thought he saw movement inside when he approached the store just before 1 a.m. Police arrived and searched the scene with guns drawn. Perez and Uchino-Malecki revealed themselves once officers shouted that K-9 dogs would be called, the report said.
According to a police report, Perez and Uchino-Malecki told the officers that they’d been shopping in the store earlier that evening but that when they went to pay, they realized the store had been closed. They told the officers that they had no cell phones to contact police, the report said.
As police were questioning the couple, said the report, officers began to note an odor of marijuana emanating from their persons. The couple initially did not confirm or deny being in possession of illicit substances, but when another officer arrived and asked the same question, Perez revealed he allegedly had a blunt in his pocket, according to the report.
Uchino-Malecki then revealed that she also allegedly had marijuana, apparently glancing at her nearby bag while saying it, the report said. A search of the bag revealed two bags of marijuana, two herb vaporizers, a pack of rolling paper, a “one hitter” pipe, and a grinder. Additionally, a Ziploc bag allegedly containing crack cocaine was also discovered.
Back at police headquarters, Uchino-Malecki repeatedly asked to use the bathroom and when she was granted permission, asked to retrieve a tampon from her bag, police said. But when a police officer could not locate the tampon and allowed Uchino-Malecki to look for it herself, she grabbed something else instead, fell to the ground, and attempted to swallow it.
When she was placed in handcuffs and refused to spit out the object, which the police suspected was narcotics, a police officer stuck his finger in her mouth. Uchino-Malecki proceeded to allegedly bite the officer’s finger, and she was thus charged with assault on a police officer. She was subsequently transported to Hoboken University Medical Center due to concerns that she may have swallowed unknown amounts of a narcotic.
‘Career criminal’ charged in 2003 apartment heist
Almost 10 years after he allegedly committed the crime, a Hoboken man with a long criminal history was charged with burglary and theft of moveable property last week after state police successfully identified a fingerprint taken from a decade-old crime scene on Second Street, according to a police report.
Robert Marcus Hernandez, 26, was charged with the theft of $2,500 in personal items from a street-level Second Street apartment in June of 2003. The statute of limitations on the crime is not exhausted, police said, because in cases involving fingerprints, the statute does not begin until the fingerprint is identified.
The fingerprint, the report said, was lifted from the air conditioner unit that was removed in order to gain access to the apartment. The intruder was never caught.
The police report noted that Hernandez is well-known in the Hoboken Police Department. According to the report, he has been arrested for burglary and drug-related crimes on over 13 occasions and has been convicted of a felony on eight occasions.