If you’re going to conspicuously ride on a motorcycle without helmets, you might want to make sure that motorcycle isn’t hot. But for two Newark residents, their brazen decision to ride around on a stolen bike, helmetless, has landed them both behind bars, Det. Sgt. Mike Gontarczuk, the Kearny Police Department’s public-information officer, said.
According to Gontarczuk:
On Feb. 4, shortly before 6 p.m., Lt. Jay Ward and Officer John Fearon, assigned to plain clothes patrol, were on Passaic Avenue when they observed a motorcycle with two occupants. Neither had a helmet on and the license place came back as fictitious. Ward and Fearon stopped the motorcycle and the riders were identified as Ismael Gonzalez, 45, of Newark, who was driving and Wendy M. Cerret, 44, of Newark, a passenger.
Since the license plate was fictitious, the vehicle identification number (VIN) was checked. Officers learned the motorcycle was reported stolen in Jersey City.
Both riders were arrested.
Marijuana and fireball whiskey was found during the search incident to arrest; however, the occupants did not appear too impaired to drive.
The motorcycle was towed so it could be returned to its owner.
Gonzalez was found to have a $500 warrant issued by East Orange (however, NJ no longer allows arrest for such warrants so a new court date was provided). He was charged with receiving stolen property, driving with a suspended license, riding without a helmet, driving without a license, driving without insurance coverage and utilizing a fictitious license place.
Cerret was found to have a $5,000 warrant issued by Newark and was also charged with receiving stolen property and riding without a helmet.
Both were sent to the Hudson County Jail, South Kearny, where the remain as of publication.
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Meanwhile, a few weeks earlier, the alertness of a Kearny crossing guard led to police getting someone who should not have been behind the wheel off the streets after determining the man was drunk, Gontarczuk said.
On Jan. 22, at approximately 11:12 a.m., Sgt. Mat Lopez, and Officers Christian Medina, Angel Martinez and Damian Kolodziej responded to the area of Stewart Avenue and Elm Street, where a crossing guard told then an intoxicated male who they observed drinking and was now asleep at the wheel of a vehicle.
Naturally, this posed a dangerous situation with school in session.
Officers found a man slumped over in a Honda CRV, with the engine running. They woke him and observed signs of intoxication and multiple bottles of vodka. When the man exited the vehicle, he had trouble standing up. After SFST were conducted by Officer Medina, Ervin Cuntacen, 42, of West New York was arrested and his vehicle was towed.
Airplane bottles of Smirnoff vodka were found in his pockets.
Once at KPDHQ, Cuntacen refused to provide samples of his breath, as required by law. As such, he was ultimately charged with DWI, refusal to submit samples, DWI within 1,000ft of a school, after which he was released to a friend.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, an organization he has served since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and X, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to Kearny to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.