Lure Of Crime Keeps Sucking In Ex-'America's Most Wanted' Fugitive

“... driven by the most instinctual form of survival, hunger, he committed his first crime: the theft of one can of tuna. Understand now, it wasn’t the item that plagued him; by comparison to his experience -- more so its necessity -- it barely registered. It was the act itself that created his apprehension, his fear. To him it signified his inability to live a proper life, creating doubt in his mind about the truth of his soul.” -- “Inabsentia,” by Angelo A. Grenci Jr.

Angelo Albert Grenci Jr. seems to be unable to take his own advice.

The 39-year-old who was once subject of an episode of “America’s Most Wanted” has spent the last few years trying to convince troubled youth to avoid the path that has landed him in jail multiple times. According to various social media postings he has lectured on the subject and part of the proceeds from a book he published go to a program to help provide mentoring and support to kids to keep them away from the temptations of the street.

But now Grenci is back in jail again. Less than six weeks after finishing up yet another sentence, Grenci has been arrested in connection with the robbery of TD Bank on Mule Road on Monday evening.

Toms River Police Department spokesman Ralph Stocco said the posting Monday night of surveillance photos from the robbery led to “a flood of information,” including a tip that he would be at the Friendly’s on Route 37 west on Tuesday morning, where Grenci ultimately was arrested.

Stocco said Grenci is accused of giving police a false name when they approached him at the restaurant, but ultimately he was arrested.

Grenci gained national attention in 2004, when he was profiled on an episode of “America’s Most Wanted.” In various social media postings and profiles, Grenci often references that -- though whether it’s pride or as a cautionary tale is hard to gauge.

His profiling on the show came about in the wake of an August 2002 fight at an apartment in Berkeley Township, where he and another man were accused of aggravated assault and burglary, according to a document summarizing the case.

According to those documents, Grenci and some friends, responding to a threat/dare issued by another man, forced their way into the man’s apartment. Once inside, Grenci and another man beat the man with empty beer bottles, then as he left, Grenci tried to run the man down with his car, but did not succeed.

Grenci was arrested, but between the time of his initial indictment on the charges in June 2003 and his trial in the case at the end of July 2003, he took off for Mexico, where he lived in the shadows. Grenci’s case went to trial without him and he was convicted in absentia of second-degree burglary, aggravated assault and simple assault and sentenced to 24 years in prison, 85 percent to be served without parole.

Grenci was profiled on “America’s Most Wanted” in May 2004, and captured in February 2005 in Mexico and extradited back to New Jersey, where he was sentenced to five years in prison for bail jumping, in addition to the previous sentence from the July 2003 trial. But he appealed the assault and burglary convictions, claiming he hadn’t been properly advised of changes in the charges against him. The state Supreme Court overturned the conviction in February 2009 and ordered a new trial, and Grenci subsequently pleaded guilty and was resentenced in August 2009, according to state Department of Corrections records.

It was while he was incarcerated that he wrote “Inabsentia,” which draws a gritty picture of his life on the run in Mexico, and began working to help steer kids away from a life of crime.

The book -- some of the proceeds of which go to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America -- offers not only a harsh look at the fugitive life, but also a glimpse of the internal battle Grenci faced, of the pull between a desire to stay away from crime and a self-justification of criminal activities on the basis of doing what he needed to survive.

In the book, published in 2010, and in postings on Facebook and Twitter, Grenci shows both that desire to convince kids to avoid his mistakes, and self-justification for what he has done.

In a December 2012 Facebook post to a page for The Street Doctor, a community activist, Grenci, who was released from state prison in September 2012, writes of going from being bullied as child, to being a bully, to “the bullies bully.”

“That, along with a myriad host of other ingredients seen me to serve 13 of the last 18 years in prison and to being featured on ‘America’s Most Wanted.’ Now, many lives later I am a youth advocate and speaker,” he said in the post, where he expressed a desire to work with The Street Doctor.

But the push-and-pull between wanting to do the right thing and slipping into self-preservation and self-justification show up on Facebook and Twitter repeatedly.

On a Twitter account he used briefly in April and May 2014, Grenci displays both sides in the span of just over a week, tweeting one day about helping someone who’s down on his luck, then tweeting about needing to take care of himself:

And according to state Department of Corrections records, it was not long after those tweets that Grenci found himself in trouble again: he was convicted of second-degree burglary and sentenced Aug. 26, 2014, to 399 days in prison. He was released from jail in that case in October 2014. Details on that case could not be immediately tracked down

Facebook postings in late March and early April 2015 resume the back-and-forth, from a quote from an unknown author:

“be careful of what you think, thoughts lead to actions, be careful of your actions they become who u are...”

to poetry Grenci apparently wrote:

in this life of mine

i’ve stared evil in the eye

so many countless times, still alive,

but never have i handed it my heart...

ill never forgive, ill never forget.

I guess even The puppet masters strings

get pulled from time to time, touche´

Three months after posting that poem, however, Grenci was again accused of burglary and assault, this time in connection with a July armed robbery in Barnegat Township where police say he and three others lured a man to a meeting spot in the middle of the night, robbed him and beat him with the handgun. The four were arrested after the victim followed them north into Berkeley Township, where he reported the crime and police were then able to arrest the group, according to a Patch report at the time.

A month later, Grenci was sentenced to another jail term, this time just 33 days, but it is unclear what crime that sentence is for. Department of Corrections records say only that it was for second-degree armed burglary and that he was incarcerated in Ocean County.

Grenci reportedly had not been out of jail long when, according to the charges filed against him Tuesday, he walked into the TD Bank on Mule Road, presented a note demanding cash to a teller, and then running out of the bank with an undetermined amount of cash, Stocco said. Grenci is being held in the Ocean County Jail, Toms River, in lieu of $110,000 bail, according to jail records.

Whether he is still trying to convince troubled youth to stay away from a life of crime is uncertain, but the last publicly visible Facebook post that he made, a May 2 share of a quote, leaves more questions than answers:

“When things are forbidden, we want them more. We revel in the ability to gain the unattainable. It reminds us how strong we are when we are determined.”

(Photos: Part of the cover of Grenci’s book, which is for sale on Amazon; Grenci’s Twitter profile photo, in which he’s wearing sunglasses not unlike those seen in the TD Bank robbery surveillance photo. Grenci’s arrest photo from Toms River police; A screenshot of his Facebook page posts in late March and early April.)