Essex County Homeowner Attacks Landscaper With Hammer: Police

Police arrested an Essex County homeowner and charged her with aggravated assault after she allegedly attacked a 64-year-old landscaper with a hammer and screamed that she was going to kill him.

According to the Glen Ridge Police Department, the incident took place around 11 a.m. on Oct. 20, when Anne Podesta, 54, allegedly stormed out of her Ridgewood Avenue home wielding a hammer and attacked a local landscaper as he pushed a lawnmower across her grass.

Glen Ridge Lt. Fred Egnezzo told Patch that Podesta allegedly started to beat up the landscaper’s lawnmower and scream that she was “going to kill him.”

According to Egnezzo, Podesta had accused the landscaper of plantng dynamite in her house.

When officers arrived on the scene, Podesta reportedly fled back into the house and refused to come out until police made a forced entry into her home, Egnezzo said.

She was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and possession of a weapon, and was still in custody at the Essex County Jail as of Monday morning, Egnezzo said.

The Oct. 20 incident was not the Glen Ridge resident’s first unusual brush with the local police.

In May, the Glen Ridge Police Department charged her with criminal mischief after she allegedly climbed a backyard utility pole on Ridgewood Avenue and cut the phone lines leading to several nearby houses.

At least five households on Ridgewood and Forest avenues lost phone service during the incident, police reported.

File photo via flickr