Even As COVID Hit, These Crimes Shook NJ Communities In 2020

NEW JERSEY — Even as crime dropped when many New Jerseyans huddled in their homes amid the COVID crisis, a number of heinous criminal acts still occurred in New Jersey this year.

Some of them may have even been linked to the pandemic, such as child sex predators who used the allegedly lockdowns as an opportunity to find more children online.

In April, police said a Jersey City man killed his pregnant wife after they had just opened an Indian restaurant in downtown Jersey City, one they were forced to close when the lockdowns started in March.

And since July, Middlesex County has been reeling from the tragedy of a federal judge's son who was shot to death in their home, by a lawyer who police say was angered with her verdict on certain cases.

In this year of upheaval, crimes dropped nationally this year compared to 2019, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, considered the gold standard in national crime tracking. Violent crime overall also dropped 4.8 percent in the Northeast during the first six months of the pandemic.

But the lockdowns did little to protect a federal judge's son, a Jersey City woman and a Cresskill mother, officials say.

Here were some of the most shocking, and tragic incidents that happened New Jersey in 2020

Tragedy at federal judge's North Brunswick home

The entire state was rattled when, in the middle of summer, a man who described himself as an "anti-feminist lawyer" stalked US federal judge Esther Salas and showed up on the front doorstep of her North Brunswick home, officials said.

The lawyer, identified by the FBI as Roy Den Hollander, posed as a deliveryman and fired a bullet spray in the foyer when her husband opened it. Salas was in the basement at the time of the shooting.

Tragically, the couple's son, 20, their only child and a graduate of St. Joe's prep school in Metuchen, was killed in the gunfire; he had been standing in the foyer with his father, police said.

Her husband was badly injured.

Hollander, who described himself as an "anti-feminist lawyer," had several lawsuits before Salas and was angered by how she ruled on them. He also said she only got to her position as a judge because she was a woman, and because of her Hispanic ethnicity.

Read more: Suspect In Fatal Shooting Of Judge's Son In NJ Is Dead

The tragedy sparked Salas to request more Internet privacy for federal judges. In November, Gov. Phil Murphy signed Daniel’s Law, named after their son.

The law prohibits the publication of home addresses and phone numbers for any active or retired judge, prosecutor, or law enforcement officer. It took effect immediately.

Hollander killed himself at an upstate New York campground shortly after the killing, officials said.

Arson at Bound Brook apartment building

At first, officials were bewildered as to what caused a massive seven-alarm fire to tear through the under-construction Meridia II apartment complex in downtown Bound Brook.

The smoke was first noticed shortly before 8 p.m. that Sunday night, and the fire grew so big that flames leapt across the street to another apartment building and spread to two buildings on either side, officials said.

Clean-up was so extensive that Bound Brook schools had a two-hour late start the next day.

Read more: 7-Alarm Fire Rages In Bound Brook: Video

Within days, it was learned that a local man, Juan Hector Padilla, 28, set the fire, said police. Video surveillance from nearby businesses showed Padilla walking in the area of the Meridia II on East Main Street several times leading up to the inferno. He had no connection whatsoever to the Meridia project.

The fire was particularly devastating as Bound Brook's downtown area was just getting back on its feet following years of hurricanes and other storms that left the town flooded.

However, Bound Brook Mayor Bob Fazen vowed Meridia II's developers will rebuild — after they had to demolish the entire apartment complex to the ground.

Stephanie Parze's body found

This was a tragic story of a promising young woman who police say was killed by her boyfriend.

Stephanie Parze, 25, first went missing from her family's Freehold Township home on Oct. 30.
A month later, on Nov. 22 her boyfriend John Ozbilgen, 29, was found dead by hanging at his parents' home, after he had been arrested on a child pornography charge.

He left multiple suicide notes behind that confirmed police's suspicions that he killed Parze, said the Monmouth County Prosecutor.

But her body had still not been found. The search by "Steph's Angels" went on for three months and her body was found Jan. 26 in a wooded area along Rt. 9 in Old Bridge by two teenagers, prosecutors said.

Read more: 'Look At The Mess I Created:' Parze Ex-Boyfriend's Suicide Notes

The Parze family has said it plans to create the Stephanie Parze Foundation to help raise awareness of domestic violence and help women trying to escape it.

Jersey City murder of Garima Kothari and suicide of her husband

Garima Kothari, 35, an acclaimed chef, was found brutally stabbed to death inside her Jersey City apartment that Sunday morning, prosecutor said.

That same morning, the body of her husband, Man Mohan Mall, was found, floating in the Hudson River near Exchange Place. It is thought that he killed his wife and then killed himself in a murder-suicide, said Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez.

Tragically, Kothari was approximately five months pregnant at the time.

The pair had owned Nukkad, a relatively new Indian restaurant in the city's busy financial district near the Jersey City waterfront. The restaurant, which aimed to serve "Indian soul food," had just opened in September and was forced to shut down in the lockdowns.

Read more: Slain Jersey City Restaurateur Was 5 Months Pregnant

On April 15, Kothari posted on Instagram that the restaurant closed for two weeks to sanitize. She then posted that customers could order meal kits and that she was donating food to doctors and nurses at Jersey City Medical Center.

Just eight days before she was killed, Kothari posted that she just reopened the restaurant and encouraged the community to support her. Her husband worked as investment banker with Deutsche Bank.

Cresskill mom murdered, her body dumped in Overpeck County Park

Shortly after midnight on June 15th, police were horrified to find the body of missing Cresskill mom Divna Rosasco, covered in a bed sheet and partially submerged in a lake at Overpeck County Park in Teaneck, police said.

She had been stabbed to death. A plastic bag had been wrapped around her head, and her body was weighed down by cinder blocks. Rosasco's unoccupied car was parked nearby, police said.

A young man from Lodi, Nicolas Coirazza, 19, was later charged with her murder. Police say he stabbed the woman to death and then enlisted the help of her 14-year-old daughter to dump her body in the lake.

Coirazza and the 14-year-old girl were stopped by police after being seen leaving a hotel near the park in an Uber; from there they were taken into questioning. Only he was charged with the murder.

Read more: Lodi Man Charged With Murder Of Woman Found At Teaneck Park

Rosasco's husband created this GoFundMe for his wife, who he called "the love of my life."

Operation Screen Capture

The COVID-19 pandemic — which shut down schools and led to children spending more time than ever on their laptops, phones and gaming consoles — led to a marked increase in online predators sexually preying on children and teens, state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said.

In fact, March through July of this year saw as much as a 50 percent increase in tips to New Jersey's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force compared to the same time period in 2019, said Grewal.

That's why the State Police initiated "Operation Screen Capture," where they arrested 21 people — 20 men and one woman — who targeted children online during the lockdown. Those arrested were from 10 New Jersey counties: Bergen, Burlington, Camden, Essex, Gloucester, Mercer, Monmouth, Middlesex, Ocean and Sussex.

Read more: 21 Arrested In NJ Statewide COVID-Crisis-Related Child Porn Bust

It included Jason Berry, 40, of Keansburg, whom police say met a 14-year-old Louisiana girl on Snapchat and manipulated her into sending him naked pictures of herself in sex acts. Police said he also directed the girl to carve his initials into her legs.