Eastbound West Linwood Avenue was closed between Paramus Road and Route 17 while crews repaired the damage after the traffic signal police was struck about 2:45 p.m.

Traffic crawled through the area for nearly two hours as Paramus, Ridgewood and Bergen County police and electrical crews kept busy.

Also responding were Ridgewood Emergency Services personnel.

STORY / PHOTOS: Boyd A. Loving

Moonachie officers were called to the Valley National Bank branch on Moonachie Road just before 1 o’clock, the chief said.

Moments earlier, he said, 52-year-old Alan Biarsky tried to retrieve the bank card, which he apparently left in the ATM machine a short time earlier.

When a bank associate refused to hand over the card, Biarsky assaulted her, snatched the car and took off, the chief said.

Witnesses got his license plate number, though.

Moonachie Police Sgts. Rich Behrens and Sgt. Tom Schmidt and Detective James McNeice used bank records, information from the ATM card and witnesses’ statements to identify Biarsky as their suspect, Maguire said.

After discovering he worked in Carlstadt, they contacted police there, and together they made the arrest, he said.

Biarsky was released without bail pending a Municipal Court hearing on assault charges.

MUGSHOT: Courtesy MOONACHIE PD

Ramon Vargas, 41, of the Bronx hesitated a long while when asked to admit that a Derringer .22-caliber handgun found after the stop belonged to him.

Ater a prolonged discussion with defense attorney Alan Lippel, Vargas told Superior Court Judge Edward A. Jerejian that it was his.

Lippel hoped to convince Jerejian to rule that the Oct. 3, 2012 search of Vargas’s car, based on an officer’s suspicion that he might be trafficking drugs, wasn’t by the book.

But the judge cited several reasons police had to be suspicious, as well as the fact that Vargas — who already had a federal drug conspiracy conviction on his record — consented to the search that turned up the gun.

Vargas was stopped for erratically driving a car with illegally tinted windows, Jerejian noted. A computer check quickly showed that his license was suspended.
But that wasn’t all.

“You first told the officer you were driving to the Bronx to bring groceries to your mother,” Jerejian said. “Then you said you were there for a memorial service for your brother, who died in August.

“These observations, in the officer’s experience, indicated possible drug trafficking,” which the judge said can “support reasonable suspicion for asking for consent to search the vehicle.”

Other evidence included two pre-paid cellphones found on the passenger seat, a strong scent of air freshener and three unanswered phone calls within a short period of time during the search, Jerejian said.

Vargas had been free on $50,000 bail since his arrest. But Jerejian directed Bergen County Sheriff’s officers to take Vargas into custody, pending a Sept. 6 sentencing.

“He’s not going to remain at liberty,” the judge told Lippel, who sought bail pending an appeal. “That can be taken up with the Appellate Division, and if they deny the request you would serve your sentence while the appeal is going on.”

The plea deal makes Vargas eligible for parole after three years. Prosecutors also agreed to drop an additional charge of being a felon in possession of a weapon.

STORY / PHOTO: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter

Alex Rojas, 39, was arrested by detectives from Bergen County Prosecutor John R. Molinelli’s Special Victims Unit and North Arlington police after being contacted by the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency.

Rojas, who is single, is charged with second-degree sexual assault and child endangerment.

MUGSHOT: Courtesy BCPO

Officer Steven Shortway (above) was dispatched to a Bogert Avenue home around 9 a.m. after the homeowner called police and said she found the purported weapon in a bush in her front-yard garden.

Although the piece can’t fire real ammo, it apparently can shoot plastic pellets or other projectiles.

Shortway canvassed the neighborhood, found the owner and returned the toy.

Earlier today, NJ Transit police briefly held up light rail trains on the Hudson-Bergen line, although this mix-up was a bit different:

‘Assault rifle’ that delayed Hudson-Bergen light rail was umbrella, officials say

STORY / PHOTO: Boyd A. Loving

“Neighboring houses and businesses were evacuated as a precuation,” Tenafly Police Michael deMoncada told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “The ambulance squad gave the next-door neighbors a warm vehicle until they could return.”

The Piermont Road building sustained “minor to moderate” damage in the 10 a.m. fire, which was called in by an area resident and didn’t immediately appear suspicious, the captain said.

Investigators from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Arson Unit arrived shortly after noon to determine the cause.

Latz stores lawn seed, snow removal salt and pesticides, among other products, in the former car wash converted to a warehouse.

An adjacent Enterprise Rent-a-Car reopened soon after the firefighters left.

A local business owner on Willow Street alerted officers to a stolen 1994 Honda Accord left in the area with its steering column and ignition broken open, the chief said.

Reviewing video from several area cameras, Detective James McNeice watched the thief get out of the stolen car, wipe down the outside of the driver’s side door and toss the broken part of the steering column and a screwdriver into a garbage bin.

As it turned out, images were captured by other area cameras – all owned by Secure Watch 24, a security company specializing in video surveillance.

McNeice “tracked the suspect’s movements by going to area businesses and viewing their security footage, essentially following the suspect street by street as he entered Moonachie’s industrial area via Grand Street,” Maguire said.

Suspecting the thief worked in the area, Sgts. Tom Schmidt and Jeff Napolitano and Officer Victor Migliorino set up a stakeout yesterday morning.

Just after 7:20 a.m., they spotted and arrested 25-year-old Michael R. King of Linden on Grand Street.

King, who works at a business on West Commercial Avenue, was charged with receiving stolen property and possession of burglary tools. He was released on $5,000 bail pending a Municipal Court hearing.

MUGSHOT: Courtesy MOONACHIE PD

Responding firefighters and police found a car with an engine compartment fully ablaze in the South Broad Street lot, operated by City Wide Towing of Hawthorne..

At least three nearby vehicles also were damaged.

No injuries were reported in the blaze, which police were investigating.

STORY / PHOTO: Boyd A. Loving

A stretch of highway remained closed for the time being, after the water crested at more than two feet before receding.

PHOTO COURTESY: Box Alarm Productions Fire Ground Photography

U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Falk fined 47-year-old Leland Robinson $8,000 and his 51-year-old brother, Joseph Robinson Jr., $16,000.

A third brother, 42-year-old Rhondo Robinson — also of Englewood — has yet to be sentenced.

Joseph and Leland Robinson both pleaded guilty last year to federal complaints charging them with ducking federal income taxes from 2005 through 2008.

As part of their plea agreements, each agreed “to file true and accurate tax returns and to pay to the IRS all taxes and penalties owed,” U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said.

In addition, Falk considered charitable works done by the two, including helping 9/11 survivors, Hurricane Sandy first responders and others.

The Robinson trio were copyright administrators for the Englewood-based music label created by their parents in 1979. Sugar Hill rode high through 1986, with a slew of hits, from “Rapper’s Delight” to “The Message.”

Sugar Hill was responsible for the first hip hop crossover hit, 1979′s “Rapper’s Delight,” with its bass rip snatched from Chic’s big hit “Good Times.” For several years, the brothers were knee-deep in a battle with the Sugarhill Gang over rights to the band’s name.

A little over a year ago, a film about how Sylvia and Joe Robinson and the trio defrauded the group was released. In it, band members talk of how Joe Robinson Jr. took Master Gee’s stage name and used it in performance.

Fishman credited special agents with IRS-Criminal Investigation that led to the case, presented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Mack of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division.