NJ teens in bust admit to lying to police

Both pleaded guilty in criminal court in White River Junction on Monday to giving police false names.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20130402/NEWS02/704029920

New Jersey teens in bust admit to lying to police By ERIC FRANCIS CORRESPONDENT | April 02,2013 Rutland Herald New Jersey teenagers Daniel Morales, 17, center, and Rafael Jaquez, 18, seated right, both pleaded guilty in criminal court in White River Junction on Monday to giving police false names. WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A frantic phone call on Easter Sunday from a Springfield woman who told police she had been choked and a gun was placed against her head by gang members from New Jersey led to the arrest of two out-of-state teens, on minor charges. The initial call to dispatchers at 1 p.m. Sunday prompted a swarm of police cruisers from Springfield, Chester, Weathersfield and the Vermont State Police to respond to the apartment building at 1 Wall St., directly behind Springfield Town Hall. Trooper Jake Bloom said that when the first four arriving officers knocked and announced they were police, a 29-year-old woman opened the door and said she was alone in the apartment. As police began to look around they pulled a 31-year-old man out of a bathroom and “assisted him to the ground,” according to Bloom’s affidavit, which was filed in court. Moments later officers came upon two teenagers sitting in a back room with a large Ziplock bag containing .22-caliber bullets and a gun-cleaning kit on the table between them. “I ordered them to show me their hands and get on the ground,” Bloom wrote, adding that they were then handcuffed without incident. Bloom said both teens were evasive and mumbled their way through a variety of fictitious names and home states before they were taken down to the Springfield Police Department where their fingerprints were transmitted to the FBI Special Processing Department. The FBI identified the one suspect as New Jersey residents Daniel Morales, 17, of Jersey City, N.J., and Rafael Jaquez, 18, of North Bergen, N.J.. On Monday afternoon the pair appeared in at the Windsor County criminal court in downtown White River Junction where they each pleaded guilty to providing false information to a police officer, were given credit for the night they had spent in jail, and were ordered to pay fines totaling $256 each before they were released from the courthouse. Prosecutors said Monday that the original complaint lodged by the woman who called police and other circumstances surrounding the summoning of police to Wall Street on Sunday afternoon remain under investigation.