Crime News

A 40-year-old township man was sentenced on May 11 to more than 17 years in state prison after his convictions on seven counts of sexual crimes. Thomas Canales was sentenced by state Superior Court Judge Colleen Flynn, sitting in New Brunswick, to 17 1/2 years in state prison. He will have to serve 85 percent of 16 years of that …

Authorities are seeking the public’s help in locating the suspect in a May 8 stabbing in the Hempstead Drive area. Township police received a 9-1-1 call at about 9:57 p.m. of shots fired in the area, according to a press release from the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office. Responding police found a 28-year-old New Brunswick man lying on the ground outside …

The front of township police headquarters was once again the starting point for several hundred law enforcement officers who set off on the 2018 Police Unity Tour early in the morning of May 10. The tour is a bike ride from various starting points across the country with the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C. as its goal. …

A 41-year-old township woman was injured May 5 after her car was hit by another at John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Hamilton Street. Franklin Township Police Lt. Phil Rizzo said a 2016 Honda Pilot driven by Daisy Outram was turning left from Hamilton to JFK at about 11:05 a.m. when it was struck by a 2018 Jeep Wrangler driven by …

A township man is the latest of four Franklin residents to plead guilty to a charge of operating or participating in a multi-county cocaine distribution ring. Michael “Augue” Rodriguez, 40, of Somerset pleaded guilty on April 30 to a first degree count of being the leader of a narcotics trafficking network, according to a press release from the Middlesex County …

Six township residents were among 58 people throughout Somerset County arrested April 17-19 in a deadbeat parent sweep by the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office. The six, who were arrested on each of the three days of the sweep, owed a combined $110,678.16, about 10 percent of the total $1,075,285.97 owed by the parents arrested. One resident, Omar Taylor, 35, owed …

Approximately $3,200 in jewelry was stolen from a resident of The Park at Franklin apartments in one of two break-ins on April 5, police said. Both apartments in the John F. Kennedy Boulevard complex were entered by someone forcing open the front doors, Franklin Township Police spokesman Lt. Phil Rizzo said. The break-in in which the jewelry was stolen was …

Franklin Township and three other Somerset County towns reported one bias incident each in 2016, according to a report released by the state Attorney General’s Office. That was a reduction from the two bias crimes reported in Franklin in 2015, according to the report, which was released on March 27. The four bias crimes recorded in Somerset County in 2016 …

            All photos, Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office. A month-long joint-agency investigation resulted earlier this month in the seizure of more than $4,000 worth of illegal narcotics and the arrests of three people charged with distributing drugs in the township and New Brunswick. The detainees stated that all drug purchases were made on the darknet website …

A 17-year-old township youth faces weapon and narcotics charges after he was found with a loaded handgun and drug paraphernalia in Franklin Middle school. The youth was part of the school district’s “Road to Success” alternative high school program, which is run out of the middle school. The program is geared to help those students having difficulty in high school …