Federal sweep nets 74 Camden fugitives
One man was wanted since 1986 for a sexual assault in Camden. Another had killed someone outside an apartment complex in the city in 2015, authorities said.
One man was wanted since 1986 for a sexual assault in Camden.
Another had killed someone outside an apartment complex in the city in 2015, authorities said.
A third was wanted for kidnapping.
They were among 74 fugitives from Camden - who included accused killers, sex offenders, gang members, and other suspects - arrested as part of a six-week nationwide sweep by the U.S. Marshals Service.
The operation, in its second year, netted more than 8,000 wanted criminals between Feb. 1 and March 11. Authorities put heavier focus, however, on 12 high-crime cities, including Camden, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Gary, Ind.
"The city of Camden and other communities will not be a safe haven for those charged with such violent crimes," Juan Mattos, U.S. marshal for the District of New Jersey, said in a statement Wednesday.
Federal investigators sifted through old warrants from the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and Police Department to determine whom to go after.
One of the suspects, Juan Pagan, 67, came up in a warrant from 1986, when he was accused of sexually assaulting a person at gunpoint in Camden.
Pagan, federal authorities discovered, had used multiple aliases - and the Social Security number of a dead person - to hide from authorities, traveling as far as Illinois and Michigan, the U.S. marshals said.
He was arrested in Bellmawr, where he was residing under the alias Julio Figueroa and continued to insist that was his name, authorities said.
Pagan was charged with aggravated sexual assault with a weapon, and aggravated sexual assault by force.
Dave Taurino, supervisory inspector for the U.S. Marshals Service's New York and New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, said Pagan was shocked to see investigators at his door after 30 years on the run.
"Those are the kind of cases that we love, where the victim gets closure finally after all these years," Taurino said.
Another suspect, Luis Torres, 30, of Camden, kidnapped a man in Camden last Dec. 26, stabbed him in a car, and then stole his money and left him on a road, the U.S. marshals said. The victim survived the incident, which occurred in the 2000 block of Federal Street.
Torres was charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault, and robbery.
Another suspect, Armando Perez, 19, of Camden, had been wanted in the fatal shooting of Jose Alvarez, 35, outside the All American Gardens apartment complex on the 1900 block of Phillips Street in Camden in September.
Perez, a member of the "Sex Money Murder" gang, was charged with murder, authorities said.
Perez, Torres, and Pagan remained Wednesday in the Camden County Jail on bail of $1.1 million for Perez, $350,000 for Torres, and $300,000 for Pagan.
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