Atlantic City and Crime

Crime can travel to the Jersey Shore as recent violence shows
By JASON NARK
Philadelphia Daily News

ATLANTIC CITY and Wildwood are both neon-draped resorts where thrills and entertainment abound, where luck can change with the spin of a roulette wheel, and love can blossom on a Ferris wheel.

Last month, however, a supermarket manager from North Bergen and a college student from Edison were visiting the famous resorts and both died in sudden explosions of violence not far from those roulette and Ferris wheels.

Casino executives, police and elected officials up and down the Jersey Shore say the tragedies are a reminder that beaches and sunny skies do not equal paradise.

According to the 2008 UCR, Wildwood had 71 violent crimes - the most of any resort. Lower Township, in Cape May County, had 39 violent crimes, and Ocean City had 31. There were few violent crimes, if any, in smaller seaside towns such as Cape May, Avalon, Stone Harbor, and Longport.

Colton Finney, 19, a college student from Middlesex County, said he and his friends weren't naive about Wildwood when they booked rooms there last month while playing in a nearby golf tournament.

"We knew it had troubled areas, but we didn't go there. We all knew it could get bad and there could be fights sometimes," said Finney. "We were just walking up to the boardwalk, though."

Finney; Vincent DeSario, 19, of Edison, and another friend left the Bolero Motel on Atlantic Avenue to check out Wildwood's boardwalk. One of the three tripped over a curb on the way and Alberto Martinez, a homeless man, just happened to be riding by on his bicycle while the men laughed.

Martinez thought the teens were laughing at him and struck DeSario in the back of the head as hard as he could, Finney said.

"It was pretty bad right away," Finney said of his friend's injuries.

DeSario died on May 24 at a hospital in Atlantic City, and Martinez's aggravated-assault charges were upgraded to murder.

Meanwhile, authorities in Atlantic County were busy searching for Martin Caballero, 47, a supermarket manager from North Bergen who vanished from the Trump Taj Mahal on May 21. Caballero had come to Atlantic City to celebrate his daughter's 22nd birthday. After dropping his wife and daughters off, Caballero drove his beloved Lincoln MKS into the Taj's parking garage.

Following him were a lifelong criminal and his alleged accomplice. Authorities say Craig Arno, 44, of Atlantic City, and Jessica Kisby, 24, of Egg Harbor Township, had an altercation with Caballero in the garage. Surveillance cameras captured both cars leaving. Caballero's body was found Sunday on a farm in Hamilton Township, and Kisby and Arno are charged with murder.

Atlantic City, which has a year-round population of nearly 40,000 and all the crime problems associated with urban areas, is not counted as a resort municipality on the UCR. There were 671 violent crimes there in 2008, including 11 homicides.

Last May, Ray Kot, a shift manager at the Trump Taj Mahal, was shot to death inside the casino by a customer. In January 2009, an elderly man was beaten and robbed in the Taj's parking garage and an elderly couple was robbed and beaten at Caesars a month later.