Category: SOUTH JERSEY

Research Scientists Wish They Had More Brains

Mysteries of the Mind Part 1, Wanted: Your Brain

By

Jeff Stoffer

DEC 17, 2019

American Legion Magazine

Research scientists in Boston wish they had more brains.

One they can expect is that of a former Harvard University football player who wants to know,

preferably before he dies, exactly what happened inside his skull after he was kicked in the head during a professional wrestling match in 2003.

A brain the researchers have already examined came from a Navy Special Warfare veteran who lost his battle with head injuries in September 2018, to suicide.

The scientists, the former athlete and the surviving wife of the 25-year retired Navy chief are making the same uneasy ask. They want anyone who is willing to donate that most complex and mysterious of organs, regardless of its condition or how it functioned during life, so more can be learned to prevent and treat brain injury and disease. While their primary targets are former football players and military veterans, they

will take –

and need

– all the brains they can get because the more they have, the more can be learned to improve chances to save lives in the future.

“It’s not like a normal organ donation, which doesn’t include the brain,” says Nicole Condrey of Middletown, Ohio, who endured her husband’s downward churn through a three-year storm of traumatic brain injury issues – depression, anger, impulsiveness, withdrawal, suicidality – until he shot himself in the chest while holding her hand, in their RV, their service dog nearby, a week before they were supposed to close on their first home together.

Hours after his death, Nicole got a call from former Navy SEAL and author Jason Redman, who asked, on behalf of the Concussion Legacy Foundation (CLF), if she would donate her husband’s brain. “I said, ‘Absolutely. We need to get his brain in.’

“The (CLF) is working to raise awareness that you can pledge to donate your brain separately through

projectenlist.org

. They don’t just need veterans’ brains. They don’t just need athletes’ brains, because in science you need a baseline. They need anybody’s brain. I have pledged to donate my brain to science when I die. You have to tell your family and your loved ones. Ultimately, the next of kin are the ones who have to make that decision … I do know that they do not collect early.”

The CLF was co-founded in 2007 by Chris Nowinski, who played football in high school and four years at Harvard as a defensive tackle before he entered the WWE arena as “Chris Harvard,” a chiseled 270-pound, 6-foot-5 competitor who typically wore an H letter jacket as part of his shtick. Three years of training, heavy travel and regular blows to the head ended his career on the circuit a few weeks after a kick from “Bubba Ray Dudley” put him on his back in Hartford, Conn. “Something was wrong with my vision,” he later wrote of that moment. “I didn’t know where I was, what was happening around me, or why I was staring up at fuzzy-looking lights on the distant ceiling of a gigantic arena – I only knew that something was terribly wrong.”

He wrestled a few more times following that, battling painfully through whatever was suddenly wrong with his head, until it was obvious he could not continue. At that point, he set his rewired mind to a better understanding of concussions and their effects. His 2006 book “Head Games” is now in its third edition and was the subject of a documentary that explored the effects of concussions among football players, which made headlines in

The New York Times

, led to congressional hearings and influenced changes in the game.

“I was fearless,” says Nowinski, who now has a Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience. “When I give lectures on neuroscience, I show how crazy I was with my own brain. I let people hit me in the head with chairs and objects. The head butt was my move in football. I have two bad shoulders, so I hit you with my head. I did things that I regret.”

He regrets them now but had no idea at the time that multiple blows to the head had probably damaged his tau – a protein that holds certain brain cells together so they can deliver messages that affect executive functions, mood, vision, sleep and other operations among a mind-boggling list of tau-assisted responsibilities. He had no idea then, nor is he sure now, that he was confronting the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which cannot yet be detected among the living. Its presence can only be confirmed through laboratory examination of a sufferer’s brain tissue.

Identification of CTE before death is one goal of the Concussion Legacy Foundation and pioneering neuropathologist Ann McKee of VA and Boston University, who runs the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank at the Jamaica Plain campus of the VA Boston Healthcare System. The bank opened 25 years ago as a two-person lab at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital – the Bedford, Mass., VA medical center – and studied donated brains to seek answers about such conditions as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Over the past decade, largely due to Nowinski’s persistence, the brain bank has evolved, grown and captured national attention. The brains of former National Football League (NFL) players who suffered severe and often deadly effects of post-concussive syndrome following their careers have been examined, one after another, by McKee and her team. The program has grown to four neuropathologists, four technicians and 20 other staff members, supported by VA. They now have more than 1,100 donated brains in the bank, which are studied for multiple conditions.

In most cases, especially early, the growing number of football player brains came after Nowinski cold-called families to make the uneasy ask. As NFL families agreed to have their loved ones’ brains studied, evidence mounted. Four of the first four had CTE. Now, out of 111 former NFL players’ brains studied by McKee, CTE has been identified in 110. Among them was the high-profile case of former New England Patriots star tight end Aaron Hernandez, who in 2017 died by suicide in a jail cell at 27 following a highly publicized murder conviction and a string of irrational acts. “I was stunned that Aaron Hernandez had so much disease,” McKee said. “For some reason, you think it’s not going to happen. And then it does.”

Traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder have been called the “signature wounds” among post-9/11 veterans. Blasts from improvised explosive devices, crashes, falls and other blows to the head have come with the territory of training and fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ron Condrey did not have any one major head injury, his wife explains, but he sustained multiple concussive events over the years, perhaps 20 in all.

“He had a motorcycle accident during his Navy training,” Nicole says. “I think that was the start to a lot of things. After that, he fell down a mountain in Afghanistan on some mission. He had a Humvee roll over. He had a helicopter crash. As an EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) tech, you’re around explosives. Repeatedly, over and over throughout his career. Big ones. Small ones. You have one (concussion) and then the next one compounds itself, and then the next one and the next one. Individually, he might have been OK had he only had one.”

A Notre Dame-educated electrical engineer, Nicole had been a civilian IED countermeasures analyst for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. Ron, who had been committed to the Navy since 17, was a beloved combat leader and highly trained paratrooper. Their paths never crossed in theater, but they found each other in 2013 when she was trying to get her initial skydiving license in Suffolk, Va. He was an experienced trainer, and they soon discovered they had more than jumping out of airplanes as a common interest. “We both kind of dealt with IEDs in different ways, but we never met each other until later. When we did, we had a lot of similar connections.”

Ron had been jumping for more than 15 years, and pushed Nicole to keep training and working to become a master skydiver. “I was his apprentice, you might say,” she says.

They loved extreme outdoor recreation, and each other. By the time they married July 30, 2015, however, Ron had already shown signs of brain injury, including a suicide attempt earlier that year. “It was a pretty bad one. His buddies came and said, ‘Hey, we need to get him help.’ I’d been trying to get them to understand for a while that there was something going on with his brain. It took a suicide attempt. He was still in the Navy at the time. They said, ‘Yeah, we should intervene.’”

He enrolled in DoD treatment programs in Portsmouth, Va., and Bethesda, Md. Nicole accompanied him to appointments in the early months of their marriage. Soon, it was clear he needed to get out of the Navy, perhaps with a medical discharge, but he had enough years to retire in May 2017.

By that time, she explained, his condition was plummeting. “It was like a roller coaster. I’m sure anyone who has been a caregiver, or a spouse or a loved one – someone going through this – could tell you the same story. One day, he could be doing really great and the next day just in the dumps. Or one hour doing great and the next hour not.”

That’s when they were given Via, a trained service dog. “Ron really liked a lot of the Latin words that are used in the military,” Nicole says of her name. “Via directly translates to ‘road’ or ‘street.’ But it can also have the meaning of journey or path. So we picked that name because she was an important part of Ron’s journey.”

Initially diagnosed with major depressive disorder, “which stems directly from the traumatic brain injuries and the post-traumatic stress,” she explains, Ron’s condition was later characterized by VA as PTSD with some TBI, and he was given a 100 percent disability rating. “Lots of different meds,” she recalls. “And the meds make you gain weight. For a warrior to gain weight, it’s a sign of weakness. He felt even worse, and his view of himself went down the tube even more.”

She says he tried prolonged exposure treatment, but that wasn’t effective because Ron had no single triggering event. “The idea is that there is an event that is really haunting you or bothering you on a regular basis. For Ron, he was a warrior. He expected to see everything he saw. There wasn’t one event. But they really wanted to help him with his post-traumatic stress. Prolonged exposure was the key, or so they said. He got worse. There wasn’t

an

event for Ron. There were events, but they happened to his brain, concussively, not his psychological state.”

By that time, Nowinski, McKee and the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank were advancing scientific understanding of the links between concussions and psychological behavior. More and more brains were coming in, particularly from former athletes, and a growing number from veterans who had been diagnosed with TBI and PTSD, which are studied together and separately for the presence, or not, of CTE.

“Traumatic brain injury can be an acute injury – a blow to the head, a subdural or epidural (bleed) – and it can be a major injury with loss of consciousness, amnesia, neurological deficits,” McKee says. “Or it can be a mild injury. There are all types of severities – mild, moderate and severe. Mild TBI is what I am primarily concerned with. You don’t see a bruise. There is no blood on their scalp or anything. It’s a subtle injury, but it can have long-term consequences. What we know from our research now is that if you sustain these mild TBIs – enough of them over a long period of time – it dramatically increases your risk for … CTE. It’s like the brain gradually breaks down, bit by bit.

“A TBI is like a car accident. A car accident can be a big accident. It can be a small accident. A mild TBI, or a concussion, is more like you’ve got a car on a really bumpy road, and you just keep driving on it, and your car slowly breaks down. It’s a long-term consequence – subtle damage that occurs over years.

“PTSD is a complex set of symptoms. They can be sleep difficulties, anxiety, all sorts of things. And it is usually related to trauma. The trauma doesn’t have to be physical. It doesn’t have to be a TBI. It can be psychological trauma. It can be sexual trauma. What we have found is that individuals exposed to trauma – psychological or even physical trauma – develop PTSD, which is this well-defined but complex set of symptoms. So, how does this fit in with TBI and CTE? How can you compartmentalize those? It’s not easy, and we are still working on it. There are people with PTSD and no trauma, PTSD and no CTE, and we also know – because we have a big brain bank here for PTSD – that some of those cases have CTE.”

“For them to stamp PTSD on his medical record, it was all they knew how to diagnose,” Nicole says of her husband’s situation. “The problem is, how do you really diagnose it? The symptoms are so similar.”

One therapy that seemed to work was skydiving. “It was something physical he could repeatedly do,” Nicole says. “In theory, it was supposed to help his brain recover and heal.”

Moreover, she adds, “He was really good at skydiving. He loved it, and he loved giving back.” He had more than 5,000 recorded jumps over his career. He’d also been booked to do demonstration jumps at various venues, including Soldier Field in Chicago – 10 of which he did with Via. “She doesn’t like the plane much,” Nicole says of their skydiving service dog. “But the second she gets out of the plane, it’s like any dog putting its head out the car window.”

The stars were thus aligned for the Condreys to pack up and move to Middletown, home of Team Fastrax, which teaches skydiving, performs demonstration jumps at big events – typically involving huge U.S. flags – and competes against other skydiving teams around the world. It was something they could do together, especially after they saw the team’s annual Warrior Weekend to Remember event where Gold Star Families and disabled veterans gather for a weekend of skydiving and camaraderie.

“If you’re a combat-disabled veteran, you jump for free,” Nicole says. “We were in it to inspire people and be a part of the community, and get people to get outside their comfort zones and do great things.”

Ron’s condition, however, worsened as his neurons continued to misfire. “Ron was in a really bad state the last six months. He actually got to the point where he stopped jumping. He didn’t enjoy anything about it anymore. And this is something you see in people who can be depressed. They don’t enjoy the things they loved to do before. He was a recluse. He didn’t go out at all. He would push everyone away, including me and his service dog … and we were keeping him alive at the time.”

In late August 2018, he checked into a private-sector retreat for veterans. He came home with a sudden appreciation for everything around him. “He was a totally different man. I was euphoric, but I had this feeling in my gut that I couldn’t pinpoint.”

A few days later, the euphoria was gone. The roller coaster descended, fast. As for the retreat, “I think Ron got there too late. He had gotten so far into that hole without getting back up, it just took one more bad place, one more bad moment, for him to not see his way out of it. His brain wasn’t thinking logically at that time.”

It was about 4 in the afternoon when he pulled the trigger. “I can’t tell you why that day,” she says. She called 911 and then the Team Fastrax hangar. “They were here for me. I have an extended family that has been through a lot with me.”

The decision to donate his brain to the bank came without hesitation. “Ron wanted to give back to veterans in every way he could, so it was just a clear fit, something that could last.”

“It’s terrible to lose these guys,” Nowinski says. “If we can do anything to stem the tide … so many people are committed to suicide-prevention campaigns, but it still happens. We need to understand how we can do more to help.

“We have learned more about our brains in the last decade than we have in all of human history,” he adds. “The brain is the last great frontier. It’s so complex. We are only beginning to understand its complexity. So sometimes the only way to really appreciate it, since it’s hidden inside of our skull, is to actually look at it under a microscope after somebody has passed away. What’s been amazing, doing this work for a decade now with the most amazing researchers in the world at VA and Boston University, is that we make breakthroughs every year, because this work hasn’t been done before.”

New rules about helmet-to-helmet hits, player suspensions for multiple such penalties, warning posters in locker rooms, research and development of safer helmets, and regulations about returning players to the field after concussions are among the steps football has taken since the CLF was established. “Football is dramatically safer today than when I played it,” Nowinski says. “We are not doing all the stupid things we did back then. (But) the reality is, we are still creating CTE in people’s brains.” He says raising the age limit for tackle football can help by reducing the number of years a player is exposed to repeated blows to the head.

“Football is not the problem,” he says. “It’s too much football. I think the future of football is non-tackle versions until high school.” Adult athletes – as with firefighters, police officers and military personnel who risk head injury but understand the risks, Nowinski says – are different from children who often start cracking heads with one another on the gridiron as young as 5.

The route between head injuries and CTE is different for military personnel, McKee says, but they commonly lead to the same destination. “What I can say about military veterans who have been exposed to either blast or concussive trauma is that it’s not as predictable as football. Football tends to be a relatively stereotyped exposure. They tend to do relatively the same things every time they go out and play. But a military person, a veteran – it’s pretty random. Are they in combat? Are they not? Where are they in combat? What are their exposures? Were they driving down the road where there was a blast? Where were they standing or where were they sitting in relationship to the exposure? There are so many variables. It’s much more complex.”

Scanning and imaging technology can only go so far to detect and understand brain disease, McKee says. More is learned by cutting into brains and carefully studying their conditions after death.

“I could never have seen (CTE) using an imaging technique. You can only find, in imaging, what you are looking for. You have to know what you are looking for, target it and find it. There is exploration and discovery in neuropathology that is not possible with neuroimaging.”

The research, Nicole says, can provide guidance for the military before assignments that may include exposure to head trauma. “Right now, the military is not doing neuro-psych evals on entry for EOD techs,” she says. “We have to have a baseline … when they first get into the military, into sports, whatever it might be. All of our brains are different. Then, throughout someone’s career, if they have had an injury to the brain, they need to be tested again. Regularly. If we were able to do it regularly, we could stop it earlier. Ultimately, the goal is keeping people from getting long-lasting TBI symptoms. The research and the data are extremely important, the end goal being that we don’t get people in that state.”

Nowinski adds, “If we change how we play sports and how we conduct military training, we can create better outcomes.”

Treatment of CTE’s effects depends on seeing it in the first place, McKee says. “The basic cornerstone of treatment is detection … during life. If we can do that – if we have a biomarker, something in the blood or saliva or spinal fluid, or if we have an imaging technique that can pick up CTE – then we can treat it. We would have lots of ideas how to treat it. We have anti-tau therapeutics. There are anti-inflammatory therapeutics. There’s a gamut of possibilities.”

To get there, it’s going to take donated brains, she says. “It’s very important to have the brains. That informs us how to do the detection.”

“I think (the brain) is more powerful than we have any idea about,” Nicole explains. “It’s also susceptible. It’s fragile. We can do great things with our brains, but if we don’t protect it, if we have a concussive incident, we need to be sure to take a timeout and step away from that activity before we go back into it again.

“If we do something else again right away and get another concussion, our brain is going to have a much harder time healing. Learning more about our brains and what can happen to them is extremely important, so we can be those fully functioning warriors.”

“We are now honestly addressing the issue,” Nowinski says. “We have a tremendous opportunity to prevent this problem going forward by changing what we’re doing. But also, there are generations of people dealing with this disease, whether they are athletes or veterans, and we don’t have an answer for them. We need to invest in research so we can create better answers.”

To that end, Nicole says she is driven to help CLF make the uneasy ask. “I am taking Ron’s spirit with me in all of this,” she says. “I would call it a passion because I loved him so much.”

Adding military, veteran and control brains to the bank will “help us solve this problem,” Nowinski says. “Go to

projectenlist.org

and sign up to pledge your brain. Follow the instructions. Hopefully, we won’t get your brain for a very long time, but you will be part of an important mission going forward to cure this.”

There is no cost, he adds, and every family gets a full report of the findings. “We treat every family like our own.

“I now look back and realize I was very lucky to get kicked in the head by Bubba Ray Dudley in that wrestling match in 2003. It has allowed me to do work that I am passionate about. And this work is helping people.”

Jeff Stoffer is editor of

The American Legion Magazine

.

Zuzulock of National Park receives NJAIAW honors as Rutgers-Camden Woman of the Year

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. (Feb. 10, 2020) – Throughout her four years at Rutgers University-Camden,

Sarah Zuzulock (National Park, NJ/Gateway Regional)

has been a standout on the soccer

pitch, a team leader and a stellar student in the classroom. All of those qualities helped Zuzulock earn recognition Sunday when she was cited by the New Jersey Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (NJAIAW) as Rutgers-Camden’s Woman of the Year.

The NJAIAW honored all of its Woman of the Year recipients during the organization’s 28th Annual New Jersey Woman of the Year Awards Luncheon, held at Seton Hall University. The organization hosts the Woman of the Year Luncheon annually in celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day, recognizing a student-athlete from all two- and four-year colleges and universities in the state, in addition to all New Jersey high schools. As noted by the NJAIAW in its luncheon program, “Each Woman of the Year recipient has made significant contributions to her institution and community through athletic accomplishments, academic success, and community involvement.”

Zuzulock was a four-year standout in the Rutgers-Camden midfield, playing in all 69 Scarlet Raptor soccer games over her career. She started 67 games and finished her career with seven goals and 12 assists for 26 points. She is tied for 16th on the program’s career list for games played and tied for 13th in assists.

During her junior season in 2018, Zuzulock earned recognition as the team’s Most Valuable Player while helping Rutgers-Camden qualify for both the ECAC and New Jersey Athletic Conference playoffs for the first time since 2007.

A two-time team captain for the soccer program, Zuzulock’s accomplishments in the classroom are equally impressive. A Dean’s List student in the demanding Nursing major, she already has earned a pair of NJAC Academic Honorable Mention awards (freshmen aren’t eligible for the honor). She should add NJAC academic honor in June when the conference cites its top student-athletes for the 2019-20 scholastic year.

Zuzulock has served on Rutgers-Camden’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and has captured a berth on the Athletic Director’s Honor Roll during all seven of her semesters on campus. The Rutgers-Camden Athletic Director’s Honor Roll for the 2020 Spring semester will be announced in late May.

Zuzulock was a multi-sport athlete at Gateway Regional High School, earning 10 varsity letters, including four in soccer. She added three letters in winter track, two in spring track and one in lacrosse. As a sophomore, she helped the Gators capture the Group 1 soccer title and earned All-Conference Second Team recognition. She was an All-Conference First Team honoree during both her junior and senior seasons, while serving as the team captain both years.

Sarah is the daughter of Lynn and Shawn Zuzulock of National Park.

Feds Put South Jersey Illegal Dumper in Jail

Last Thursday, Judge Renee Bumb in U.S. District Court in Camden sentenced Thomas Toy of Elmer to 30 days in prison and ordered him to pay $4.2 million in restitution for illegally storing hazardous materials. Thomas Toy ran the Superior Barrel and Drum Company, a company that cleaned and processed industrial drums before reselling them. The facility was located on the border of Elk Township and Glassboro.

“There should be no tolerance for illegal dumping. What Thomas Toy did in Glassboro was a disgrace and he belongs in jail. It’s important that he is being held accountable for his illegal dumping in South Jersey. This will serve as a deterrent for others because when you break the law you should go to jail. For too long, illegal dumpers have been getting away with poisoning our communities,”  said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “The federal government is making polluters accountable. Polluters need to clean up their mess and pay for it, too. Making sure this site is completely cleaned up is important for the health and safety of this community.”

Thomas Toy was indicted for storing hazardous waste in violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in January 2018. Superior Barrel and Drum Company imported many drums that contained hazardous waste, which included toxic chemicals like benzene and lead. However, the company did not have permits to store these toxic materials.

“Toy needs to be held accountable for illegally dumping waste and endangering the health of the people of Glassboro and Elk. DEP should also be held accountable for their failure to address this.  These toxic chemicals have been poisoning the community for far too long, and DEP has been looking the other way and failing to enforce this site. Exposure to lead can cause kidney and brain damage, especially in young children. Benzenes are carcinogens that can cause anemia and affect the immune system, increasing risks for infections,” said Tittel. “The governor recently signed a law that will help protect New Jersey from illegal dumping by requiring more scrutiny for those involved in these industries. This will help protect New Jersey from future dumpers, but DEP still needs to do their job to enforce illegal dumping.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency removed approximately 1,800 of these drums of waste from September 2013 through September 2014. The total cost of this removal was $4.2 million, the amount that Toy has been fined as restitution.

“While the Judge’s ruling today is a win for Glassboro and Elk, the state still needs tighter regulations and restrictions on how our waste is handled. We have a long history of contaminated materials coming into our state, in part because DEP chooses not to regulate these chemicals. DEP needs to set and enforce standards for toxic materials to prevent any more possible dumping,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “It is good that the U.S. District Court is holding Thomas Toy accountable. Now the DEP has to step up and make sure there will be a full cleanup at this site.”

Linda Marie Kraft, of Gloucester City

Gloucester City – On February 2, 2020. Age 73. (nee Schmolze). Loving wife of 51 years to the late Roy A. Kraft. Loving mother of Leana Crowther (John) and Niccole Kraft. Beloved twin sister of Jennifer Fish and sister of George H. Schmolze, Jr. Also survived by many loving nieces and nephews.

Linda was a graduate of Haddonfield High School. She worked many years as a receptionist for ALP Lighting in Pennsauken.

Interment will be private in Eglington Cemetery, Clarksboro.

Condolences and Memories may be shared at www.mccannhealey.com under the obituary of Linda M. Kraft. Funeral Arrangements and Inquiries through: McCANN-HEALEY FUNERAL HOME, Gloucester City Ph: 856-456-1142

Mt. Laurel Man Charged with Possession, Distribution of Child Pornography

MOUNT LAUREL, NJ–(February 10, 2020)–Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina and Mount Laurel Police Chief Stephen Riedener announced that a 56-year-old Mount Laurel man has been charged with possessing and distributing child pornography.

Marco Pulcini, 56, of Wilderness Run Court, was charged with four counts of Endangering the Welfare of a Child (Second Degree).

Pulcini was arrested on February 7 at his residence following the execution of a search warrant. Multiple electronic devices were seized and will be examined by detectives from the BCPO High-Tech Crimes Unit.

The investigation began after the BCPO High-Tech Crimes Unit received information regarding Pulcini’s online activities from United States Homeland Security Investigations – Cherry Hill Office.

The investigation revealed that Pulcini utilized file-sharing software to allow others to access child pornography in his possession.

Pulcini was released following a first appearance over the weekend in Superior Court in Mount Holly. The case will now be prepared for presentation to a Burlington County Grand Jury for possible indictment. He will be prosecuted by Assistant Prosecutor Joseph Remy.

The investigation was conducted by the BCPO High-Tech Crimes Unit, with assistance from United States Homeland Security Investigations – Cherry Hill Office, the New Jersey State Police and the Mount Laurel Township Police Department. The lead investigator was HSI Special Agent Jennifer Miller, who is presently designated as an acting BCPO detective.

The Prosecutor’s Office High-Tech Crimes Unit is a member of the New Jersey State Police Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force and the New Jersey State Police Cyber Terrorism Task Force.

All persons are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Down The Shore: ACUA Employees Among Top Donors in Charitable Campaign

SOMERS POINT,NJ–The New Jersey Employees Charitable Campaign has announced that employees of the Atlantic County Utilities Authority were the second highest contributor, behind Rutgers University, to the NJECC.

ACUA employees donate nearly $58,000 during the statewide N.J. Employees Charitable Campaign. (Photo courtesy ACUA)

ACUA employees collectively raised $57,908 for their charities of choice and are vested in bettering the communities they serve, according to a press release.

“As an organization with less than 250 employees, this is a testament to the generosity of our remarkable team,” ACUA President Rick Dovey said in the release. “Our employees are proud to serve our communities every day through their work, and their personal donations speak volumes to the type of workforce we are thankful to employ.”

Every year, ACUA employees from across all departments are invited to participate in the NJECC, which allows state and local municipal employees to contribute to a variety of charities through payroll deduction.

The NJECC is among the many charitable causes ACUA employees champion each year. The news of their successful campaign comes off the heels of a recent visit to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey Southern Branch, where employees helped to organize donations.

Rutgers-Camden’s Hilt earns second NJAC weekly track & field honor

CAMDEN CITY, N.J. (Feb. 10, 2020) – Rutgers University-Camden track star

Emily Hilt (Mickleton, NJ/Kingsway Regional)

is a threat to break the program shot put record at every meet she competes, and her success rate has been phenomenal so far this season.

For the fourth time in her five meets this winter, Hilt established a new Rutgers-Camden women’s shot put record while competing at Saturday’s Frank Colden Invitational at Ursinus College.

That accomplishment has earned Hilt her the second New Jersey Athletic Conference Women’s Indoor Track recognition this season as the NJAC Field Athlete of the Week. She also won that honor on Dec. 16.

In her latest outing, Hilt produced a shot put of 12.30 meters, beating the mark she established on Jan. 25 of 12.22 meters. That mark also was set at Ursinus College, during the Collegeville Classic.

Hilt came to Rutgers-Camden this year after a stellar two-year career with Rowan College at Gloucester County. A junior academically, she has sophomore eligibility for indoor track and will have junior eligibility in outdoor season.

Hilt set a Rutgers-Camden indoor shot put record during her first meet as a Scarlet Raptor, finishing fourth of 29 performers at the Fastrack Opener Dec. 6 with a distance of 11.58 meters. She also set the program’s weight throw record the same day, placing third of 24 with a throw of 14.43 meters. Both distances were ECAC qualifiers.

At the Seahawk Shootout on Dec. 13, Hilt had another ECAC qualifier in the weight throw, finishing sixth of 23 with a 14.20-meter toss. She also competed in the shot put, finishing 10th of 30 that day (11.00 meters). Ever since then, Hilt has raised her program shot put record in each meet, while recording three more ECAC qualifiers in the event. She finished first of 18 (11.84 meters) in the shot put at the Dutchmen Invite (Jan. 17), was fourth of 47 with her 12.22-meter shot put on Jan. 25 at the Collegeville Classic and finished first of 55 shot putters Saturday at the Frank Colden Invitational with her latest mark of 12.30 meters.

During her career at RCGC, Hilt set the program’s indoor track record in the shot put (13.12 meters) and earned All-American honors in that event. She also competed two seasons with the Roadrunners’ outdoor track program.

Hilt is a Childhood Studies major at Rutgers-Camden who has a double minor in Psychology and Philosophy.

Mays Landing Resident Arrested on Child Porn Charges

Cape May Court House, New Jersey (February 9, 2020)- Cape May County Prosecutor Jeffrey H. Sutherland and New Jersey State Police Colonel Patrick J. Callahan announce the arrest of Richard Hoffman, 24 years old of Mays Landing, New Jersey, on first degree Child Pornography charges.

This investigation is the result of information received from the September 2018 \”Operation Open House\” in Toms River, New Jersey which was conducted by the New Jersey State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. During \”Operation Open House,\” Hoffman was arrested for Luring after chatting with an undercover detective posing as a 14-year-old female. Subsequently, additional victims of Hoffman were identified and another investigation was initiated involving the New Jersey State Police and the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office. The teenage victim of this investigation resides in the Villas section of Lower Township.

As a result of this investigation, earlier today members of the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office, New Jersey State Police, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and Hamilton Township Police Department arrested Hoffman at his residence in Mays Landing, New Jersey. Hoffman was charged with Manufacturing Child Pornography, a crime of the first degree; Possession of Child Pornography, a crime of the third; Endangering the Welfare of a Child, a crime of the third degree; Criminal Sexual Contact, a crime of the fourth degree; two counts of Sexual Assault, crimes of the second degree; and Witness Tampering, a crime of the third degree.

Hoffman was lodged in the Cape May County Correctional Facility pending Court proceedings.

Prosecutor Sutherland would like to recognize Homeland Security Investigations, Atlantic City Office; the Hamilton Township Police Department; and the New Jersey State Police Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, for their assistance in this investigation. This investigation is part of the ongoing effort by the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office and the entire New Jersey State Police ICAC Task Force to identify and prosecute those involved in victimizing children.

Prosecutor Sutherland continues to urge the citizens of Cape May County to report any information regarding child exploitation, child abuse, or any criminal activity within the community and that information can be reported anonymously to the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office at 609-465-1135 or text anonymously through the Cape May County Sheriff’s Tip Line at cmcsheriff.net and click on the anonymous tip.

*Any charges are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless he is proven guilty.

Hispanic Family Center Receives Grant

from Cooper Foundation’s Camden City Community to Support Community Health Navigation

Camden, NJ (February 6, 2020) – The Hispanic Family Center of Southern New Jersey, Inc. (HFC) is pleased to announce it has been awarded a $5,000 Camden City Community Grant from The Cooper Foundation to support the agency’s Pathways to Health. The mission of HFC’s Pathways to Health

program is to increase access to health care and health insurance, and to improve the public’s knowledge of the social determinants of health. This generous grant will help ensure that residents of Camden City receive case-management assistance to navigate the complex healthcare and health insurance systems.

The Cooper Foundation serves as the philanthropic, community outreach and community development arm of The Cooper Health System. The goal of the Camden City Community Grant program is to address social determinants of health by funding applicants that demonstrate a focus on one of the following Community Building Activities: physical improvements and housing, economic development, community support, environmental improvements, leadership development and training for community members, coalition building, community health improvement advocacy or workforce development. For more information about the program visit

https://foundation.cooperhealth.org/camden-community-grant

The Hispanic Family Center of Southern New Jersey is a multi-service agency with locations in Camden and Gloucester Counties. The agency is dedicated to providing the community with a broad range of culturally relevant social services and advocacy programs that promote and encourage empowerment and self-sufficiency. To meet this goal the Hispanic Family Center of Southern New Jersey offers over more than 20 programs including employment and training programs, ESL/Civics, health education and prevention services, mental health services, senior services, substance use disorder treatment and energy assistance programs. Each year the Hispanic Family Center serves 10,000 individuals and families.

Things to Do if You Have Doubts about the Used Car You Want to Buy

Gloucestercitynews.net (February 9, 2020)–As you try to decide which used car you want to purchase, you realize that the ones on your shortlist aren’t necessarily the best choices. They check some standards on your list, but not all of them. These are the

image credit unsplash.com

things you need to do if you still doubt the quality of the used car you consider buying.

Ask for help from a mechanic

It helps if you can work with a mechanic to check the quality of the vehicle. Mechanics are experts in assessing the quality of cars. You will know if there are recurring issues you need to be mindful of. The mechanic will also advise you if the vehicle is worth the price, or if it\’s way too expensive. You will feel more confident about your decision after talking to a mechanic.

Review the car history report

Even if you already looked at the car history report, it pays to have another look. Check every detail to see if there are patterns. If you don’t understand the report, you can ask someone else to interpret it for you. Since you have no idea about what the car went through in the past, this report is your only glimpse into its history.

Look at other options

There’s no need to hurry when buying a used car. Take your time to look at other choices, and determine if they’re worth buying. There could still be other choices that you might want to consider. You should wait until you find the perfect match rather than settle for a car that’s not worth it. You will end up with lots of repair expenses. Even if you save money buying the car, it might be nothing compared to how much you spend repairing it later.

Partner with a different company

Perhaps, there’s no problem with the specific model that you’re looking at. The issue is with the used car company. There’s no proper screening done on the cars they sell. They also don’t do the necessary repairs. If you\’re into a certain model, you might want to try other used car shops. You can find the same model with much better quality.

Suspend your plans

You can reconsider your plans to buy a car later when there’s a better model available. You don’t want to rush this decision since it’s a major investment. Even if you save money by choosing a used car over a brand-new model, it’s still a significant amount. You don’t want to regret it because you settled for an option you were doubtful about.

Why not consider

Used Cars Layton Utah

if you want a quality used car? With the positive reviews received by the company and their proven track record, you won\’t go wrong. Start by looking at the choices online. You can visit the shop to see the vehicles. Take a test drive in the model you like and decide if it’s worth buying.

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