http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/jerseyc ... xml&coll=3POSED AS BOUNTY HUNTER, COP
Three plead guilty
Friday, August 01, 2008
By LYSA CHEN
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
in entrapment theft
A Jersey City man who posed as a bounty hunter and policeman, along with two New York women who posed as prostitutes to lure the man's victims, pleaded guilty this week to stealing nearly $1,000 from a man in January.
Joseph Pagan, 37, will serve five years for second-degree theft by extortion and third-degree conspiracy to commit extortion, said Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Ledoux.
Sentences for Diana Tavaraz, 34, and Danida Capblanca, 23, are still pending, she said.
Ledoux said that Pagan, who is trained but not licensed to be a bounty hunter, initially told Tavaraz and Capblanca he was a photographer and wanted them to model for him. He later told them he was a bounty hunter and could train them to be the same.
Tavaraz and Capblanca were instructed to pretend to be prostitutes along Tonnelle Avenue and lead men to a nearby hotel parking lot, where Pagan would pat them down and check if they were missing on bail, Ledoux said.
When the women lured a victim to the parking lot, Pagan told the man he was a police officer, patted him down and stole $960 in cash and started to run away, Ledoux said.
The man began to shout, and police, who were already at the hotel responding to a call from a previous victim, arrested Pagan, Tavaraz and Capblanca, Ledoux said.
