Crime & Safety
Maurice Patterson of Blackwood Allegedly Violated Sex-Offender Terms
Patterson, who was caught in Woodbury Heights, is accused of taking off an electronic ankle bracelet that allowed authorities to track his movements.
A Blackwood man who had served prison time and was out on parole on a 2009 conviction for criminal restraint was arrested in Woodbury Heights Tuesday after more than 10 days on the lam, according to police.
Maurice D. Patterson, 25, became the focus of a multi-agency police manhunt on May 25 after he allegedly slipped out of the GPS ankle bracelet he has been required to wear since he was released from the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center, a facility for sex offenders located in Avenel, NJ, on May 24, 2011.
Patterson has been charged with failure to comply with sex-offender monitoring and obstruction of justice since his arrest in Gloucester County Tuesday afternoon. He was lodged in Camden County Jail on $25,000 cash bail.
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The New Jersey Parole Board notified Gloucester Township Police Department that Patterson had removed the monitoring bracelet on May 25. Police responded to Patterson's residence at Lakeview Apartments, but the 25-year-old parolee was nowhere to be found, according to Gloucester Township Police Deputy Chief David Harkins.
Gloucester Township police officers were joined by members of the state parole board and the United States Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force in searching for Patterson.
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A Gloucester Township detective and members of the fugitive task force spotted Patterson entering a relative's home on the 300 block of Glassboro Road, in Woodbury Heights, Tuesday afternoon. Aided by a Deptford Township Police K-9 unit and Woodbury Heights Police officers, police raided the home and arrested Patterson after finding him hiding in a closet, Harkins said.
The criminal restraint charge apparently stemmed from an offense of a sexual nature, based on the sex-offender charge filed against Patterson following his arrest earlier this week. The incident occurred in Woodbury on Aug. 6, 2008, according to authorities, when Patterson was living at a West Deptford address.
Patterson was incarcerated from Dec. 23, 2009, through May 24, 2011, according to the state Department of Corrections.
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