Go-go dancers with fake tips led to the arrest of a Union City man who had found $5,000 in counterfeit cash, cops told The Jersey Journal today.
Luis Lora-Martinez of Union City is suspected of passing fake $20 bills at AJ’s Lounge, a go-go bar in Secaucus.

Luis Lora-Martinez, 29, of 38th Street, may have seemed like a big man while slipping fake $20 bills to dancers as tips and using some to pay for drinks at AJ’s Lounge, a go-go bar on Secaucus Road in Secaucus Thursday night, officials said.

But Lora-Martinez, who was born on Christmas Day 1978, was busted Halloween morning at the Skylight Motel on Tonnelle Avenue in Jersey City on charges of forgery and possession of a fake New York driver’s license, Cindy Wofford, special agent in charge of the Newark Field Office of the U.S. Secret Service, said today.

Wofford said the five $20 bills Lora-Martinez passed were produced on a computer printer on regular paper and were of poor quality. They apparently got passed the dancers and bartenders in the dark club but it wasn’t long before someone noticed they were “funny” and Secaucus police were called, officials said.

Agents of the Secret Service and officers of the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office got involved and spoke to the club manager who said his employees could identify the man laying out the fake bills and that they thought he was staying at the Tonnelle Avenue motel, Wofford said.

Agents found Lora-Martinez there and after he consented to a search, investigators found $5,000 in fake $20s and $50s hidden in his room, Wofford said, adding that the fake money was separate from Lora-Martinez’s real money.

No other contraband was found, she said.

Lora-Martinez’s bail was set at $60,000 cash or bond but before the court will accept bail money, Lora-Martinez will have to show it does not come form a nefarious source, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said.

Lora-Martinez faces three to five years in prison on each of the two charges filed against him.

“Obviously the vigilance of merchants is essential to combat the passing of counterfeit United States currency,” said DeFazio, who called it a successful cooperative investigation between his office and federal agents.

One of these days the public will realize the Federal Reserve and Treasury are doing the same thing.

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A gambling ring that took in $1 million a month in bets was cracked yesterday with the arrest of 45 people, including four reputed associates of the Genovese crime family as well as a high school athletic director and a teacher from another school district.

Authorities also seized more than $5 million, about 5 pounds of marijuana and five vehicles during raids that began at 5 a.m. in Bergen, Hudson, Monmouth and Ocean counties.

The investigation was dubbed “Operation Off-the-Hook,” because two of the alleged leaders of the gambling ring, James W. Skinner, 69, of Allenwood, and his son, James J. Skinner, 40, of Hazlet, lived in towns just south of Sandy Hook, the prosecutor said.

The other ringleaders were identified as Mark Iafelice, 49, of Edgewater; Brian DiGuilmi, 48, of Emerson, and Bernard Duffy, 63, of Hasbrouck Heights. All are charged with racketeering, conspiracy and promoting gambling, which carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison. Molinelli described the Skinners, Iafelice and DiGuilmi as “associates” of the Genovese crime family.

Others arrested included a North Bergen High School athletic director, Jerry Maietta, 37, of North Bergen; a North Bergen school aide, Ralph Marino, 52, of Cliffside Park, and John Prato, 36, of Brick, a teacher at Freehold Regional High School.

North Bergen spokesman Paul Swibinski said, “Certainly everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”

Oh of course: “Innocent until proven guilty.” I’m sure none of their property was taken by force or anything. Really awesome stuff. A pig can murder a woman and maim her child and get max 8 months yet a group of people provide a gambling service and harm no one face up to 10 years.

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