UNION COUNTY — A Linden man wanted for multiple counts of attempted murder of police officers has been arrested and charged, acting Union County Prosecutor Grace H. Park announced Monday.
A Union County grand jury recently returned a 26-count superseding indictment against Roberto Moreno-Duque, 23, of Linden, who was apprehended last week. Moreno-Duque, also known as “Chill,” was being held in Union County Jail on $1 million bail set by state Superior Court Judge Frederic R. McDaniel.
Moreno-Duque and a second man, a Bayonne resident, allegedly traveled to the 400 block of North Broad St.in Elizabeth on Oct. 24, 2010 seeking to avenge an associate who had been stabbed in the area just hours earlier, according to Union County Assistant Prosecutor Brent A. Bramnick, who is prosecuting the case. The pair allegedly opened fire on four men they believed were responsible for the stabbing, but their targets were actually plain-clothes Elizabeth police officers at the scene investigating, said Bramnick, of the prosecutor’s office Guns, Gangs, Drugs and Violent Crimes Task Force.
None of the four officers were injured. A year-long joint investigation involving the Elizabeth Police Department, the Linden Police Department, the New Jersey State Police and the Union County Prosecutor’s Office ensued, through which Moreno-Duque and his co-defendant were identified as suspects.