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Parishioners at several New Jersey churches are distraught about a string of creche crimes: the theft of baby Jesus statues.Statues of the infant have been taken from five churches since Christmas Eve, according to the Archdiocese of Newark. Parishioners at St. Clare Church in Clifton reacted with dismay Sunday after a baby Jesus statue was apparently stolen from the church's outdoors nativity scene overnight. The statue disappeared between 7 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. Sunday, according to Father Peter Galbik. The small figure had just been purchased this holiday seaso "We are deeply disturbed that some group or person stole...

A 32-year-old Lyndhurst woman, a second-grade teacher, has been arrested and charged with aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a 15-year-old girl from the Jersey City school where the woman is employed, authorities said Friday.Bergen County John L. Molinelli said Lauren H. Mitchell was arrested after an investigation by his office’s Special Victims Unit and the Lyndhurst Police Department.Molinelli said several teachers at the Dr. Lena Edwards Academic Charter School in Jersey City observed what they believed was inappropriate behavior between Mitchell and the girl during a class trip and reported what they had seen to school...

Jennifer Santangelo of Lyndhurst was walking home from school one day, wearing her blue and white uniform, when a 31-year-old man said hello and began chatting with her.  He was nice, she said. He gave her a box of pens and offered to let her into his nightclub for free, she said, if she handed out fliers for him.  Santangelo, then an eighth-grader at Sacred Heart School, had never been in a nightclub before. So she gave out some fliers in the coming days, threw out the rest and showed up at the club. The man let her in, she...

Kin rage over '82 slayer's release BY CELESTE KATZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER The family of a teenager beaten to death with a hammer is furious that her killer was set free moments after being convicted. A jury found Marc Ferrara of Lyndhurst, N.J., guilty of aggravated manslaughter this week in the 1982 death of 17-year-old Rosie Lorincz. However, there was a five-year statute of limitations on the crime in 1982, so Ferrara won't do any time. "It just doesn't seem fair," said Andrea Lorincz, the victim's sister. "He walks free, and we are left without a sister and a...

Teacher in tryst is spared prison Thursday, May 23, 2002 By PAULO LIMA Staff Writer Pamela Diehl-Moore's birthday present Wednesday was three years of her life. The 43-year-old former schoolteacher from Lyndhurst came to court in Hackensack, Bergen County, NJ, having struck a deal with prosecutors that called for her to serve three years in prison for carrying on an affair with a 13-year-old student. Instead, Superior Court Judge Bruce A. Gaeta sentenced Diehl-Moore to five years' probation and ordered her to continue intensive counseling for severe depression, which she blamed for the "lapse in judgment'' that landed her in...