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“We think we got him just in time,” Fairview Police Capt. Martin Kahn told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “He was progressing.”
Brian Peters Rossi, 23, was being held on $15,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with three counts of criminal sexual contact. He’s due in court this afternoon.
Police suspect there may be more victims and are urging any to come forward.
The first reported incident happened on Jan. 8 when, police said, Rossi smacked a woman’s butt.
Four days later, another woman reported being grabbed from behind by a stranger who then ran off.
Then, on Monday, a woman told police that Rossi came up from behind, pushed his body against hers and began running his hands over her while moaning.
“The description of him and what he was wearing matched in all three cases,” Kahn told CLIFFVIEW PILOT this afternoon.
The attacker was wearing some type of yellow covering over his head, the women all said.
Detectives reviewed video from the Borough-wide Surveillance System (BSS), which went online a couple months ago, as well as from private owners, in the area of the attacks. They noticed a jacket the man was wearing.
They later found a jacket with a full yellow lining in Rossi’s home, the captain said. “He may have pulled it over his head,” he said.
A Fort Lee Police Department sketch artist sat down with the most recent victim after Monday’s incident and produced a sketch that police were preparing to distribute.
Those plans changed before dawn yesterday when Fairview Officer Michael Hartmann, on his way home from work after taking the woman’s report, spotted Rossi jogging up Fairview Avenue.
He quickly turned his car around and called on-duty Detective Sgt. William Herron.
All three victims later selected Rossi’s photo from an array, police said.
“It was a terrific job by everyone involved — the detectives, the patrolman and the Fort Lee police sketch artist,” said Fairview Police Chief Frank Del Vecchio.
The case isn’t over, though.
Del Vecchio said police suspect “there may be other victims out there who may not have reported it — out of embarrassment or whatever their particular situation may be.”
He asked that they call his department: (201) 943-2100
MUGSHOT: Courtesy Fairview PD
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