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Saturday, September 22, 2007
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Timothy Iberer, charged Friday with breaking into a 5-year-old Pequannock girl's bedroom to sexually assault her, is a convicted pedophile who knew his alleged victim's neighborhood well: He grew up there.
Before his family moved away seven years ago, residents recalled, the odd and somewhat awkward young man liked to play with children. Lately, they'd seen him at his job delivering pizzas around Pequannock.
Iberer, 27, was registered as a sex offender locally in Bloomingdale, but he was not on the more publicly accessible state police registry of the state's most dangerous sex offenders. He had spent nearly four years in prison for molesting his girlfriend's 8-year-old daughter in Clifton.
On Friday, authorities described him as every parent's nightmare: an anonymous and obsessed sex predator. In announcing Iberer's arrest in the Sept. 10 Pequannock break-in, investigators said the victim told them Iberer had visited her on three separate nights.
"This was the case of a target victim," Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi said in announcing the arrest. "This was not the case of a random attack."
Authorities did not say how Iberer got to know the victim, other than that they do not think he had ever delivered pizza to the Kinney Place residence.
According to the arrest affidavit, the girl told investigators that about one month before the Sept. 10 incident, "the doctor came into her room and touched her pee-pee." The girl told her parents, but they thought the child was having a bad dream and didn't report it to police.
Then, in the early morning hours of Sept. 10, the girl's mother heard a noise in her child's room and went to investigate. She saw an intruder jump through the girl's bedroom window and escape. The affidavit states that the child was found with her pull-up diaper pulled down and buttocks exposed.
Investigators arrived and found that the bedroom screen had been slit to allow it to be pulled off. They dusted the windowsill for fingerprints and found some. A small yellow-tinted plastic container filled with lubricant was found by the victim's bed, the affidavit states.
Bianchi said that two of the fingerprints were matched to Iberer, who had pleaded guilty in 2002 to molesting his girlfriend's daughter. On Jan. 17, 2003, Iberer was sentenced to four years in prison, and was confined to the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Facility in the Avenel section of Woodbridge. He was required to serve at least 85 percent of his term before becoming eligible for parole. He was released on parole on June 7, 2006.
Iberer was living with his brother at a condominium in Bloomingdale and working as a deliveryman for a Pequannock pizzeria when he was arrested Friday. He is charged with attempted aggravated sexual assault on a child, attempted sexual contact on a child, endangering the welfare of a child and burglary. Iberer was being held Friday night in the Morris County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Superior Court in Morristown.
Iberer had been required to register as a sex offender under Megan's Law and was given Community Supervision for Life, which prohibits him from moving out of New Jersey. Under CSL, he was monitored by a state parole officer and could leave the state only under the most extreme circumstances, such as a death in the family.
Joseph Del Russo, Passaic County chief assistant prosecutor, said the four-year sentence Iberer received was an appropriate one, given the circumstances. "I would not consider that a lenient sentence," he said. "There is a cost to the outcome, and if the outcome you want is 10 years [imprisonment], the process is quite more complicated than it was in this case ... An 8-year-old girl never had to testify against her mother's boyfriend," he said.
Del Russo said he could not detail what tier or classification of sex offender Iberer fell into, low-risk or high-risk. Iberer's name does not appear on the state police Internet registry of sex offenders. Del Russo could not explain why, but suggested that it might be because that registry is reserved for sex offenders that are considered "compulsive" and are thus the highest risk to commit another sex crime.
"Not everyone who is convicted of a sex offense is on the Internet," Del Russo said. "A small subset of sex offenders are on the Internet registry, and an even smaller subset results in door-to-door notification. It's not unusual. Only more serious offenders wind up in the registry."
That aspect of the case apparently was much on the minds of area residents as they learned, piecemeal, details of the arrest.
The residence of Iberer's brother, in an attached condominium community, is across the street from Bogue Park, which includes a pond for fishing and a playground area popular with children.
Karen Cortese and Tricia DiGerolamo, both Bloomingdale mothers, weren't pleased to hear that a convicted sex offender lived in their town and has been accused of committing another sex crime on a child.
"When we heard about what happened in Pequannock, it was upsetting that it was that close. But when we found out he was a resident in our town, it has bothered me all day," said DiGerolamo, a mother of two, ages 2 and 6. "You get goosebumps thinking about it. It's very upsetting."
Cortese, who has two girls, added, "He's within two miles of three schools and 100 feet of a park ... You couldn't find a more ideal location to live if that's what he intends to do."
They said they also had checked the state police list of registered sex offenders and were shocked that Iberer wasn't registered.
Meanwhile, Birch Road residents on Friday remembered in hindsight Iberer's actions – playing with children much younger than him – before the family sold its home and moved away about five years ago.
Matt Ingenito, 20, lived across the street from Timothy Iberer and recalls him coming over to play street hockey with boys.
"He was scruffy, with long hair," Ingenito said. "We used to play a game called 'Manhunt' -- which is hide-and-seek in the dark -- and I remember playing that with him."
Ingenito's sister, Danielle, said her mother warned her about playing with Timothy Iberer because he was much older.
"My mother thought it was kind of creepy," she said. "He used to like to come over and bounce on our trampoline with my brother."
The Iberers moved away about seven years ago after the parents divorced, neighbors said.
Staff Writer John Petrick contributed to this article. E-mail: cowen@northjersey.com and feeney@northjersey.com
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Timeline
March 2002
Timothy Iberer sexually assaults his girlfriend's 8-year-old daughter in Clifton while the girlfriend is out shopping.
April 2002
Arrested. Pleads guilty soon afterward.
January 2003
Sentenced to four years at Avenel Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center.
June 2006
Released on parole. Registers as a sex offender with the Bloomingdale police. Information is forwarded to the Morris County prosecutor and state police.
Sept. 10, 2007
Allegedly slips through a first-floor bedroom window of a Pequannock home at 3 a.m. and tries to sexually assault a 5-year-old girl. Flees at the approach of the child's mother. In the following days, police swarm the suburban neighborhood as an intensive investigation begins.
Sept. 13
The Morris County prosecutor issues letters to parents explaining why authorities waited two days before publicizing the case.
Friday
Arrested in the morning and held on $1 million bail in the Morris County Jail. Charged with attempted sexual assault and burglary. An arrest affidavit says Iberer allegedly had broken into the girl's room twice before.
Monday
First appearance expected in state Superior Court on the new charges. | 
