Naked recruiter broke into home

Police: Naked recruiter broke into home
Clothes found behind bar. Roommate discovers surprise early morning visitor on computer.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007
By TOM QUIGLEY
The Express-Times

HACKETTSTOWN | A town man and his roommate got a big surprise early Friday when they discovered a man dressed only in sneakers and socks inside their High Street home.

Jerry B. Mahaffey, a U.S. Army recruiter in Hackettstown, broke into the house to use a computer to access Internet pornography sites, court records show.

Police said they later found Mahaffey's clothing behind The Laughing Lion, a nearby tavern on Main Street.

The alleged break-in occurred after midnight as Jorge Arevalo was sleeping upstairs.

"Around midnight I hear the door and I'm thinking it's my roommate," Arevalo said.

He said he heard sounds downstairs and wondered why his roommate was walking around so much.

"Then around 1 a.m., I hear my roommate outside saying goodbye to someone," Arevalo said Monday.

The next thing he heard was some expletives from his roommate who discovered Mahaffey in the house.

Arevalo said the man had cuts and bruises on his body and left bloodstains in various parts of the house including the kitchen and bathroom.

"We were up until 5 a.m. cleaning," he said.

Four separate porn sites were minimized at the bottom of the computer screen, Arevalo said.

"He wasn't talking to us," he said, adding he and his roommate were angered by the intrusion and on the verge of getting angrier when police arrived about three minutes after a 911 call.

"We've never had anybody in our house butt- naked and bleeding," he explained.

He said Mahaffey began talking when police arrived, providing the officers with his name and address.

"He was high on something," Arevalo said.

He said the intruder entered through a back door and may have thought no one was home.

The exact route Mahaffey, 26, took on his alleged naked jaunt from behind the Main Street tavern to the Arevalo home in the 100 block of High Street could not be obtained Monday. The two spots are less than a tenth of a mile apart.

Arevalo said the suspect told police he suffered the cuts and bruises in a fight.

Police wrapped a blanket around Mahaffey when they arrested him at the house.

Mahaffey of the 100 block of Valentine Street is free on $2,500 bail and made his first court appearance Monday. There was no answer at his Liberty Street apartment Monday afternoon.

Mahaffey is charged with burglary and lewdness.