BEYOND BELIEF: A transplanted New Jerseyan has preyed on the goodwill of Garden State pizzerias and restaurants amid the coronavirus pandemic to phone in several thousands of dollars worth of bogus food orders that he claims are for hospitals and first responders, authorities said.

Then he says he hates Italians and hopes they get the virus, they said.

"We have had several residents send us food, which I appreciate tremendously, but this has gone to a new low,” South Brunswick Police Chief Raymond Hayducka said. "It is incomprehensible."

Sudeep Khetani, 34, formerly of South Brunswick, has called in large orders from his phone in Orlando to restaurants in town, as well as in Montgomery, Plainsboro and West Windsor, saying they're for police and promising to pick them up.

Those who called Khetani back have gotten an earful -- basically, a tirade against Italians, with him saying that he hoped they all got COVID-19, they said.

Khetani, a U.S. citizen whose parents are from India, has a criminal history in New Jersey, records show, and is on probation in Florida for selling counterfeit tickets to DisneyWorld.

Last year he claimed that a municipal judge in Somsert County racially profiled him during a traffic ticket hearing by telling him to watch out for immigration agents when he drove back to Florida.

Khetaniwho tried to block his phone number while placing the bogus orders, Hayucka said.

That disn't stop two investigators -- South Brunswick Detective Tim Hoover and Detective Ryan Tighe of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office -- from identifying him, the chief said.

"Our businesses are all struggling and every dollar matters," Hayducka said. "I am not sure there is an adequate charge for what he is doing.”

Authorities are going with fraud, for starters, while trying to determine whether they can charge Khetani with bias crimes or possibly harassment.

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