BYRAM — A Ross Road resident planned to kidnap and torture women, and had advised another man on how to commit the crime and avoid detection, according to the FBI. Richard Meltz, 65, of Byram and Nashua, N.H, and Robert Christopher Asch, 60, of Manhattan...

New Jersey Herald Staff

and wire reports

newsroom@njherald.com

BYRAM — Law enforcement spent most of Monday combing through the house of a former Sussex County undersheriff and Ross Road resident who had planned to kidnap and torture women, and had advised another man on how to commit the crime and avoid detection, according to the FBI.

Richard "Rick" Meltz, 65, of Byram— a former township councilman —who also has a home in Nashua, N.H, and Robert Christopher Asch, 60, of Manhattan, are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced Monday.



Meltz is currently the chief of police for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for the Bedford Massachusetts Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He served as Byram councilman for much of the time that he served as undersheriff during the administration of Sussex County Sheriff Robert Untig in the 1990s.

Throughout the day Monday, at least eight unmarked law enforcement cars were parked in front of and in the driveway of 21 Ross Road, a brown house on a quiet wooded road. Agents in plainclothes, looking for evidence, came and went from the house to a makeshift tent in the driveway and, at one point, searched through the garbage.

Neighbors were at first surprised to see the cars, and then later were shocked to hear of the crimes Meltz allegedly perpetrated.

"It is such a wonderful neighborhood, but you don't know," said neighbor Ewa Bialoblocka. "What the heck is going on in the world?"

Bialoblocka, whose house has for 13 years been directly next door to Meltz's, said that he was always a good, quiet neighbor — offering to help after Hurricane Sandy, watching over her house while her family went on vacation, walking his two dogs on the street and boasting about his new grandchild and two daughters.

She said that a few months ago Meltz had told her that he got a job in Massachusetts so he and his wife were looking to sell the Ross Road house and move. When Bialoblocka saw the cars outside the house Monday afternoon, she assumed it was real estate agents or an open house.

"I never expected something like that," she said. "He was a very nice man."

Another neighbor Jean Romanelli echoed the same sentiments about the man and family she lived across from for 27 years.

"He was always a good neighbor with ties to the community," she said.

Conspiring since 2011



Authorities said in court papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that Meltz and Asch conspired since the spring of 2011 to attack multiple victims, including the relatives of co-conspirator Michael Vanhise, who was previously indicted on kidnapping conspiracy charges after he confessed to the FBI that a plot to kidnap, rape and kill a woman that he planned to carry out with a New York City police officer was more than an Internet fantasy. He is said to have planned the gruesome plot with Officer Gilberto Valle, who is charged with conspiring to kidnap, kill and eat women.

According to the FBI, Vanhise claimed in Internet communications with Asch and Meltz that he wanted to solicit individuals to kidnap, rape and kill his wife, as well as his sister-in-law and her children, along with his stepdaughter. A criminal complaint said the men referred to the planned killings in communications as the "snuffing" of women, children and infants.

Authorities also accused Meltz and Asch of conspiring to kidnap and kill a woman who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent. After hearing about the Valle case and how it was built on online evidence, the men allegedly started communicating solely by telephone as a precaution, unaware there was a wiretap, authorities said.

There was no mention of cooking or eating women in the charges unveiled Monday against Asch, a former librarian at Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan, and Meltz. Both were ordered held without bail after an initial court appearance.

In court, prosecutors told a magistrate judge that Meltz was overheard discussing killing his wife of 42 years. Defense attorney Peter Brill said Meltz's wife was aware of his activities, but believes it's fantasy.

"She's very concerned about her husband," he said in a failed bid for bail.

They also said Meltz had directed Asch to buy a Taser for the plot that was recovered when Asch was arrested on Monday morning.

Lori Cohen, Asch's attorney, declined to comment.

FBI Assistant Director George Venizelos said the men "were not confined to talking about these ghoulish plans. They acquired the tools to accomplish the deed, including a stun gun and the chemical means to anesthetize their victims. And they made detailed plans to use these instruments — plans that were foiled by the FBI's intervention."

Read excerpts of online or phone conversations

According to the complaint filed Monday in Manhattan federal court:

Between 2011 and October 2012, Meltz, Asch, and Vanhise engaged in a series of e-mail and instant message communications during which they discussed and planned in great detail the kidnapping, torture and murder of women.

In October 2012, FBI agents became aware of these communications. Specifically, they learned that Vanhise was sending e-mail and instant messages from various computers to solicit individuals, including Meltz and Asch, to kidnap, rape, and kill his wife, his sister-in-law, her children, and his stepdaughter.

Vanhise eventually met with FBI agents and told them that he sent Meltz and Asch photographs of his sister-in-law and her minor children. Meltz and Asch both expressed interest in kidnapping the proposed victims, and Vanhise provided Meltz and Asch with a location that was in close proximity to the kidnapping targets' actual home address. In an e-mail exchange between Meltz and Vanhise about this plan, Meltz wrote, "we go over there she know you let's [sic.] us in we choke her out tie her up throw her in the back of your car take her someplace and [rape and torture her]."

In October 2012, an FBI agent working in an undercover capacity contacted Asch online and began discussions about kidnapping a woman, who, unbeknownst to the defendants, was also actually an FBI undercover agent. The first undercover agent and Asch met on a number of occasions in Manhattan, and during one such meeting on March 13, 2013, Asch provided the agent with a bag of materials to be used during the kidnapping and torture of the woman, including a ski mask, hypodermic needles, leather ties, chrome forceps, a three-page gun show itinerary, documents relating to a "leg-spreader" and "dental retractor" that Asch claimed to have purchased, and the liquid form of doxepin hydrochloride, commonly used as a sleep agent. During the same meeting, Asch, along with the undercover agent and another FBI agent acting in an undercover capacity, conducted surveillance of the intended victim, as she left her purported work place. Asch, upon viewing her, said, "She has to die."

Meltz was arrested Sunday afternoon, and Asch was arrested Monday morning by special agents of the FBI.

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, "The bone-chilling conduct alleged in this complaint is a chronicle of sadism and depravity that includes the defendants' very real steps to carry out their plans to kidnap, torture, rape, and kill the women and children they targeted. As alleged, Richard Meltz and Robert Christopher Asch assiduously planned their plot in detailed conversations and alternately served as advisers and facilitators of the plan — Meltz provided ‘strategic advice,' and Asch conducted surveillance and provided supplies including leather ties, a sleeping agent, instruments of torture and a Taser gun. "

Asch introduced the undercover agent to Meltz, who participated in multiple conversations with both the agent and Asch about the conspiracy's objective to kidnap and commit acts of violence against women. For example, after Meltz and Asch discussed the widespread availability of stun guns in gun shops in New Hampshire, where Meltz lived, and at gun shows in Pennsylvania, and Meltz provided advice about the use of a stun gun in the commission of the kidnapping offense, Asch traveled from New York to Pennsylvania to attend a gun show and purchased a high-voltage Taser gun.

Throughout this investigation, the FBI intercepted numerous phone calls during which Meltz provided advice, information, and assistance to Asch on how to avoid detection and minimize the risks associated with abducting and murdering a woman. Examples of the techniques suggested by Meltz include the avoidance of toll roads, using rental cars, paying for "tools" in cash, looking for victims in desolate areas who are engaged in other activities (such as talking on the phone), abducting victims at night, and using disguises when first approaching a potential victim, the complaint states.

On Sunday, April 14, Meltz met with the undercover agent at a location in New Jersey.

This meeting was recorded and observed by FBI agents. At the meeting, Meltz and the agent discussed the kidnapping and murder of the woman. Meltz advised the agent on how best to dispose of the woman's body, including how to transport it from the crime scene to a desolate location in the woods in upstate New York. Meltz told the agent that given the weather at the time of year, if the woman's body were left in the woods, wild animals would likely find and destroy it before law enforcement could find it, the complaint continues.

On Monday, April 15, Asch met the agent in lower Manhattan to conduct surveillance of the woman. The agent and Asch previously had discussed Asch giving the agent the tools Asch had gathered to use for the kidnapping, so that the agent could take them to the location where the woman was to be brought following her abduction. Asch brought to the April 15 meeting two bags of tools intended to be used in the kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder of the woman, including, but not limited to, a Taser gun, rope, a meat hammer, duct tape, gloves, cleaning supplies, zip ties, a dental retractor, two speculums, 12-inch skewers, pliers, a wireless modem, and a leg spreader, according to the complaint.

Meltz is a former Byram police officer and was laid off the Byram force in 1985. He then worked with departments in Roxbury and Andover and also returned to the Byram force. He also served with the Hunterdon County Sheriff's Office and was appointed to the Sussex County undersheriff job by Untig in 1990.

At that point, he had returned to Byram, where he was a sergeant and had eight years to go to get his police state pension.

In 1996, Meltz, who was heading the Bureau of Law Enforcement, was fired or dismissed as undersheriff by Untig. In a New Jersey Herald story, Meltz claimed he was fired while Untig told the newspaper he would not discuss personnel issues.

Meltz told the newspaper he would be taking a job in security consulting and "looks forward to getting a private investigator license."

Two years later, he ran an unsuccessful race for the Republican line for county sheriff against Untig.

Byram Mayor Jim Oscovitch said Meltz did not run for re-election to the Township Council in 1997.

Oscovitch grew up in the East Brookwood area of town where Meltz lives. "I knew him to be a nice man," the mayor said. "I'm just astonished at this."

Bharara praised the outstanding investigative work of the FBI in making the arrest. He also thanked the New Jersey State Police. The investigation is continuing.

This case is being handled by the Office's Violent Crimes Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Hadassa Waxman and Brooke E. Cucinella are in charge of the prosecution.