The Ridgefield Park man charged in last year's assault on a Bergenfield rabbi is back in custody, this time on stalking and trespassing charges filed in his hometown. Jeffrey Zicchinella, 41, was committed to the Bergen County Jail on Sunday and is being held without bond, according to jail records.
Zicchinella faces two counts of stalking, defiant trespassing, and two counts of harassment tied to an incident in Ridgefield Park, according to jail records cited by Daily Voice. He also faced a separate defiant trespassing charge stemming from a New Jersey court record dated the day before his arrest, and was cited for a parking violation for allegedly parking in a designated handicapped zone. Daily Voice has reached out to Ridgefield Park police for additional details on the case.
Under New Jersey's stalking statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-10, stalking is defined as a repeated course of conduct that causes a person reasonable fear or emotional distress. It is typically a fourth-degree crime punishable by up to 18 months in prison, but the charge escalates to a third-degree offense carrying up to five years for repeat offenders or restraining order violations, according to Villani & DeLuca, P.C.
A Name Tied to Last Year's Sukkot Assault
Zicchinella is the man charged in the October 2025 attack on Rabbi Avraham Wein, who was assaulted outside his home on Sussex Road in Bergenfield around 2 p.m. on the eve of Sukkot, per the Daily Voice report. Rabbi Wein serves as assistant rabbi at Congregation Keter Torah and as a faculty member at the Torah Academy of Bergen County in Teaneck, according to the Times of Israel.
Surveillance footage showed bystanders rushing to help Wein during the assault, per the same Daily Voice account, and both the rabbi and a good Samaritan who intervened suffered minor injuries. Two local residents physically subdued the assailant during the attack, and the chief of Bergenfield EMS personally drove Wein home from the police station after he was treated, according to Belaaz News, which noted the account disputed early social media reports that the rabbi had been hospitalized.
The attack's timing, just before a major Jewish holiday, drew swift statements from U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer and Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco before investigators reached their conclusion. Bergenfield Police Chief Mustafa Rabboh later announced that an investigation with the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office determined the assault was a random act of unprovoked violence rather than a bias-motivated hate crime under New Jersey law, as reported by New Jersey 101.5.
A Long Trail of Court Cases Across North Jersey
Court records show Zicchinella, who has also used the name Jeffrey Vangeldren, was already wanted for two other violent incidents in the 12 hours before the October 2025 assault, including allegedly breaking a man's nose at a Hackensack 7-Eleven, according to court records relayed by Independent Online News and reported by 13News Now. His criminal history spans more than 15 years dating back to 2009, with past arrests in Ringwood, Montvale, Saddle Brook and Hoboken on charges including burglary, terroristic threats, and restraining order violations, per those same court records.
The Daily Voice report also details a string of unresolved municipal matters preceding his latest arrest. A Ridgefield Park stalking case from February 2024 was listed as disposed, while a Ridgefield Park harassment case and simple assault cases in both Ridgefield Park and Hackensack, all from 2025, moved through the courts alongside a February 2024 disorderly conduct charge in Paramus. Court records show the Hackensack simple assault case and the Paramus disorderly conduct case were both flagged for failure to appear or pay fines prior to his September arrest, while the Ridgefield Park assault case was listed as a time payment matter.
Why He Could Be Held Without Bond
Zicchinella's detention without bond reflects New Jersey's Criminal Justice Reform Act, implemented in 2017, which replaced traditional cash bail with a risk-based Public Safety Assessment that judges use to weigh a defendant's risk of new criminal activity, according to NJ Courts. That framework is especially relevant for defendants with outstanding municipal bench warrants or a pattern of failing to appear in court.
Following Zicchinella's October 2025 arrest, his mother told reporters that New Jersey's involuntary commitment laws had prevented her family from securing long-term psychiatric treatment for his severe mental illness and substance abuse, because state law generally requires adult consent for such commitments, according to the 13News Now report. Her account points to a tension familiar to families across the state: relatives can see a crisis unfolding but often lack the legal tools to intervene before it escalates into criminal charges.
