---

The first person to be federally prosecuted under a program for serious gun crime offenders is being made an example of through an advertising campaign paid for by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office.

Two billboards, one in Asbury Park on Fourth Avenue between Memorial Drive and Main Street and one in Neptune on Rt. 35 South, show Robert Fiolka’s mugshot and the words “Gun Crime = Jail Time, Robert Fiolka Knows the Equation.” He is now serving a nine and a half year jail sentence without parole eligibility in a North Carolina prison, the billboards show.

Fiolka, a Staten Island, N.Y. man, was responsible for a string of armed robberies in N.J. and N.Y area, Gramiccioni said.

Another billboard will soon go up near Memorial Drive and Lake Avenue on Tuesday and, along with the billboards, N.J. Transit buses that travel through the area will display the ads and some will also be put up in spaces at the Asbury Park train station, he said.

Gramiccioni said the campaign serves two purposes, to show citizens law enforcement officials are working together in the public’s best interest to further reduce crime in the area and to put “fear in the hearts and minds” of people involved with gun-related crimes, underscoring the fact that there are sever consequences to taking part in those offenses.

Fiolka was sentenced to 114 months for his role in the robbery of Blue Stove Antiques in Fair Haven, N.J., on June 2, 2012, according to a news release on the U.S. District Attorney’s website. Fiolka, then 69, pleaded guilty in front of a U.S. District Court judge to robbery and use of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and was sentenced in July 2013, the release stated.

His federal prosecution comes through the Project Stop the Violence initiative, which Gramiccioni and Paul J. Fishman, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, rolled out in November. The joint initiative between their respective offices is designed to combat gun-related and violent criminal activity in Monmouth County by increasing prison time for citizens who are identified as priority targets after law enforcement officials screen their crime history and identify certain case specific factors.

The federal system does not offer parole and defendants can serve time at any jail within the national prison system.

“What we found with this project  is, a lot of bad guys prepare themselves psychologically for jail time but not from being far away from their family and friends,” he said. “Their lives are gong to substantially change by being cut off from their support units … I don’t think people are flying down to North Carolina to see this guy.”

Six advertisement cycles that last until the end of the year have been paid for out of the prosecutor’s office’s forfeiture funds, money that was seized from the proceeds of drug cases, he said. The billboards cost between $1000 and $1200 a month and he hopes to have the ads change every 30 to 45 days depending on how quickly other cases are resolved, he said.

The awareness campaign comes a week after the prosecutor’s office announced the results of Operation Dead End, six-month investigation that led to 28 arrests in connection with violent street and gun crimes  in the city. While the timing of the campaign is in close proximity to announcement of the arrests and has an added benefit, the two are not linked and the timing is purely coincidental, Gramiccioni said.

————————————————————

Follow the Asbury Park Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

---