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Big-time Bergen landscaper charged with leaving crash while DUI

ONLY ON CVP: It wasn’t tough for Harrington Park police to find a hit-and-run driver whose truck rammed a vehicle in town: The popular contractor’s company name was on the side.

Photo Credit: Cliffview Pilot

Inset: Giotta


Michael Giotta, 48, owner of Stonegate Gardens, was “a little agitated” when police showed up at his house to arrest him and was later taken to Bergen Regional Medical Center for evaluation, a law enforcement source told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.

Giotta — who reportedly has dozens of accounts in New York City and countless more in North Jersey — received summonses for leaving the scene of an accident and driving while under the influence, pending the results of blood tests, the source said.

The occupants in the other vehicle sustained minor injuries in the Thursday afternoon crash at Arthur Place and Lynn Street, the officer told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.

Witnesses gave police the name on the side of Giotta’s truck, and they went straight to his Schraalenburgh Road home, he told the web site.

Giotta is a member of Closter’s Shade Tree Commission. Among its many projects, his business created the memorial garden at Alpine Community Church, and a special installation of black granite, engraved “Footprints” in and around New York City Hall, when it was renovated more than a decade ago. The “Footprints” of since-demolished buildings — marked in the paving by stones alternating in texture — trace the historical Windmill, the British Barracks, the Croton Fountain (the first fountain in New York) and the Post Office. 

A graduate of Northern Valley High School in Old Tappan and Columbia University, Giotta once was an aspiring actor who reportedly landed an appearance on “The Drew Carey Show.”

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