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Russian Spies Like Their Suburban New Jersey Homes Spacious, If A Little Decrepit

Tyler Durden's picture




 

According to the New Jersey Tax Records, the fakely married couple of fake Americans, Richard and Cynthia Murphy live at 31 Marquette Road, in Montclair, NJ 07043, a home first built in 1950. Russian spies like their headquarters roomy (if completely unremarkable - see pic below): the house is 1,824 sq.feet. The assessment on the house was $530,800. The two purchased the house in 2008 from Thomas and Nancy Senior for a price of $481,000. One thing is certain: nobody living in 15 CPW is a Russian spy.

We will bring you more details as we find them.

The duo's house:

More details from NJ.com

On Montclair’s northern edge, in a neighborhood known as "Fieldstone," Richard Murphy — one of 11 accused of being Russian secret agents — appeared to be living a typical American life.

His was the relatively modest wood-shingled colonial with the wood-burning fireplace in a neighborhood of circa 1940s single-family homes. He could be spotted each morning and afternoon walking to the school-bus stop with his daughters.

The Murphy family had arrived less than 2 years ago, when they closed on the purchase of the circa 1950 4-bedroom colonial backing onto the 16-acre Alonzo Bonsal Wildlife Preserve near the Clifton border.

"If there is an ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ road in Montclair, it’s Marquette," said Roberta Baldwin, a real-estate agent. "You couldn’t get more normal. You couldn’t find anything more quiet and demure."

The Murphys closed on the house on Aug. 18, 2008, paying $481,000 for the 58-by-110 foot slice of suburbia.

Susan Coke, the listing agent, expressed shock with word that Richard and Cynthia Murphy had been snarled by the FBI for allegedly carrying out long-term, "deep-cover" assignments in the United States on behalf of the Russian Federation.

"They’re such a nice couple," she said. "I spent a lot of time with them showing them houses. I just hope the FBI got it wrong."

Patty DeSimone, who lives a few doors down on Marquette Road, said Richard Murphy was regularly seen, morning and afternoon, walking his daughters to the corner to catch a school bus. He wasn’t in business attire, she said.

"T-shirt and shorts," she said.

By early yesterday, before official announcement of the criminal case, the evidence of the FBI arrests on their street was becoming ever clearer.

Jeanine Genauer was walking her dog along Marquette Road and was surprised to see a contingent of armed "security" people and black sedans with New York license plates. The door to the empty garage was open. The bathroom light was on.

"I just found it odd that at 5:30 in the morning, all these undercover agents were standing outside the house," she said. "I honestly thought that some dignitary was visiting someone."

Update:

Below is a sketch of the alleged conspirators: Anna Chapman, left, Vicky Pelaez, second
from left, the defendant known as 'Richard Murphy', center, the
defendant known as 'Cynthia Murphy', second from right, and the
defendant known as 'Juan Lazaro' are seen in Manhattan federal court in
New York, Monday, June 28, 2010 (AP)


 

 

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Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:29 | 440158 lettuce
lettuce's picture

nice one td. this is a hilarious post.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:10 | 440245 Adam Neira
Adam Neira's picture

The spy game aint what it used to be...

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:38 | 440304 DoChenRollingBearing
DoChenRollingBearing's picture

Again, sorry to jump in line, but see below where I detail my dinner with a Soviet GRU spy in 1985.  It's true.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:31 | 440162 chindit13
chindit13's picture

If 1824' is spacious, we never would have had a housing crisis.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:43 | 440195 Ragnar D
Ragnar D's picture

Not so...it's the half a MILLION for 1800 sf that's the problem.

And in a bloated-government state like NJ, the property taxes on that alone are probably higher than the rent on my very comfortable 900 sf apartment.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:57 | 440223 ZeroPower
ZeroPower's picture

What, is it a good suburb for something?

If youre trying to tell me $1/2MM is the valuation on that shack, then im afraid this bubble is nowhere close to being over.

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 11:03 | 440458 Ragnar D
Ragnar D's picture

No, I'm going the other way.  Half a mil for something twice the size of my 1 bedroom apartment is crazy.

I'm not saying people should move into shacks; by all means get a nice house if you've got the money.  I just think it's ridiculous how much people have bid up housing in a lot of places.

The neighborhood I grew up in, in a decent part of Augusta, Georgia, has 2100-2700 sf homes selling for 130-160k.  Go to an overregulated, overtaxed hellhole like NJ and an 1800 sf house is 500k?  Ludicrous, even considering population density.

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 02:40 | 440763 Sudden Debt
Sudden Debt's picture

My god, $530,800 for that?!

That means real estate prices can go down at least 80%!

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 10:27 | 441265 Don Gorgon
Don Gorgon's picture

Montclair is often touted by the NYT as a leafy escape for i-bankers looking to raise their spawn outside of the city.  It was recently "discovered" by the paper only a couple years ago so prices can only go up up up!

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 23:14 | 440498 knukles
knukles's picture

Holy Shit!

That's the home upon which the underwater out of the money in default unsecured reverse first mortgage was on used for the entire equity layer of that Abacus deal by Goldman! 

Conspiracy Time Writ Large! 

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:33 | 440165 Zina
Zina's picture

Fakely married couple? But the sex was real, no?

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:39 | 440176 Mr Lennon Hendrix
Mr Lennon Hendrix's picture

No, Cynthia faked it.  She told me.

Disclosure, I am a triple spy working for Zerohedge.  Roger Roger.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:41 | 440186 MsCreant
MsCreant's picture

Fake sex gets you fake kids.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:19 | 440270 Adam Neira
Adam Neira's picture

Lot of faking going on here. Reminds me of a song...

"The Sky was Pink" by Nathan Fake

(His real name, I think...)

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:30 | 440281 Mr Lennon Hendrix
Mr Lennon Hendrix's picture

Dang you're a genius!  Fake sex equals fake kids; and this must be the crux of 'Mercas problems!  No one knows how to make love!

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:11 | 440248 Adam Neira
Adam Neira's picture

The sex was real. The orgasms were faked.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:25 | 440285 Mr Lennon Hendrix
Mr Lennon Hendrix's picture

Sex without the money shot is real?  Well, all I know is it sure is disappointing!

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 22:12 | 440370 MsCreant
MsCreant's picture

Not necessarily so Mr. Lennon Hendrix. ;-)

http://sexuality.about.com/od/orgasms/ht/htmalemultiples.htm

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 22:31 | 440402 Mr Lennon Hendrix
Mr Lennon Hendrix's picture

Kamu Sutra stuff eh?  And I would recommend that for reading by the way.

;)

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 22:33 | 440407 Careless Whisper
Careless Whisper's picture

thanks Ms

Learning to be a multi-orgasmic man takes time and practice over many sessions.

I'll report back on my progress.

 

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 22:57 | 440461 MsCreant
MsCreant's picture

Great book. I love the guy's smile on the cover. Enjoy.

http://www.amazon.com/Multi-Orgasmic-Man-Sexual-Secrets-Should/dp/0062513362

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 01:39 | 440719 Canoe Driver
Canoe Driver's picture

i always suspected you were a man, MsCreant.  Excellent subterfuge.  Nicely done.

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 02:29 | 440756 MsCreant
MsCreant's picture

I've heard that before. ;-) You throw down an interesting gauntlet.

I am not a passive housewife. I don't expect a man to take care of me or support me. I make my own way in the world. I have the resources to be a gold digger if that is what I wanted, but I don't. For me, it lacks integrity and won't get me the kind of partner I want to be with.

I guess you have to decide for yourself, all of us wear masks here. I might just be that good.

My husband and I joke that he is a big ole lesbian with a giant, thick, veiny, clit and I am a horny, gay, adolescent male trapped inside a woman's body. We get along very well.

Get back to me if you get it all sorted out.

Hint: Gender identity is often conflated with sexual orientation. One does not intrinsically follow the other. 

Hint: Sexual orientation is often conceptualized on a continuum. Sexuality exists on a terrain, the continuum is too narrow to include everyone.

Hint: I am actually traditional as all get out but reserve the right to be open to everything amongst consenting adults. That includes my comments here on this blog.

Keep driving your canoe.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:38 | 440305 Temporalist
Temporalist's picture

Since the ZHers lover the Seinfeld:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlpD2Ata8kI

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 22:52 | 440449 Rusty Shorts
Rusty Shorts's picture

 - thanks, I needed that.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:43 | 440180 mynhair
mynhair's picture

Just close the fricking border.

Deport all spotted owls to Canadia.

Deport all Canadians to Chavez-land.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:13 | 440257 Adam Neira
Adam Neira's picture

Watch out for undercover agents from Sao Tome and Principe. They have designs on your offset printing business...

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:15 | 440263 MountainHawk
MountainHawk's picture

Mynhair from the Market Watch forum!??!

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:41 | 440181 CD
CD's picture

"One thing is certain: nobody living in 15 CPW is a Russian spy."

Perhaps, or else the couples working the daily grind in suburbia were merely diversions to keep counterintelligence resources occupied, while the REAL work gets done elsewhere...

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:43 | 440189 torabora
torabora's picture

So if they are false flag Americans, who hooked them up with ID? Are the kids real ? Betcha there is a lot more of this going on. Remember the two White House gate crashers....were they noise?

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:43 | 440193 maturitydefault
maturitydefault's picture

Every game starts over when you hit reset...

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:45 | 440199 LeBalance
LeBalance's picture

ZH breaks the surveillance footage at 11p.m. Stay tuned.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:46 | 440204 DavidC
DavidC's picture

Brilliant, Tyler, brilliant.

DavidC

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:50 | 440208 csmith
csmith's picture

$264/sq ft for THAT? YHTBFKM!

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:53 | 440210 GIANTKILR
GIANTKILR's picture

I read this theory once by a military theorist that said the whole fall of the Russian Empire in the late '80's was faked. Their "demise" would get the US to focus energies elsewhere. The Russians would then work behind the scenes to get the US involved and overstretched in smaller conflicts, and then they would reemerge at their full power they had kept hidden and takeover the world! "This guy was nuts!" I thought at the time, but........

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:04 | 440231 Anarchist
Anarchist's picture

If you had ever been to Russia you would not think that. I was there in the 90's after the Russian Whitehouse was attacked. The country was looted for trillions by the Oligarchs. It was the wild wild west. Old people beggin everywhere. Military guys selling anything they could steal off the base. You could buy anything, subs, planes, tanks. Even the Buran was for sale.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 22:05 | 440358 GIANTKILR
GIANTKILR's picture

I have delt with Russians, and they are pretty hardcore people. Life is cheap to them! The end justifies the means. If they were going to really "sell" a collapse wouldn't they make it look like the wild wild west? The perfect crime!

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 23:07 | 440490 tmosley
tmosley's picture

You can't hide an industrial base.  No nation can be powerful without one.

The USSR REALLY collapsed, because they were socialists.  The United States will REALLY collapse, because we are socialists.  Only free markets can create powerful industrial bases on any sustainalbe basis.  Anything less than a free market is a paper tiger.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:16 | 440258 Adam Neira
Adam Neira's picture

Long Live Rother Mussia !

She just won her first set at Wimbeldon and I have backed her at good odds...

 

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:13 | 440213 Anarchist
Anarchist's picture

Looks exactly like my old house in NJ minus the front porch. Sold it in 1985 for $135K. Its not worth $535K anymore. Bet they were under water big time.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:56 | 440220 Village Idiot
Village Idiot's picture

...And they seemed like such a nice family...never anything out of the normal...

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:57 | 440221 TomB
TomB's picture

I live in Europe and can't understand why anyone would want to spend half a million dollars on a house like that.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:12 | 440233 cowdiddly
cowdiddly's picture

probably gov't paid relocation expenses and found a crooked RE broker to file paperwork on 535k for a 150k dive with broker getting kickback. Spies have no moral code you see.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:15 | 440264 Anarchist
Anarchist's picture

You never lived in Jersey. House like that was selling for close to $150 K in the mid nineties.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:00 | 440225 Citizen of an I...
Citizen of an IKEA World's picture

For Christ's sake, somebody call the Desperate Landscapes hotline, stat!

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:08 | 440241 Adam Neira
Adam Neira's picture

Prime Minister Putin is setting up a "Special Spy Housing Relief Fund". 2% of all vodka sales in will be allocated to such a worthy charity. The idea is a winner on many fronts. The more successful the spies, the more vodka will be drunk in nationalistic celebration and the more money will go to the spies etc. etc. A beautiful Russian feedback loop almost as good as Sergei Prokofiev’s “Battle on the Ice.”

Nostrovia !

 

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:10 | 440244 IE
IE's picture

Such opulence... no wonder they took all that risk.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:12 | 440250 arnoldsimage
arnoldsimage's picture

and the greed and degradation of the species goes on and on and on... http://www.ntimc.org/newswire.php?story_id=7593&print_page=true

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 10:40 | 441311 mtomato2
mtomato2's picture

There's no way that is real.  If so, we as a species NEED to be finished.  The Reset can't come soon enough.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:12 | 440253 Rick64
Rick64's picture

Those damn realestate agents rip everybody off, even Russian spys.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:27 | 440287 Mr Lennon Hendrix
Mr Lennon Hendrix's picture

+hahaha!

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:14 | 440259 Carl Marks
Carl Marks's picture

That house is a POS. Where I live, you can purchase that crap for under 100K. No wonder the economy collapsed.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:33 | 440297 bob_dabolina
bob_dabolina's picture

Where I live that POS is worth 1.2 mil

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:49 | 440330 TonyV
TonyV's picture

California?

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:23 | 440279 sushi
sushi's picture

Quote

Richard and Cynthia Murphy had been snarled by the FBI

Endquote

Well, at least they were not snarked. If they are convicted maybe they will be parodied.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:36 | 440301 DoChenRollingBearing
DoChenRollingBearing's picture

I had dinner once with a Soviet spy.  True!  He was GRU, their military intelligence.  His card said Third Secretary -- Economic Section (whatever).

This was about 1985, northern Virginia suburb of DC.

I told the FBI beforehand, the Agent told me to go ahead and have dinner with him and see what they wanted.  No danger he said.  I did not access to anything classified at that time.  Mr. Kosarukov asked me to do research for him.  I replied that I was sure that there were people in his own embassy that could do research as well or better than me.  I then went on to say that yes, I would do research for them, but at $100 / hr (kind of a lot in 1985).  Mr. Kosarukov never got back to me.

After dinner, I did look under my car to see if there was bomb or anything...

FBI later told me that Kosarukov was dangerous in the sense that he was seeking REALLY CLASSIFIED and dangerous info.  FBI also told me the Russians were cheap and did not want to pay $100 / hr to do "research".

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:47 | 440323 jkruffin
jkruffin's picture

Asking the FBI where the Port-a-Potty is at , is classfied dangerous info according to the FBI.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:45 | 440322 Tarheel
Tarheel's picture

Anna Chapman looks like a hottie

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:52 | 440336 Ned Zeppelin
Ned Zeppelin's picture

The only crime here is the assessed value of the home. Hello? Ever file an assessment appeal?

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 08:03 | 440948 John McCloy
John McCloy's picture

+1 Just what I was thinking 400k+ huh? Memo to Putin, never hire a spy who cannot negotiate.Unless of course they are strategically defaulting for the past 2 years.

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 13:16 | 441937 dark pools of soros
dark pools of soros's picture

all you southern cheapos don't realize how much people pay for location - they aren't stuck in their home like you all are in kentucky or whatever

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 22:04 | 440355 SmittyinLA
SmittyinLA's picture

gotta wonder why they were outed.

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 22:15 | 440377 OutLookingIn
OutLookingIn's picture

 

 Economy falling down, probably for the ten count. Millions being cut loose from unemployment benefits. Forty million more on food relief. States going bankrupt. Monday after a G20 summit that accomplishes nothing.

Okay. Time for a false flag op to be launched. Still got those spying Rooskies? Yep. Been watching them for ten years. Time to draw in the net - make sure and phone the media. All of them. This should keep the sheeple occupied for a time, while we move more military assets off shore of Iran. Then we can put to work all those unemployed millions. Aint capitalism great! Attention. You are being led by the nose - and don't even realize it!

Mon, 06/28/2010 - 23:49 | 440562 bigdumbnugly
bigdumbnugly's picture

 i wonder if anna kournakova was involved with that bunch too.

come to think of it, she really couldn't play tennis a lick, or act, but man i'd tell her whatever she wanted to hear if she tried teasing it out of me.

fortunately though, she would have a very hard time decoding my words due to the stuttering and stammering and drooling, et al.

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 00:14 | 440590 joebren
joebren's picture

So the secret info the Russians got hold of was some Wall St Report that now is the time to buy gold. Wow, that's really got me worried. And - what's Obama 'thinking' before his visit to Mother Russia. Don't they know he's a Socialist yet? At least the Chinese steal missle secrets.

Tue, 06/29/2010 - 04:36 | 440823 Moonrajah
Moonrajah's picture

Oh, I get it. These 'spies' were just translating Zerohedge articles and sending them back home to the Motherland.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!