Police say man faked kidnap to avoid charges BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer SOUTH BRUNSWICK - It was 8:45 p.m. on Independence Day and on Route 27, a blue Toyota 4-Runner was tearing down the road at over 80 mph with a Princeton police officer in hot pursuit. Entering South Brunswick, the driver tried to shake the officer by turning behind a Kingston flower shop and continued driving along the Delaware-Raritan Canal, at which point the officer lost track of the vehicle. "He was going way too fast for the Princeton officer," said Detective Jim Ryan, South Brunswick Police public information officer. He said that in the interests of safety, the officer decided not to engage in a high-speed chase. South Brunswick police were told to be on the lookout for the vehicle and at 11:15 a.m., Officer Mike Pellino located the Toyota in a remote area of Mapleton Nursery. Officer Pellino and Princeton Township officers began searching the area. After about an hour and a half, a Princeton officer located Demas Santos-Campos, 20, of West Windsor, wedged partially under a shed, his legs stuck. He was bleeding from the face and his hands were bound behind his back with a belt. As rescue workers from Plainsboro and Kingston used airbags to lift the shed off Santos-Campos, he told officers, through an interpreter, that he had been carjacked and kidnapped off Nassau street in Princeton and that it was this person who was responsible for the chase that had been causing police such headaches. Paramedics from the Kingston First Aid Squad took him to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick. Upon further investigation, though, certain things didn't seem to add up about his story, according to police. Using information gleaned from witnesses, investigators suspected that Santos-Campos was driving the vehicle at the time the Princeton Township officer attempted to stop it. They believe that he became scared because he had no license and fled. After successfully evading apprehension, police believe he went to a friend's house in South Brunswick and had some food, then returned to the vehicle with the intent to strip it. Police believe he spotted the officers, however, and attempted to hide behind the shed until they went away. When he was behind the shed, he likely stood atop a pile of wood, but fell off, hitting his face on the way down before getting his legs caught beneath the structure. He first tried to take off his belt in order to pull his legs out, police suspect, but as officers approached, he looped it around his wrists to appear as if he had been restrained. It was in this state that officers found him. Princeton Township Police arrested Santos-Campos and took him to Mercer County jail. In South Brunswick he has been charged with filing a false police report and numerous motor vehicle violations.