Police Accountability Project
The Police Accountability Project is a committee of the NJ Libertarian Party. Its goal is to search out cases of police misconduct, file former Internal Affairs (IA) complaints when appropriate, and to publicize violations of rules and laws by the police. There may be other stories posted on the NJLP Police Internal Affairs Complaint Blog page.
If you would like to help or know of a case we should be looking at, contact the committee at
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- Written by: John Paff
According to his Financial Disclosure Statement, Oaklyn Borough (Camden County) Councilman Ronald C. Aron also serves as a Police Sergeant in nearby Haddon Township. A lawsuit and settlement agreement that I received by way of an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request shows that a March 23, 2010 administrative hearing found that Aron had violated police department regulations. Aron challenged the discipline in an April 5, 2010 lawsuit (Aron v. Township of Haddon, Docket No. CAM-L-1759-10) and then appealed to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court (Aron v. Township of Haddon, Docket No. A-4407-10T4).
In November 2012, Aron settled his lawsuit and appeal with the Township and agreed to: a) plead guilty to "conduct detrimental to the good order of the police department," b) accept a 10 day unpaid, disciplinary suspension, c) forfeit 80 hours of accrued sick time and d) accept a "one year demotion from the rank of sergeant to patrol officer" which had already been served.
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- Written by: John Paff
Sergeant Leonard Wolf, Internal Affairs Unit
Vineland City Police Department
111 N. Sixth Street
Vineland, NJ 08360
(via e-mail to
Dear Sergeant Wolf:
I chair the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project and ask that you accept this letter as our Internal Affairs complaint. We would like your agency to investigate whether Officer Louis J. Plantania and other personnel employed by your agency acted in accordance with department policy and the law regarding a warrantless search of a motor vehicle on May 25, 2011.
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- Written by: Webmaster
Police Accountability Project of the
New Jersey Libertarian Party
P.O. Box 5424
Somerset, NJ 08875
March 19, 2013
Louis Siranides, Internal Affairs Unit
Jersey City Police Department
1 Journal Square Plaza
Jersey City, NJ 07306
(via e-mail to
Dear Mr. Siranides:
I chair the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project and ask that you accept this letter as our Internal Affairs complaint. We would like your agency to investigate whether Officer Anthony Goodman and other personnel employed by your agency acted in accordance with department policy and the law regarding a motor vehicle stop and arrest on October 25, 2011.
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- Written by: John Paff
Internal Affairs Unit
Neptune Township Police Department
25 Neptune Blvd.
Neptune, NJ 07753
(via e-mail only to
RE: Lieutenant Robert Mangold
Dear Sir or Madam:
I chair the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project and ask that you accept this letter as an Internal Affairs complaint. We would like your agency to investigate whether Lieutenant Robert Mangold and other personnel employed by your agency acted in accordance with department policy and the law regarding a warrantless strip search of Daniel Dolan on October 8, 2011.
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- Written by: John Paff
Captain Andrew Kudrick, Jr.
Office of Internal Affairs
Howell Township Police Department
300 Old Tavern Road
Howell, N.J. 07731.
Via E-mail to
Dear Captain Kudrick:
I chair the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project and seek an Internal Affairs investigation into the circumstances surrounding a March 22, 2011 arrest of Larry Basko arrest on West Third Street. The primary Howell officer involved was Michael Pavlick. The facts regarding the arrest are contained in the Appellate Division's March 15, 2013 decision in State v. Basko, which is on-line here.
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- Written by: John Paff
Attn: Sergeant Anthony Facchini
Union City Police Internal Affairs Unit
3715 Palisade Avenue
Union City, NJ 07087
via e-mail only to
Dear Sergeant Facchini:
I chair the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project and seek an Internal Affairs investigation into the circumstances surrounding a May 23, 2009 arrest of Juan C. Peguero of 514 3rd Street, Union City. The Union City officers involved were Alex Ruperto, Jose Castillo and Damien DiFazio and Sergeants Dominick DePinto and John Dowling
Peguero's encounter with the Union City Police fits a familiar pattern:
1. The arrestee sues, claiming to have been brutalized by the police. (In this case, Peguero claims that the officers were out looking for him "to punch [him] in the face." When the officers found him, he was punched in the mouth by Officer Ruperto, causing his head to strike a concrete column and then beaten by other officers after he was on the ground.)
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- Written by: John Paff
Director, Internal Affairs Unit
Stafford Township Police Department
260 East Bay Ave
Manahawkin, NJ 08050-3329
(via e-mail to Chief Joseph Giberson at
Dear Sir or Madam:
Please accept this e-mail as our Internal Affairs complaint against a Stafford Township police officer whose identity is not yet known to us. He is depicted on a video taken by a patrol car's dash-mounted camera as having patted down and reached inside the pockets of a man who was the subject of a December 26, 2012, 12:37 p.m. traffic stop.
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- Written by: Webmaster
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- Written by: John Paff
On January 22, 2013, Thomas H. Neff, chairman of the New Jersey Local Finance Board (LFB) notified me that my ethics complaint against Voorhees Township (Camden County) Deputy Mayor Mario DiNatale was dismissed by a 3 to 1 vote. (The LFB has six members, but only four were present at the January 9, 2013 meeting where the vote was taken.)
I had complained to the LFB on January 17, 2012 after reading a January 11, 2012 Courier Post article entitled "Abuse of badges may cost them badges" by Jeremy Rosen. The article reported that Berlin Township (Camden County) police officer Wayne Bonfiglio had stopped Deputy Mayor DiNatale on January 5, 2012 for having a rejected red inspection sticker and improperly tinted windows on his vehicle.
According to a January 5, 2012 e-mail that Bonfiglio had sent to Voorhees Police Chief Keith Hummel, when he approached DiNatale's car, DiNatale held a police badge out the driver's side window. Bonfiglio, who "could not believe that a police officer would openly display his badge on a car stop in front of so many witnesses" asked DiNatale if he was a police officer. According to Bonfiglio, DiNatale "simply replied, 'Voorhees Township Police.'"
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- Written by: Webmaster
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- Written by: John Paff
I recently read a July 19, 2011 decision by United State District Court Judge Freda L. Wolfson in Maria Broadnax's civil lawsuit against the Borough of South Plainfield and patrol officer Ryan Mote. At issue was the legality of Mote sticking his fingers in the pocket of Broadnax's jeans during a December 11, 2008 traffic stop for driving a car with tinted windows on Route 22. Broadnax had claimed that Mote violated her Fourth Amendment rights by momentarily sticking his fingers, up to his knuckles, in the pocket of her tight bluejeans before she withdrew from the officer causing his fingers to slip back out. In October 2011, a few months after North Plainfield lost its motion for summary judgment, it settled the case by paying Broadnax and her lawyer $5,000. The opinion and settlement are on-line here.
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- Written by: Jay Edgar
In separate incidents the Sussex and the Warren County Sheriff departments were caught using county owned emergency generators in their personal homes.
In Sussex County, Undersheriff George DeOld resigned after getting caught appropriating two generators for his own use in November. Prior to his resignation DeOld was receiving a $97,000 salary and a $66,537 pension from a former police job in Patterson. It is unknown if his resignation was accepted in exchange for dropping the investigation. It may well turn out that he will add an additional amount to his pension from his Sheriff job.
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- Written by: Webmaster
In March of 2012, after crossing through a park in Hanover Township, a police officer in plain clothes ordered 15 year old Austin DeCaro and his friends to sit down on the curb. Not knowing whether or not the man was really a police officer, Austin started to record the interaction. Upon seeing the camera, officer Joseph Quinn ordered that he camera be turned off or "its going to be mine forever." Bravely, Austin asked the officer "Why?" Quinn responded by tackling Austin, handcuffing him, and arresting him. He was originally charged with Obstruction, Vandalism, and being in the park after dark.
When the video was viewed by the police chief, Stephen Gallagher, all charges were dropped except for the being in the park past a curfew. DeCaro and his family have filed suit against Officer Quinn and Hanover Township with assistance from the ACLU.
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- Written by: John Paff
By way of a December 5, 2012 letter, Lieutenant Michael J. Emmons of the Neptune Township Police Department dismissed an internal affairs complaint against Neptune Police Officer Leslie Borges. The complaint, which was filed on October 16, 2012 by the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Police Accountability Project, was based on an October 16, 2012 written decision issued Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court.
In that case, the court suppressed evidence that Borges and other officers seized when they arrested a local man, James M. Height, for third-degree possession of Xanax. Regarding Borges' warrantless search of Height's apartment, the court held that “there was no objectively reasonable basis for [him] to enter the apartment under the community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement.”