45°
“It’s been a long time coming,” said attorney Donald Caminiti, who represents one of the defendants in the suit, Capt. Thomas Salcedo.
“Tom is a good man, and he doesn’t deserve to have his name tarnished,” the lawyer said.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Wigenton found that Salcedo, as captain of Internal Affairs, had “reasonable suspicion” to direct Officer Joseph Al-Ayoubi to take the test.
She said also said he offered no proof of a claim that Salcedo conspired with others to violate Al-Ayoubi’s civil rights, as the officer contended in the suit.
Wigenton didn’t address the fact that Al-Ayoubi tested positive for methandienone, an anabolic steroid — only that “reasonable suspicion” existed.
“In my words, not hers, Captain Salcedo would have been derelict in his duties if he didn’t act on those suspicions,” Caminiti told CLIFFVIEW PILOT this afternoon.
Al-Ayoubi filed the suit while contesting administrative and criminal charges that have since been dropped.
ALSO SEE: A federal judge in Newark dismissed several civil rights complaints by a quartet of Hackensack police officers against suspended Chief Ken Zisa and members of his brass – but, more significantly, warned that they might find themselves in serious trouble if they bring any more actions against their deposed boss. READ MORE….
He claimed, among other things, that he was told that the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office ordered the test when, in fact, it was actually Zisa. Still active are his complaints of false arrest and imprisonment.
Al-Ayoubi is perhaps better known for his role in the reporting of an accident involving Zisa’s ex-girlfriend, Kathy Tiernan.
Tiernan got into a pre-dawn crash three years ago while driving Zisa’s car. He came and picked her up, allegedly denying Hackensack police and a Bergen County Sheriff’s officer the opportunity to determine whether she was drunk.
Al-Ayoubi wrote the accident report, in which Tiernan said she swerved to avoid hitting an animal.
Prosecutors later arrested Zisa on charges of insurance fraud, then re-arrested him a month later and charged him with official misconduct.
A grand jury in Hackensack eventually handed up an indictment that fall that expanded the case to include witness tampering and other charges.
Delays in the case have pushed the anticipated start of the trial into mid-February.
A lawyer for Zisa three months ago accused Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli’s staff of lying to a grand jury after cutting a deal with Al-Ayubi and two other officers who had federal cases pending against the suspended chief.
Molinelli told CLIFFVIEW PILOT that the motion repeats three others already rejected by a judge. Otherwise, he said: “We won’t be responding. We never do. We argue cases in court.”
The only way the case flies is if prosecutors prove that Tiernan was drunk and that, as a result, she and Zisa lied on the insurance claim — neither of which the chief’s lawyers say is possible.
They also say that Al-Ayoubi has signed an immunity agreement with Molinelli’s office and, thus, had “tremendous motivation to lie” about the details of the crash and the actions that followed.
Twelve days after the indictment against Zisa was announced on Oct. 19, 2010, administrative charges that could have gotten Al-Ayoubi fired — testing positive for the steroid methandienone — were dismissed, which Zisa’s lawyers called “highly questionable and patently irregular.”
Criminal charges were dropped, as well.
Al-Ayoubi — who is expected to testify — was on vacation when he went to police headquarters in June 2009, as ordered, to take the drug test.
He not only admits to the use, in his court filing, the lawyers said: He gave the prosecutor’s office information about 20 or so of his colleagues’ alleged steroid use.
Al-Ayoubi’s federal lawsuit sought $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages, as well as attorneys’ fees and costs. Also named as a defendant, besides Zisa and Salcedo, was Hackensack Capt. Danilo Garcia.
MORE (CLICK ON HEADLINE TO READ):
Court refuses to let Hackensack officer sue Bergen prosecutor for suspension
Friday, 16 December 2011 13:34 Jerry DeMarcoYOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A state appeals court has refused to allow a Hackensack police officer to hold the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office legally responsible for her suspension while the agency was monitoring the city department after criminal charges were filed against now-suspended Chief Ken Zisa.
Hackensack officers indicted in retaliation case
Friday, 07 October 2011 21:27 Jerry DeMarcoUPDATE: A Bergen County grand jury has made it official: Prosecutor John L. Molinelli on Friday announced indictments returned against three Hackensack police officers and the sister of the patrolman at the center of the trouble.
MUGSHOTS courtesy BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTORThe 13-count indictment springs from a fight that Officer Richard Sellitto, 27, and his 25-year-old sister, Dana (both LEFT), got into at a Paramus Houlihan’s before dawn on June 7.
Sellitto – who had his jaw broken in a fight at a Hackensack bar months earlier — called it in as an assault on him and his sister.
Zisa: Prosecutors misled grand jury into misconduct indictment
Tuesday, 27 September 2011 11:40 Jerry DeMarco
CLIFFVIEW PILOT HAS IT FIRST: Lawyers for suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa accused Bergen County prosecutors of lying to a grand jury after cutting a deal with three officers trying to boost federal cases they have against the embattled chief. Prosecutor John L. Molinelli told CLIFFVIEW PILOT that the motion repeats three others already rejected by a judge.
Hackensack officer suing city, county charged with beating, cover-up
Wednesday, 03 August 2011 14:35 Jerry DeMarcoEXCLUSIVE: A Hackensack police officer who is suing city and county law enforcement was charged today with retaliating against a man who got into a bar fight with a fellow city officer: Officer Anthony Ferraioli is expected to be suspended without pay, a source with direct knowledge of the investigation said.
Cop at scene of chief’s girlfriend’s crash comes forward, files suit
Saturday, 08 May 2010 03:02 Jerry DeMarcoThe other shoe has been dropped against Ken Zisa, in a lawsuit filed by a Hackensack police officer who said he clammed up about an accident involving the chief’s girlfriend because he was afraid he and his wife would be fired.
Zisa whisked girlfriend from cops after crash, authorities charge
Friday, 30 April 2010 10:25 Jerry DeMarcoONLY ON CLIFFVIEW PILOT: Hackensack Police Chief Charles “Ken” Zisa went to the scene of a single-car accident involving his former live-in girlfriend, put her in his car and drove her away before officers could administer sobriety tests, authorities said this morning. The couple then filed a bogus insurance claim that, according to a source, she had swerved to avoid a rodent that dashed across the road that February 2008 night.
{loadposition log}
Click here to follow Daily Voice Hackensack and receive free news updates.
