"POWER CORRUPTS, ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY"
LORD ACTON
LORD ACTON
Boozed while
on duty. Slept on the job. Failed drug tests. Conducted a side vaping
business while assigned to be on patrol keeping Rutgers-Newark students
safe.
No, this isn’t a pitch for Newark’s version of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."
It’s
a glimpse at some of the allegations former Rutgers University police
Sgt. Michael Jason Farella of Middlesex County charges in a complaint
against the university filed March 6 in state Superior Court in Essex
County.
Farella, who joined the
university’s Newark police department in 2001, alleges in the suit that
he was eventually fired in retaliation after sending an anonymous
whistle-blower letter to Rutgers Police Chief Kenneth Cop, Deputy Chief
Michael Rein and Lt. Matt Gulsby that called out illegal activity
conducted by fellow officers.
“They found out it
was Sergeant Farella [who wrote the letter] during an internal affairs
investigation because he admitted he was the one who sent the letter,
and within roughly six months they disciplined him by firing him for
something that had occurred much earlier,” said Christopher
Lenzo, Farello’s attorney with the Lenzo and Reis law firm in
Morristown. Lenzo said the allegations in the complaint were not isolated, but had been issues for some time.
“While
we certainly won’t comment on the merits of this case, or of any
pending litigation, we will respond that as an accredited law
enforcement agency, the Rutgers University Police Department holds its
employees to the highest standards in order to provide professional
policing services for the community,” university spokeswoman Dory Devlin
said.
Requests for comment from the Rutgers police department did not draw an immediate response.
In
August 2017, Farella sent an anonymous letter to the heads of the
Rutgers-Newark police department that described multiple allegations of
misconduct and illegal activity by multiple high-ranking officers, the
complaint states.
The most egregious allegations
from the letter were described in the complaint. They included drinking
beer and sleeping while on duty, failing drug tests and conducting a
private business while working, but also covering up two drunken-driving
violations racked up by an officer. In one instance, the officer
crashed into a parked car while intoxicated, injuring a female
passenger, the complaint states.
Lenzo
said a police report was filed on that accident, "but it was
inaccurate,” and Farella was aware of the coverup because “he was on the
radio communications that night.”
The complaint
also states that Farella’s letter described the disappearance of
disciplinary files for high-ranking officers that came to the department
during the merger of
Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 2013.
Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 2013.
Some saw it as an opportunity for a clean slate. Disciplinary files for the UMDNJ officers were “lost,” the complaint states.
“When UMDNJ merged with
Rutgers, apparently a number of the supervisors’ disciplinary files and
personnel files ‘disappeared,’ ” Lenzo said.
Supervising
officers in the department would fail to show up for work but still get
paid and “steal overtime,” according to the complaint.
“Basically,
they would take time off during their regular shift without recording
it but then come in when they weren’t assigned, getting time-and-a-half
for that,” Lenzo said.
Those alleged to have taken
part in the illegal activity and misconduct described in the complaint
included two sergeants, a lieutenant and a captain, Lenzo said.
“The
RUPD takes any allegations of employee misconduct seriously and
investigates them thoroughly and appropriately in accordance with proper
procedures,” said Devlin, the Rutgers spokeswoman.
According
to the complaint, the department did conduct an “extensive
investigation into the allegations in the letter and took some remedial
actions.”
Lenzo said the department addressed the
overtime issues and time reporting, but he did not know whether any
officer was disciplined or fired.
A month after
submitting the letter in 2017, Deputy Chief Michael Rain questioned
Farella during an internal affairs investigation on Sept. 11, during
which Farella admitted he wrote the letter, the complaint states.
Two
days later, an incident occurred that involved a new police officer and
Farella, who was the duty supervisor at the time, the complaint states.
The new officer attempted to stop a driver and pursued the driver,
despite being ordered by Farella several times not to pursue, the
complaint states. Eventually, on his last order, the officer stopped
following the driver, the complaint states.
The
next day, Lts. Michael Shoulars, Daniel Duran and John Bell wrote an
administrative memo to Capt. Alex Rabar about the incident between
Farella and the new officer, the complaint states. They concluded in the
memo that Farella properly monitored the incident, according to the
complaint.
But about seven months later, Chief
Carmelo Huertas, who leads the Rutgers-Newark department, filed
disciplinary charges against Farella for that incident, and he fired
Farella on May 7, 2018, the complaint states.
In
the words of the “final notice of disciplinary action,” Farella “failed
to properly supervise the pursuit scenario” by not “taking control and
providing direction to field units … resulting in an unauthorized
pursuit being permitted to continue,” the complaint states.
The
other sergeant and lieutenant who were on duty at the time of the
pursuit were given written warnings and the officer who continued
following the driver was suspended for three days, the complaint
states. Lenzo said the termination was, in fact, a retaliation/reprisal for
Farella’s letter.
“He's the only one that blew the whistle on unlawful conduct, and he got the most severe discipline,” Lenzo said.
The complaint alleges the university violated the state’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act by retaliating against Farella.
“He
didn’t see one mistake and then write a letter — it was an ongoing
problem,” Lenzo said. "The ultimate goal is for a jury to hear the case
and rule in his favor and award him damages, both to make him whole
economically and award him damages for the emotional distress this has
put him through.”
Farella has been working as a security officer because he hasn't been able to get a job in a police department, Lenzo said.
Email: carrera@northjersey.com
Dear Viewer: Go to the link below and read PARTS I & II on a former Rutgers Police Officer who exposed more police corruption at the Rutgers Newark Campus:
FORMER RUTGERS UNIVERSITY POLICE OFFICER EXPOSES POLICE CORRUPTION...
Dear Viewer: Go to the link below and read PARTS I & II on a former Rutgers Police Officer who exposed more police corruption at the Rutgers Newark Campus:
FORMER RUTGERS UNIVERSITY POLICE OFFICER EXPOSES POLICE CORRUPTION...