FORMER RUTGERS UNIVERSITY POLICE OFFICER FIRED FOR EXPOSING POLICE CORRUPTION PART III

"POWER CORRUPTS, ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY" 
LORD ACTON

Ex-Rutgers Newark Police Sergeant claims high-ranking officers were boozing on the job

 

by Catherine Carrera, North Jersey Record Published 6:00 a.m. ET March 21, 2019 | Updated 10:54 a.m. ET March 21, 2019

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. 

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...

 
  RUTGERS UNIVERSITY POLICE CORRUPTION PART 4