Police Lawsuit Settled, But Questions About Departmental Oversight Linger

An eight-year-old lawsuit recently settled between the borough and a disgruntled cop may have resolved a legal issue, but seems to have done little to answer lingering questions about oversight of the police department and how it is documented.

The borough’s Joint Insurance Fund settled the suit in February for $113,000. The complaint was filed in 2003 by Officer Jason Cutler, who said he was denied a promotion after he filed a lawsuit alleging a hostile work environment. The hostile environment suit was filed in July 1999 after another officer allegedly made derogatory remarks about Cutler’s Jewish heritage, according to a Superior Court of New Jersey trial document. The main defendant in the 2003 lawsuit was former police Chief Richard Tsonis, who retires after 10 years as chief on Dec. 31, 2009.

In settling the 2003 lawsuit, the township admitted no wrongdoing. The court ruled that Cutler was subjected to a hostile work environment in the 1999 suit, but awarded no damages.

The key evidence in the Tsonis case was a tape recording Cutler made of Tsonis telling him he would never be promoted as long as his initial lawsuit was pending. Tsonis initially lied in a deposition about the conversation until the tape was produced, according to the legal complaint.

Cutler's attorney, Clifford Van Syoc, said a confidentiality agreement included in the settlement prevents him and his client from publicly discussing the case. 

Commissioner Tish Colombi, the current borough mayor and the only Haddonfield official named in the suit who is still serving, said the Tsonis era was marked by a “couple of rogue officers.” Tsonis was replaced by his second in command, John Banning, who is now chief and was awarded a three-year contract extension in May. Cutler is still on the force and was eventually promoted to sergeant.

Meanwhile, legal expenses in the borough’s public-safety budget increased nearly 77 percent this year, in part because of lawsuits like Cutler's, borough Administrator Sharon McCollough said. Haddonfield's insurance company paid the settlement. The borough must pay $38,000 for legal expense related to the case, a borough official said. The public safety budget includes all legal fees, including about $65,000 paid since December for the Bancroft redevelopment plan. 

Ed Borden, one of three current commissioners, along with Colombi and Jeff Kasko, is the borough's director of public safety. He said he has no public documents to detail his oversight of the police department. He said he and Banning have breakfast once a week and that’s how he is informed of what’s going on in the department. Borden said he is also given a stat sheet of police reports and arrests.

A Open Public Records Act request filed in April by Haddonfield Patch sought correspondence between Borden and Banning. The request was first denied because it was deemed “too broad.” A second request was rejected because borough officials said a weekly or monthly written report from the chief to the director of public safety did not exist.

The question remains: should there be documented oversight of the borough police? The salaries, benefits and operating costs of the department accounts for a majority of the borough’s $13.8 million budget. Lawsuits like Cutlers' have documented alleged abuses in the past.  But members of the current Board of Commissioners say they think past problems have been addressed and the current oversight is sufficient.

“Do I think the extent of communication I have with the chief, what he tells me and brings to my attention, and how we discuss it is enough? Yes, I do,” Borden said. “I don’t know that it has to be documented. He and I talk about personnel issues, material issues, deployment issues budgetary issues when we meet. Sometimes I take notes and sometimes I don’t. I don’t want him to spend a lot of time generating bureaucratic reports.”

But public confidence in the oversight of the police department has been shaken before.

“…The individual defendants and the Borough of Haddonfield had, in fact, engaged in sham discipline over the police chief, having deliberately overpaid him by the sum of approximately $8,000 to compensate for an alleged 30-day unpaid suspension…,” according to Cutler’s 2003 civil complaint in Superior Court.

The “sham,” according to the court document, occurred after borough officials found out Tsonis was recorded threatening Cutler. Colombi, the mayor, said she thinks past mistakes have been corrected.

“My belief is that anything that was contributing to that happening has been addressed,” she said. “We haven’t had a problem since.  Sometimes you have kind of rogue officers who cause problems for you. I think those people are gone. We have a very efficient police department now.”

When asked if she was describing Tsonis as a “rogue” officer, Colombi said: “I’m not going to comment on that.”

But Haddonfield Civic Association President Bill Tourtellotte still has unanswered questions about the police department.

“There were some questions in a lot of people’s minds about leadership under the former chief,” said Tourtellotte, who stressed he was not speaking for the civic association. “I did not work closely with him and was not impressed. We have a lot of good officers but the leadership is not as good as it could have been. I don’t know how effective the new police chief is. I haven’t worked with him.”

Besides the dispute with Cutler, Tsonsis also ran afoul of Borden, a former Camden County Prosecutor, the top law enforcement official in the county. Borden hauled Tsonsis before a disciplinary board in 2008 after he failed to inform school officials of an attempted abduction. Borden had specifically told him to do so.

Tsonis escaped with a slap on the wrist, a one-day suspension.

Tourtellotte said that episode also concerned him. “I believe his defense was that Borden couldn’t tell him what to do.”

Borden was then the borough’s director of public safety, the civilian in charge of police oversight.

Current police Chief John Banning said he doesn’t see a connection between the past abuses and his current department.

“I don’t necessarily see a correlation between the lawsuits at the time, if you're talking about the police and rules and regulations of our department,” Banning said.

Banning, a 28-year veteran of the department received a new contract from Borden and the other two commissioners in May that will pay him $119,000 a year by next January. He was second in command to Tsonis during his 10 years as chief.

CORRECTIONS:

• The line item for legal expenses within the public safety budget increased by 76.69 percent, from $145,000 to $256,200. An earlier version of this article was not correct.

• The salary, wages and operating expenses for the police were $2,277,900 which is 16.3 percent of $13,953,341.  But it's not immediately clear if that includes insurance and pension costs. An earlier version of this article was not correct.
• The Haddonfield Civic Association's president's name is Bill Tourtellotte. It was not spelled correctly in an earlier version of this article.

CLARIFICATION:

• The borough's Joint Insurance Fund paid the $113,000 settlement for the Cutler case. The borough will have to pay at least $38,000 for legal expenses related to the suit.