On August 20, 2012, the Township of Neptune (Monmouth County) agreed to pay $15,000 to a local man who sued members of the Neptune Police Department for allegedly applying excessive force against him.
In his suit, John Williams said that on May 9, 2011, he was home recuperating from a broken leg when Neptune police officers Marques Jamar Alston and Kristopher Daly knocked at his door. According to the lawsuit, Alston told Williams twice to “get up” and threw Williams’ walker against a wall, breaking it. Alston allegedly pulled Williams out of his chair, threw him to the floor and arrested him. Alston reportedly stepped on Williams’ laptop computer, breaking it, and also broke Williams’ eyeglasses.
According to the complaint, the impetus for the officers’ visit to Williams’ home was some harassing phone calls that Williams allegedly made to Jersey Shore Medical Center. Daly was named in the suit only because he failed to intervene when Alston allegedly assaulted Williams. Also named in the suit was Neptune Police Chief Robert H. Adams.
The case is captioned Williams v. Neptune, Federal Case No. 3:11-cv-07405 and Williams’s attorney was Thomas J. Mallon of Freehold. Case documents are on-line here.
The settlement agreement contains a confidentiality clause, which prevents the parties to the suit from publicly disclosing the settlement terms. Fortunately, however, these confidentiality clauses do not trump the public’s right to obtain copies of settlement agreements that arise out of lawsuits in which a government agency or official is a defendant.
None of Williams’ allegations have been proven or disproven in court. The settlement agreement resolution expressly states that the $15,000 payment does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing by Neptune or any of its officials. All that is known for sure is that Neptune or its insurer, for whatever reason, decided that it would rather pay Williams $15,000 than take the matter to trial. Perhaps the defendants’ decision to settle was done to save further legal expense and the costs of trying what were in fact exaggerated or meritless claims. Or, perhaps the claims were true and the defendants wanted to avoid being embarrassed at trial. This is the problem when cases settle before trial–it is impossible to know the truth of what really happened.
