Transparency NJ

On September 29, 2008, Bogota Borough in Bergen County and/or its insurer paid $115,000 to three men who claimed the Bogota police assaulted them after a May 2005 bar fight that involved an off-duty officer. The settlement agreement, which contains a confidentiality clause, is on-line here and the lawsuit is described in a May 15, […]

On May 28, 2008, the City of Paterson paid $10,000 to a local man who had sued the City and Paterson Police officers John Plelan and Frank Motta in August 2007 for an alleged police “assault” occurring on October 6, 2005. In his cryptically worded civil lawsuit, Alex Lopez claimed that the officers, along with […]

Although Thomas Wachendorf’s and Christopher Strobel’s brutality lawsuits against the Readington Township police have received a fair amount of publicity (see, e.g. the January 4, 2007 Star Ledger article, which is set forth at the foot of this posting), the amount of their settlements with Readington have not been publicly disclosed until now. WACHENDORF In […]

On October 7, 2008, Rutgers University agreed to pay a pro litigant (i.e. a plaintiff who sued without using a lawyer) $4,000 to settle his false arrest claim. On February 23, 2005, Rutgers Police received a report that a black male was in the Rutgers-Camden campus law school library with a baby stroller and that […]

In October 2008, East Brunswick Township officials agreed to pay a local woman $7,500 to settle her civil suit claiming that the Township’s Animal Control Officer used “duress and coercion” to get her consent to euthanize Turbo, her pet Rottweiler. In her lawsuit, the woman, Lillian Passaro of East Brunswick claimed that she was injured […]