The New York Times
FREEHOLD, N.J., -- For two years, a bitter battle has been going on between Keansburg’s mayor and the longtime police chief he has been trying to oust. It has pitted neighbor against neighbor in a town of 10,700, and on Tuesday the feud overflowed to the steps of the Monmouth County Courthouse as the mayor accused the county prosecutor of not investigating allegations of corruption against the chief and his aides.
A spokesman for John Kaye, the prosecutor, said that the office had conducted an investigation into Chief Raymond O’Hare’s office and had found “no evidence of anything criminal,” but rather administrative problems.
The intense nature of the fight could be seen as supporters of Chief O’Hare followed the mayor, Michael Minervini, to the courthouse steps here to heckle him as he held a news conference.
What erupted on the lawn in front of the courthouse was a Battle of Monmouth in miniature, with partisans racing from conversation to conversation to argue, shout, refute, debate and get the opposition on tape.
At the heart of the dispute is Chief O’Hare, a former New York City police officer who has been in the Keansburg Police Department for 31 years, 17 of them as chief.
Mr. Minervini, and five of the Keansburg council members elected in the last two years on a platform of puncturing what they see as the chief’s inflated role in the town, are Democrats. In May 2000 they filed 147 charges against him and two of his top deputies in an effort to remove them from their civil service-protected positions. Those cases are slowly winding their way through the state’s administrative process, and a ruling is expected in January, according to attorneys for both sides.
Indeed, said supporters of the chief and his deputies, it is because the mayor and his supporters fear a defeat in those proceedings that they are now publicly making new accusations that Chief O’Hare misused money from the Keansburg Special People Christmas Party.
Mayor Minervini has charged that from 1997 to 2000, Chief O’Hare spent about $14,000 of the funds for the party, an annual charity event for the mentally and physically handicapped in Keansburg, without documentation.
The chief was not at the news conference, but he had a written response ready.
“The mayor has misused taxpayer dollars in excess of $700,000 in his blind effort to remove me,” said the statement. “The political legacy of Michael Minervini is character assassination, lies, half-truths and innuendo.”
On hand were lawyers for the chief, his deputy and his chief inspector, along with other supporters. Echoing the chiefs’ denials of the charges, they said that Mr. Minervini was desperate, and scrambling because he sensed that he was about to lose in his effort to oust the chief. One of the lawyers, David Carr, said:
“The chief told Minervini that he wouldn’t support him for mayor because he thought he was too young. What has happened since he told him that two years ago has proven that Chief O’Hare was right.”