By CLAIRE HEININGER
STAR-LEDGER
NEWARK, N.J. — Two Hunterdon County police officers were charged with official misconduct yesterday after allegedly covering up a hit-and-run accident caused by one of the officers, authorities said.
Clinton Township Police officers Jason Peltack, 27, and Christopher Szymanski, 26, each face one count of second-degree official misconduct for falsifying a police report, authorities said. The charges - which carry a potential penalty of five to 10 years in prison - came a week after Peltack was arrested when he was found to be armed, suicidal and driving near his former high school.
“No one gets any satisfaction out of making these kinds of cases,” said Detective Sgt. Daniel Hurley, a spokesman for the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office, which brought the misconduct charges late yesterday.
“Nobody likes doing investigations of police officers,” Hurley said. “But it’s vital the public maintains trust in the law enforcement of the county, and has confidence we can police our own.”
The officers were suspended without pay indefinitely following the charges, Clinton Township Police Director Robert Manney said. Both will plead not guilty, their attorneys said last night.
The pair allegedly created the false report last August, after Szymanski was the on-duty officer who responded to the scene of a hit-and-run crash at a township restaurant Aug. 24, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in Superior Court in Hunterdon County.
When the crash victim gave Szymanski the license plate number of the vehicle that had struck his car and driven off, the sequence matched the plate registered to Peltack, who was off-duty at the time, according to the affidavit. But Szymanski told the victim there was no registration for the vehicle on file, authorities said.
Two days later, authorities said, Peltack logged onto the police department’s computer system and created an accident report - omitting himself.
The alleged cover-up pact came to light when the prosecutor’s office was investigating Peltack on another matter, a “domestic incident” that led to the officer’s being placed on desk duty and having his weapon taken away, Manney said. A joint internal investigation was launched between the prosecutor’s office and the police department, and after Peltack was identified as the hit-and-run driver, investigators quickly zeroed in on Szymanski.
“Once you took a quick look, you realized what had happened,” Hurley said. “If he (Peltack) was off duty, somebody else who was on duty must have done the report.”
However, Szymanski remained on patrol during the course of the investigation because “they hadn’t come to a conclusion yet,” Manney said.
Both officers were served with warrants through their attorneys yesterday and released without bail.
“He’s very upset over it,” said Anthony Fusco, Szymanski’s attorney. “At this point we are fighting the charges.”
Neither Fusco nor Robert Scrivo, Peltack’s attorney, would discuss the case in detail late yesterday, saying they had not yet reviewed all the evidence. But both pointed to the officers’ years of public service - Peltack worked in Somerset County law enforcement before coming to Clinton Township; Szymanski in Hunterdon - as evidence of their character.
“He’s a great cop, with a great record, and a great family man,” Fusco said.
Peltack, whose past record is also “good,” will plead not guilty in Superior Court in Flemington today, Scrivo said. The officer also entered a not guilty plea in Superior Court in Somerville yesterday on the fourth-degree weapons offense he was charged with last week, Scrivo said.
Yesterday’s charges did not end the probe into the false report, Hurley said. When asked if others in the Clinton Township Police Department also could be charged, Hurley said, “the investigation is continuing,” but declined to elaborate.
Manney, who took over the director’s job in late February, declined to comment on whether others in the department may come under scrutiny.
He said he was unsure whether the other driver in the accident was ever able to claim damages against Peltack.
“From what I was told there was very minimal damage . . . less than $200,” Manney said.
At Finnagel’s, the Route 31 restaurant and pub where the accident occurred, an employee who answered the phone last night deferred comment to the owner, but said the owner was not at the restaurant and would not give the owner’s name.
Manney declined to say last night whether there was a police event at the restaurant that night, or whether it was considered an officers’ hangout. He said the Clinton Township force would rebound from the charges.
“This department has professional officers,” he said. “This department will continue to move forward.”
Copyright 2007 Newark Star-Ledger