Suspended employee due in court to answer charge

Suspended employee due
in court to answer charge
Indictment cites

incident from 2001;

no mention of 2002

arrest or allegations

By mark rosman

Staff Writer

The only person charged thus far in the case of money missing from Manalapan town hall was due in state Superior Court, Freehold, on Aug. 5, but not to answer to the charges for which she was arrested almost a year ago.

According to a document the News Transcript obtained on Monday at the Monmouth County Court House, Jacqueline Matus of Red Bank has been indicted by a grand jury on one count of falsifying or tampering with records stemming from an incident that occurred on or about Jan. 17, 2001. The document was filed in Superior Court on June 30, 2003.

The document charges that Matus "did falsify, destroy, remove, conceal any writing or record or utter any writing or record knowing that it contains a false statement or information with purpose to deceive or injure anyone or to conceal any wrongdoing, to wit: a bond application with Western Surety Company, contrary to the provisions of (state law)…"

The document, signed by Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye, makes no mention of Matus’ alleged involvement in a case that saw almost $105,000 go missing from municipal offices in July 2002.

Matus’ indictment on a charge that is seemingly unrelated to the one for which she was arrested, charged and suspended from her position leaves many questions unanswered.

A law enforcement officer had little to say about the case on Friday.

In July 2002, approximately $105,000 in cash and checks was discovered missing from town hall. The cash and checks had been paid to the municipal court administrator and to the township tax collector.

In August 2002, Matus, who was Manalapan’s assistant treasurer, was arrested by detectives from the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and the Manalapan Police Department. She was charged with the formal charge of "theft by failure to make required disposition of property received." Matus was released on $20,000 bail and suspended without pay from her job.

On Friday, Monmouth County Assistant Prosecutor John Loughery confirmed that the case against Matus had gone before a grand jury. He said he could not say any­thing else about the matter.

Loughery was asked if two options available to a grand jury are to indict a per­son who has been charged with a crime or to not indict (no bill) the accused.

He said those two options are available.

Asked if the grand jury hearing the case against Matus had done one of those things, Loughery said the grand jury had done both.

"A grand jury can do both, although it doesn’t very often," he said. "It almost never does."

He said he could not say anything more about the case and added that Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye would also be unable to provide additional informa­tion.

Asked if there have been any other de­velopments related to the case of the miss­ing municipal funds, Loughery said there have been developments, but said he could not say anything more about the matter. In his words, he said he was being "purposefully vague."

A message left at the office of Matus’ attorney by the News Transcript was not returned.

Matus was hired in Manalapan on Jan. 2, 2001 and her annual salary was $31,200 at the time she was arrested and suspended from her position almost one year ago.

Cash and checks totaling approximately $105,000 were reported missing from town hall in early July 2002. Officials said the funds had been paid to the municipal court administrator’s office and to the tax collec­tor’s office.

Matus was charged with the theft of $3,468 in court funds, of which $1,500 was cash and the balance, $1,968, was checks, Kaye said at the time of her arrest.

The remainder of the missing money — $101,478 — had been paid to the tax col­lector’s office. Of that amount, $3,000 was cash and the remainder was checks.

On Aug. 14, 2002, a packet of checks was found in the safe room in the finance-tax collector’s office at town hall. At the time, Kaye said it was not known if some or all of the missing checks from the court administrator’s office and the tax collec­tor’s office were in the packet of checks that had been found behind a filing cabinet.