BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer
LONG BRANCH –– The arrest of a Long Branch man last week was retaliation for distributing flyers and discussing the abuse of eminent domain with passersby, his attorney said this week.
Vincent Lepore, 49, Second Avenue, was charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing the administration of law on July 21.
Lepore now faces seven months in jail “because he offered a flyer to two willing recipients” regarding the abuse of eminent domain, according to Barbara Gonos, his attorney.
“It is shocking that in America a person can be arrested for merely speaking to two fellow citizens who are standing on a public sidewalk about an issue of great concern to all,” Gonos said.
According to Gonos, Lepore was handing out anti-eminent domain flyers in the vicinity of a motor vehicle accident on Second Avenue and Garfield Court and stopped what he was doing to notify the city police department when the accident occurred.
Once the police arrived, Lepore went back to doing what he was doing, Gonos said.
According to Long Branch Director of Public Safety William Richards, it was not Lepore’s use of free speech that warranted the arrest, rather the time and place.
“What he was [doing] would have been fine at another venue.”
The First Aid Squad was treating three individuals who suffered several injuries from the car accident, according to Richards, who said squad members told officers that Lepore was disrupting them.
“He was asked to cease and desist multiple times and refused,” Richards said. “He became abusive and disorderly.”
But Gonos disagreed.
“That he somehow obstructed police at the scene of an accident is a fabrication to justify Lepore’s arrest and the malicious and unprofessional treatment he was subjected to by a group of Long Branch police officers,” Gonos said.
“Mr. Lepore was engaged in constitutional political activity as the time of the arrest. We should be encouraging such good citizenship, not arresting people for it. ”
Gonos is asking that anyone with knowledge of incidents of retaliation for anti-eminent domain abuse activity or who was a witness to Lepore’s arrest, call her at (732) 222-9316.

