Hearing for activist could be moved

Municipal prosecutor warns of possible conflict of interest

BY SUE MORGAN Staff Writer

BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

SCOTT PILLING staff Tom Mahedy, of the Fort Monmouth Earth Renaissance Peace Alliance, speaks to supporters before his municipal court hearing Oct. 26.SCOTT PILLING staff Tom Mahedy, of the Fort Monmouth Earth Renaissance Peace Alliance, speaks to supporters before his municipal court hearing Oct. 26. EATONTOWN – Area environmental and peace activist Tom Mahedy will probably be traveling to a different town to face disorderly conduct charges filed against him in late September.

Exactly which municipality’s courtroom will host the case against Mahedy has yet to be determined, according to his attorney, John Brennan of Spring Lake Heights.

Mahedy, of Wall Township, was arrested inside Eatontown Borough Hall by local police after refusing to comply with an officer’s orders to leave the premises during the Sept. 26 public meeting of the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitaliza-tion Planning Authority (FMERPA).

The activist was escorted by a police officer from the upstairs meeting room, where the authority was gathered after his third time addressing the panel when Authority Chairman Robert Lucky advised him to do so.

Though Mahedy, accompanied by Brennan, appeared before Municipal Court Judge Mark Apostolou last Thursday morning in Eatontown, he did not have to stay in the courtroom for long.

Because Eatontown Mayor Gerald J. Tarantolo, a FMERPA member, had witnessed the incident that led to Mahedy’s arrest, both Brennan and Municipal Prosecutor Pasquale Menna recommended that future hearings on Mahedy’s case be moved to a courtroom outside the borough.

The judge, as a municipal employee, is essentially employed by Tarantolo and the Borough Council, a situation that sets up a possible conflict of interest, Menna told Apostolou.

“The mayor would be involved,” Menna said.

Menna added the same type of conflict exists for himself as the prosecutor in the case because he was appointed to his paid position by Eatontown’s governing body.

A police report describing the incident shows that it was Tarantolo who summoned an officer to remove Mahedy from the room, Brennan told Apostolou.

For that reason, Brennan said he plans to subpoena Tarantolo, as well as the other FMERPA members to testify as witnesses in court should the case go forward.

Nonetheless, Brennan, who stated later that he believes that the case against Mahedy will eventually be dismissed, asked Apostolou to dismiss the case in a “prosecutorial function” while in Eatontown’s courtroom.

Apostolou replied that he could not take any action at all, even dismissal, because of the possible conflict among the governing body and him as a judge and Menna as prosecutor.

“It’s not proper for me to make a ruling for the reasons I have stated,” Apostolou told Brennan.

The case should be presented before a different municipal prosecutor or possibly to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, Apostolou said.

On the judge’s orders, Brennan agreed to list those who will be called to testify as witnesses and turn it over to Menna.

Apostolou advised Menna to advise him who Brennan plans to subpoena.

Outside the courtroom, Brennan maintained that his client did not break any laws or become disorderly when he told borough police that he would not leave the Borough Hall building when Officers John DiGiovanni and Ryan Hennelly asked him to do so.

By his own accounts, Mahedy has said that he told the police he would not leave because he wanted to continue his speech to FMERPA members.

“There is a difference between being disobedient and being disorderly,” Brennan said. “Mr. Mahedy was not disorderly.”

Tarantolo has defended his summoning of police to the meeting room because he perceived Mahedy as becoming increasingly verbally abusive toward FMERPA members.

FMERPA, a state-sanctioned entity assigned to oversee the future uses of Fort Monmouth’s land and infrastructure, is composed of 10 members, nine of whom have voting privileges.

Mahedy, who was released on his own recognizance after his arrest, could face a maximum $500 fine or 30 days in jail. He has said he will not pay the fine because he does not believe he broke the law.

As an activist, Mahedy has spoken at several monthly FMERPA meetings about using the 1,126-acre Fort Monmouth property for a variety of environmentally themed uses after it closes under the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process in 2011.

A U.S. Navy veteran, Mahedy has also told Lucky and the authority that veterans’ medical care facilities and a homeless shelter should remain on the base after the closing.

Prior to the hearing, Mahedy, his wife Julie, and about 20 supporters, mostly from area environmental and peace organizations, gathered in the parking lot of Borough Hall.

During the short rally, Mahedy told his supporters that they need to continue pursuing environmental and peacetime-related uses for the U.S. Army base.

The 20-minute rally went off without incident. Most of those supporters also sat it Apostolou’s courtroom as Brennan and Menna addressed the judge.