By Lauren Otis, Staff Writer
Members of Princeton Borough Council expressed growing frustration at their meeting Tuesday evening over the borough having to pay for several police officers’ salaries for many months while Mercer County prosecutor’s continued to take no action in the case.
Three borough police officers — Sgt. Kenneth Riley, Sgt. Kevin Creegan and Patrolman William Perez — were suspended with pay in February following an internal affairs investigation. In September the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office announced the indictment of Sgt. Riley on six felony charges for allegedly accessing his department’s video record database without authorization and showing other officers what he saw in order to adversely affect another officer’s standing.
At the time, no charges were filed against Sgt. Creegan and his case was referred back to the borough to be handled administratively, said Casey DeBlasio, a spokeswoman for the Prosecutors Office. “No decision has been made yet with regard to Perez,” Ms. DeBlasio said. His case is pending, and the county prosecutor could still file charges related to disorderly persons offenses, she said. “I can’t anticipate when the decision would be made on that,” she said.
Noting that “10 percent of our department has been legally disabled with taxpayers paying for them to sit home,” Councilman Roger Martindell, called the circumstance “an outrage” and asked at the council meeting if there wasn’t some productive work the borough could give to the officers “even if it is just washing cars.”
Councilman Andrew Koontz asked if there was some “desk duty” option for the officers. Borough Administrator Robert Bruschi replied that he had discussed the issue with a special counsel the borough has retained in the case, but the counsel wanted to go through the voluminous case papers prior to giving any opinion.
”We’ve never had something to deal with that was quite this cumbersome,” said Mr. Bruschi, adding the borough was going slowing and deliberately on the matter because there was no precedent or standard practice to adhere to.
Borough Attorney Karen Cayci said there could be legal problems with allowing officers under a cloud to handle any official police matters, whether ongoing investigations or paperwork.
”We could have hired our own prosecutor” and completed the matter, with the amount of money the borough has paid out for the collected salaries of the three officers since February, said Councilman David Goldfarb.
Such delays due to the caseload at the prosecutor’s office are costing the borough and other municipalities millions of dollars collectively, said Mr. Goldfarb. “It is a system that is broken and needs to be fixed,” he said.
”David succinctly stated it, the process is broken. I don’t have the tool to fix it,” said Mr. Bruschi. “I share your frustration, I don’t know what we can do,” he said.
Councilwoman Barbara Trelstad suggested writing a letter to the governor.
”Why don’t I write a letter, write a letter to the prosecutor and see where we go from there,” said Mayor Mildred Trotman.
Ms. DeBlasio said the prosecutor’s office understood municipal frustrations over costs and time “but we are concerned with the criminal aspect of the case.”

