by Jessica Ercolino, Staff Writer
PLUMSTED — The township’s first female police officer has filed two complaints against the Police Department — including a sexual harassment lawsuit against the highest ranking officer on the force.
Patrolwoman Suzanne DesMarais, 37, is alleging that Lt. George Titko subjected her to “intentional,” “unwelcomed,” “pervasive and regular” sexual harassment during her time working on the force, beginning in February 2007 and ending in February 2008 as the result of an injury that she claims Lt. Titko asked her not to report.
She filed that suit Dec. 3, seeking reinstatement and compensatory and punitive damages, in Superior Court of New Jersey.
Lt. Titko declined to comment. Michael Lynch, director of public safety, could not be reached for comment.
Ms. DesMarais, a Jackson resident, had served as a special law enforcement officer in 2007 and was reappointed for another one-year term on the force in January 2008, according to a township resolution. She was not reappointed after her term expired Dec. 31, 2008, Mayor Ron Dancer said last week.
But the officer has not been working — or paid — since February 2008. She said she expended all of her sick and vacation time seeking treatment from an injury she sustained on the job in October 2007.
As a result, she said, her car has been repossessed and the power in her home has been shut off several times.
She was expected to appear at a hearing today on a workers compensation complaint she filed in February against the Police Department.
Before working in Plumsted, Ms. DesMarais said she served as an officer in Long Branch for 15 years. In 2003, she said, she fell from a fence while chasing a burglary suspect and landed on a tree stump. The injury resulted in five surgeries to remove a piece of her right shoulder blade and she was diagnosed with reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome — a type of nerve damage. She said doctors told her she would never be able to return to her active work with that force, let alone a desk job.
Instead, she said, she underwent intense rehabilitation, regularly visiting a professional trainer and teaching herself to shoot with her left hand. She was able to return to work in a smaller, “quieter” environment and joined the Plumsted Township Police Department in February 2007, becoming the town’s first female officer.
Ms. DesMarais told The Messenger-Press she was unable to directly comment on the details of the case for legal reasons. But she confirmed the following alleged information provided by a third party: In February, Ms. DesMarais was injured in an accident involving an on-road/off-road motorcycle the Police Department had just purchased. The officer fell off the bike, burning her leg and inflaming her sacroiliac joint in her back. The fall also tore cartilage in her knee and caused her former injuries to flare up.
According to another Plumsted officer who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, several people in the station saw Ms. DesMarais come back from the incident with injuries and heard Lt. Titko, who initially suggested using the bikes, tell her to not report the accident. The vehicles were uninsured and unregistered at the time and were not supposed to be taken out, and the officers had not been trained to use them, he said.
The accident was not reported, Ms. DesMarais said her pain soon grew worse and she began using all of her paid time off from work for medical reasons.
Ms. DesMarais said she learned from doctors in February that she could not return to work, and by that time she had run out of vacation and sick time and was no longer getting paid.
Mayor Dancer said he could not comment further on the matter due to the pending litigation. He said Ms. DesMarais was eligible for health insurance under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which gives workers who lose their health benefits the right to choose to continue group health benefits provided by their group health plan for limited periods of time.
But Ms. DesMarais said her COBRA payments would have cost about $600 a month and she cannot afford it.
”I can’t go to the doctor now,” she said. “This is a cry for help. I am in so much pain. I’m just hoping someone will be able to lend a helping hand — a chiropractor, a gym, anything.”

