PLUMSTED: Police supervising officer suspended

Prosecutor’s office undertakes "routine" review amid sexual harassment complaint

By Jessica Ercolino, Staff Writer
   PLUMSTED — The Police Department’s highest ranking and supervising officer has been suspended amid a sexual harassment complaint filed by the force’s first and only female officer.
   The Ocean County prosecutor’s office ordered Lt. George Titko suspended with pay Jan. 7, Mayor Ron Dancer confirmed Thursday. The lieutenant was served that day with a sexual harassment complaint filed by Suzanne DesMarais, a Plumsted Township special law enforcement officer from February 2007 to Dec. 31, 2008.
   No charges have been filed against Lt. Titko, Mayor Dancer said.
   Prosecutor Marlene Lynch Ford, in a written statement, characterized her office’s involvement as a “routine administrative review of the practices and procedures” of the department.
   ”There is absolutely no need for the public to be concerned about the safety of the community or the proper operation of the Plumsted Township Police Department,” she wrote. “I continue to have complete confidence in the officers presently assigned to duty within the Police Department.”
   Mayor Dancer, a state assemblyman representing the 30th District, said Thursday that the township requested the involvement of the prosecutor’s office. Earlier in the week he indicated such a request would have come from the Police Department.
   ”I didn’t personally initiate that,” he said Tuesday.
   While Lt. Titko is suspended, Sgt. Robert Pintye will head the department, Mayor Dancer said.
   The mayor said the review was prompted by Ms. DesMarais’ complaint and other “information the township became aware of.” He declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation.
   The prosecutor’s office is precluded from publicly discussing the nature of the investigation because aspects of it are protected by employee confidentiality laws, Ms. Ford wrote.
   Ms. DesMarais also filed a worker’s compensation complaint in February, claiming she expended all of her sick and vacation time seeking treatment from an injury she sustained on the job in October 2007. She alleged that Lt. Titko asked her to not report the incident, after he suggested that both of them use uninsured and unregistered on-road/off-road motorcycles.
   As a result of her using up her paid time off, she said, she has not been paid since February, her car has been repossessed and the power in her home has routinely been shut off. She was not reappointed to the force after her one-year term expired in 2008.
   In her civil complaint, Ms. DesMarais is alleging that Lt. Titko subjected her to “intentional,” “unwelcomed,” “pervasive and regular” sexual harassment during her time on the force.
   She filed her lawsuit Dec. 3, seeking reinstatement and compensatory and punitive damages, in Superior Court of New Jersey.
   Lt. Titko declined to comment on either complaint when reached at the Police Department on Tuesday.
   The Plumsted Township Police Department consists of 12 officers and a civilian part-time public safety director, Michael Lynch. One of those officers, Ernest Freestone, has been on medical leave for most of the year.