By Jen Samuel, Managing Editor
HIGHTSTOWN — Ian Quinonez, now 18, has filed a civil suit in Mercer County Superior Court against the Hightstown Housing Authority, citing negligence for not protecting him, then 8, from an alleged sexual assault by a former borough worker during the summer of 2001.
On March 24, Mr. Quinonez filed the initial suit against the HHA, as well as against the estate of the alleged perpetrator of the sexual assault, Dennis Lidke, who is now deceased.
”I have no comment,” said HHA’s attorney Leonard Coates Turp of Coates, Essl & Driggers in Hightstown.
Nieschmidt Law Office, also of Hightstown, is representing Mr. Quinonez in the suit. Calls made to Mr. Quinonez’s attorney there were not immediately returned.
The suit alleges that the HHA was well aware that Mr. Lidke was a child sexual predator, but did nothing to warn or protect the Quinonez family.
Mr. Lidke, who began working at the borough on September 8, 1980, continued working for Hightstown until his death in 2007. Mr. Lidke was 46 when he died.
According to the suit, in 2001, both Mr. Lidke and Mr. Quinonez lived in a Rodgers Avenue apartment building owned by the HHA.
At the time, Mr. Lidke was working as a laborer for the borough’s Department of Public Works.
The suit states that Mr. Lidke shared an apartment with his mother, who is also named as a defendant, according to a copy of the suit obtained by the Herald.
Due to ongoing litigation, no one at the HHA could speak to the Herald as to the details surrounding Mr. Lidke’s time spent as a Housing Authority resident. It was unknown as of press time if, as a laborer for Public Works, Mr. Lidke had ever maintained the grounds of the Rodgers Avenue apartment complex where the alleged sexual assault occurred.
Currently, Public Housing Manager Janina Mielnicka is overseeing daily operations at the HHA while a replacement is found in light of executive director Amy Augenbaugh’s pending retirement, effective July 1.
According to Housing Authority commissioner Kathy Patten, 138 adults and 62 children currently live in one of the seven living facilities owned by the organization.
”Certainly, in the years I’ve been involved, no,” said Ms. Patten when asked, to the best of her knowledge, if Mr. Lidke had ever appeared before the Housing Authority committee.
The Hightstown Housing Authority is funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
