Former police chief responds to letter
By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Former Princeton Township Police Chief Anthony Gaylord on Monday defended the circumstances surrounding his decision to retire after being linked to the turmoil and upheaval that had plagued the department in recent years.
Mr. Gaylord, addressing Mayor Liz Lempert and the council at their meeting in Town Hall, said he had come to set the record straight about his retirement and the reasons for it.
”””At this time in my life, I refuse to stand by any longer and allow anyone to discredit me in any way about my law enforcement career or my retirement,” Mr. Gaylord said.
He said he hoped his comments Monday stop “the misinformation in the future so no other action will have to be taken.”
In his remarks, he made it clear he was speaking not just to the governing body, but also to the press and the “Roger Martindells of this world and others who feel free to make comments about someone or something before they know the true facts about what has taken place.”
Mr. Martindell, a former Borough Councilman, recently published a letter to the editor in The Princeton Packet in which he referred to Mr. Gaylord in the context of writing about the travails of current Police Chief David J. Dudeck.
Chief Dudeck, who has not been at work since Feb. 26, has been the target of undisclosed allegations of administrative misconduct.
”When the last three township police chiefs each resigned following reports of mismanagement, improper conduct or criminal charges, the township governing body never brought the facts to light, but, instead, granted the chiefs handsome retirement packages and buried any analysis of police dysfunction,” Mr. Martindell wrote.
Told of Mr. Gaylord’s remarks, he had no comment when contacted at his Nassau Street law office.
In the years after Mr. Gaylord left as chief, his successor, Mark Emann, resigned in 2011 after facing a criminal theft charge he traded a department-owned gun for guns for his private use. In March 2012, then-Chief Robert Buchanan left the department abruptly.
Mr. Gaylord gave officials permission to speak out about his personnel issues regarding his retirement from the department, a move he said he made voluntarily.
”I was not under any investigation by anyone, I did not do anything wrong, and the township did not force me out or give me an option to retire or else,” he said.
He said he wanted to retire because that’s what he wanted to do.
Princeton Council President Bernard P. Miller, a member of the Township Committee at that time, backed up his version of events Tuesday by saying Mr. Gaylord left “at his own volition.”
Mr. Gaylord took a leave of absence in 2005, right after the release of an extensive study of the department, according to a press account at the time. Officials had called the timing of his departure conicidental as Mr. Gaylord did not officially retire until February 2007, pension records showed.
In revisiting the issue Monday, he said that prior to the 2005 report, he had told the township of his intention to retire. He said the report had nothing to do with his decision.
”In hindsight,” he said, “the township and probably the majority of the members of the department wished that I did not retire so they did not have to face the shame and destruction of the Police Department that followed when I retired, of the two people left in charge.”
He gave a parting shot to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office by saying he hopes the office does a better job investigating the allegations against Chief Dudeck “than they did in other cases that ended with police officers having their careers, names and reputations destroyed.”
He cited as examples as Princeton police Lt. Michael Henderson and Cpl. Arthur Villaruz, both of whom have sued the town after being ensnared in Mr. Emann’s matter.

