By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Sharon Papp and Steven Riccitello have long since retired from the Princeton Police Department, but the lawsuit they and five others in the force filed nearly four years ago against former chief David Dudeck, the police department and the town has lingered, until now., Their civil case in Mercer County Superior Court is due, tentatively, to go on trial in June, in a case highlighting the alleged actions of the retired chief and what they claim was a pattern of harassment and discrimination starting in 2008., They have alleged Dudeck often would make sexual references in work, disparage women and gays and lesbians and even make false disciplinary and performance allegations against them “in retaliation for their complaints about his discriminatory and offensive conduct,” the suit alleges., The suit further alleged the town and the department aided and abetted Dudeck’s conduct by, among other things, failing to discipline him and “their collusion with Dudeck to hide his discriminatory conduct.”, “My clients look forward to having their day in court and having their case decided by a jury,” said Matthew A. Peluso, the attorney for Papp, Riccitello and the five other plaintiffs, by phone Monday., At this stage of the case, depositions are still being taken. The two sides are due to have a settlement conference in May, so it’s possible they might avert a trial., For her part, Mayor Liz Lempert on Monday would not discuss what type of settlement offers had been made by either party to resolve the case., “I can’t talk about ongoing litigation,” she said., Richard Goldstein, the attorney for the town’s insurance carrier who is handling the suit, did not return phone messages seeking comment., The lawsuit harkens back to a rough time in the department, a force that was in the first full year as a merged unit as part of the consolidation of the two Princetons. In the years before then, there had been internal strife, lawsuits and misconduct within the former borough and township police forces., “At one point, about ten years ago, a full third of the Borough Police force was suspended or terminated or in litigation with the municipality,” recalled former Borough Councilman Roger Martindell in an interview Tuesday. “Fortunately, that seems to be mostly behind us.”, He said that no concerns were ever brought to him or the Borough Council about Dudeck’s alleged conduct, including during the time when Dudeck was being considered, in 2012, to lead the unified police force., “As far as I know, nobody stepped forward and said hold on a second about appointing Borough Chief Dudeck the chief of the consolidated department. Nobody stepped forward with any concerns,” Martindell said. “But after he was appointed, they came forward with concerns. Where were they when he was under consideration for chief of the joint department?”, Mayor Lempert, who had reluctantly gone along with officials to appoint Dudeck the chief, admitted that going into the merger, there had been “concerns and doubts” about how the two units would work together and what impact there would be on coverage of the unified town. But with Chief Nicholas K. Sutter in charge since 2013, she holds the police department up “as one of the biggest successes of consolidation.”, “Today’s department is the strongest, most community focused department that we’ve seen in either community,” said Mayor Lempert, who swore in four police officers to their new promotions at a ceremony last week., Martindell, a local attorney, said he did not know enough about the lawsuit to say whether he thought the town should settle the litigation or go to trial. But he believes, as a “general principle,” lawsuits by or against police officers should be decided in as a public a venue as possible., “It’s the biggest department with the highest amount of tax dollars devoted to its operation,” he said. “People want to know if their tax dollars are being wisely spent. People also want to have confidence in their public safety, so they need to know if anything threatens that confidence.”
