By Peter Elacqua
Staff Writer
COLTS NECK – Police Chief Kevin Sauter is waiting for a judge to decide if he can amend a lawsuit he has filed against Colts Neck and include additional charges.
Sauter has taken legal action against the township in state Superior Court, Freehold, in regard to a five-day unpaid suspension he served from Aug. 29 through Sept. 2, 2016. The legal action was filed on Sept. 1, 2016.
The suspension, which was ordered by the Township Committee, was related to Sauter’s attendance at a conference that was organized by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and held in Chicago from Oct. 23-28, 2015.
In the wake of Sauter’s trip to Chicago, municipal officials charged him with failure to seek the proper prior written approval from the Township Committee; failure to use vacation time during his attendance at the conference; and having an on-duty police officer who was driving a police vehicle pick him up at Newark Liberty International Airport upon his return to New Jersey.
Sauter has worked for the Colts Neck Police Department for 32 years and has been its chief for 23 years. He is seeking the immediate dismissal of the charges the Township Committee filed against him, the reversal of his suspension, and pay and benefits he lost during the suspension.
One exhibit included with his legal action is a Colts Neck purchase order dated June 5, 2015, in the amount of $350 to cover the cost of the chief’s registration at the conference.
A handwritten notation on the purchase order that was signed by the municipal clerk indicates the expenditure was approved by Township Committee members James Schatzle, Michael Fitzgerald and Jarrett Engel on Sept. 9, 2015 – about six weeks before Sauter left for Chicago.
The three men no longer serve on the governing body.
On Jan. 4, Sauter filed a motion to amend his legal filing to include new allegations under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA). Attorney Charles Sciarra, who represents the chief, has not returned messages seeking comment on that motion.
According to attorney Darren Gelber, of the firm Wilentz, Goldman and Spitzer, Woodbridge, who is representing Colts Neck, Sauter had not raised these newer CEPA claims during the course of his disciplinary hearings.
“A federal agency violates the Whistleblower Protection Act if agency authorities take or threaten to take retaliatory personnel action against any employee or applicant because of disclosure of information by that employee or applicant,” according to the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development website.
Colts Neck is opposing Sauter’s motion to amend his legal complaint and is asserting the two claims should be handled separately. Judge Lisa Thornton, the assignment judge for Monmouth County, is expected to rule on the matter.
“Chief Sauter is trying to turn his disciplinary appeal into something much more,” Gelber said.
Sauter’s initial legal action listed five counts with which the township is being charged.
The first count asserts that officials “did not have just cause to charge Sauter and thereafter suspend him for five days, the local disciplinary hearing was inherently biased against Sauter and he seeks a de novo review (new trial) of the charges and the five-day suspension.”
The second count asserts a violation of Sauter’s Bill of Rights protections and states that “Sauter by statute is given the duty to assign all training to the police force, including himself, as a means of exercising and discharging the functions, powers and duties of the force.”
The third count asserts that the “township unduly and prejudicially delayed the imposition of disciplinary charges against Sauter.”
The fourth count asserts that Sauter’s due process rights were violated because “the Jan. 14, 2016 charges were not properly stated as it did not specify specifically what (Sauter) was being charged with.”
The fifth count asserts that Colts Neck has committed civil fraud as it relates to technical aspects of the case.
A disciplinary hearing for Sauter was held on April 28, 2016. At Sauter’s request, the hearing was held in public. Retired state Superior Court Judge Robert O’Hagan was retained by municipal officials to conduct the hearing and issue an opinion on the matter.
On Aug. 15, 2016, O’Hagan issued his opinion and wrote, in part, “Perhaps as Chief Sauter contends, other Monmouth County police chiefs have been and are now being chauffeured back and forth to the airport in this fashion (i.e., by a police officer). However, support for such conduct stands on very shaky grounds. Drop-off and pick-up at the airport in a township vehicle can hardly be considered a benefit or perk of the chief’s job.”