Thu. Nov 14th, 2024

A Cranford police officer is sparring with the town over allegations that he was retaliated against because his wife hosted a fundraiser for a GOP candidate running for council against the town’s now-mayor. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)

A Cranford police officer is sparring with the town over allegations that he was retaliated against because his wife held a fundraiser at their home for a Republican candidate running for council against the now-mayor of the town. 

Cranford Sgt. Timothy O’Brien claims police Chief Ryan Greco denied his bid for promotion because of political favoritism, and he endured a “hostile and harmful work environment” afterward, according to a brief filed last week in state Superior Court. After O’Brien complained of misconduct last year, Greco called him an obscene word and later passed him over for promotion again, O’Brien charges. 

“It is evident that the Township has adopted or acquiesced to a custom to punish those that are not loyal to the party in power,” O’Brien’s attorney Frank Capece wrote. 

O’Brien filed an amended complaint in March, one year after filing an initial complaint. A hearing is scheduled Wednesday in Union County. 

O’Brien, who started as a dispatcher in 1998 and became sergeant in 2018, applied for a promotion after the township announced a vacancy in October 2022, according to court filings.

He was a finalist for the job, but the township’s promotional policy is arbitrarily enforced by Greco, he argued. When a township administrator asked Greco about any potential issues, Greco cited the fundraiser for the GOP candidate running against Democrat Brian Andrews, who’s now township mayor, O’Brien said in the filing.

He wants the court to deny the township’s motion for summary judgment, accusing Cranford officials of violating the state Conscientious Employee Protection Act, Law Against Discrimination, and state and federal civil rights acts.

The township claims O’Brien sought his 2022 promotion after the selection process ended and has subsequently devised new theories as to why he failed to be promoted to lieutenant. His wife’s fundraiser wasn’t on the township committee’s radar, and Greco only knew about it because he was invited, the township said in an October filing. 

The township argues O’Brien didn’t suffer retaliatory employment actions because no vacancies for promotion existed at that point, nor was he fired. O’Brien’s complaint is a “scattershot everything-but-the-kitchen-sink style amalgam of conclusory allegations that could only be true if time travel were a reality,” the township said.

“Not a single person has stated that politics came into play with either the promotional process itself or Greco’s recommendation,” the township’s attorney Scott Salmon wrote.

Capece did not respond to a request for comment, and Salmon declined to comment. 

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