A mayor in New Jersey, who has been accused of racism and abusing her power, has asked the state’s attorney general to help manage the police department in a borough beset by lawsuits from its officers alleging abuse, bullying, discrimination and retaliation.
Jackie Palmer, the mayor of Spotswood in central New Jersey, implored the attorney general to act “to ensure accountability,” alleging in a statement that the borough’s internal affairs operation and police leadership are “broken” and “should not be used to target and intimidate” its employees, including police officers and other public officials.
Spotswood has a population of about 8,100 people, with a 24-person police department. Six members of it have filed suits or letters of intent to sue against the borough so far this year, in addition to an officer who sued last year.
Officers James Parsons, Daniel Hoover, Osman Dikiz and Dominik Skibniewski allege in a lawsuit filed Jan. 31 in Superior Court of Middlesex County that the police department’s Internal Affairs Unit “has become a vehicle used to target officers with harassment, intimidation, and retaliation.” The suit names the borough, Police Chief Philip Corbisiero and Richard Sasso Jr., a senior patrolman who recently sued the borough and the mayor, as defendants.
“While not a member of Internal Affairs,” the lawsuit alleges, “Sasso is a puppet” of Corbisiero and acting Capt. Nicholas Mayo.
The four officers’ lawsuit accuses Corbisiero, Mayo and Sasso of factionalizing the department in a personal vendetta against the mayor and the borough administrator and of targeting anyone who does not support Corbisiero and Sasso’s efforts to oust her. It also alleges violations of state laws against discrimination and retaliation and accuses Corbisiero and Mayo of having “bestowed special privilege status upon Sasso.”
Dikiz alleges in the suit that he “has suffered intimidation, harassment, racial and religious discrimination,…
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