The New York Times reprised local coverage Oct. 11 of the stormy one-term career of former Hunterdon County Sheriff Deborah Trout and the 43 counts of official misconduct and other crimes cited in a grand jury indictment of Trout, former Undersheriff Michael Russo and former Sheriff's Investigator John Falat Jr.
A current suit by a former Hunterdon County Assistant Prosecutor claims that he was fired because he spoke out against the state Attorney General Office takeover of the case and its ultimate dismissal by a Superior Court judge at the urging of the AG office. In court papers filed in the suit, Bennett Barlyn accuses officials high in the Christie administration of orchestrating the case’s demise for political reasons.
Below is a timeline detailing significant events in Trout’s four-year term as sheriff that led to the Prosecutor’s Office investigation, suits and counter-lawsuits, the allegedly engineered departure of key county law enforcement officials and the failed effort to recall her.
For more details on the events and a list of key players involved in the events, see the expanded timeline.
Deborah Trout takes her oath of office as the new Hunterdon County Sheriff from Superior Court Judge Roger Mahon during the annual Hunterdon County Freeholder's Reorganization meeting at the Historic Courthouse in Flemington on Wednesday January 2, 2008.
Republican Deborah Trout is elected sheriff on Nov. 8 with 15,994 votes (54.3%), beating Democrat Bruce Cocuzza with 13,410 (45.5%). Within weeks she announces that she’ll appoint her GOP opponent George Muller to be her confidential aide when she takes office on Jan. 1.
She also names Michael Russo as administrative undersheriff, her second in command. A 2001 state investigation into Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals alleges that Russo, as head of the Warren County SPCA, misused donations, knowingly gave guns to members who were not certified to use them, and used the society in a scam to avoid sales tax and registration fees for cars he bought for personal use.
Her third in command will be John Maloney, as legal adviser and civil division undersheriff. He is a public defender in Mercer County where Trout had served as sheriff’s officer. Fourth-in-command Ed Davis is Sheriff William Doyle’s operations undersheriff now; he’ll retain that job under Ms. Trout.
Trout takes office on Jan. 1. Within days, she swears in Gregory Ezekian Jr. and John Falat Jr. as investigators. Ezekian had been dismissed from two prior police department jobs, in Rockaway Township (Morris County) in 2000 and in Alpha (Warren County) in 2006, for various reasons, and had been barred from future police jobs in those jurisdictions.
At the time of his hiring in Hunterdon, Ezekian is fighting a drunk driving conviction and loss of driving privileges, both of which were known to Trout. Falat had never held a position in law enforcement, but had worked and contributed to Trout’s campaign. The Freeholders meet in private with Trout for three hours expressing their concerns.
A legal settlement between the State SPCA and the Warren County SPCA leads to the state office to take over the county organization, formerly run by now Undersheriff Michael Russo. During Russo’s term, a 2001 State Commission of Investigation report on county SPCA abuses and corruption called the Warren County group “the paradigm of a society that is out-of-control, that exists for the personal benefit of some of its participants and that has wielded its authority in highly inappropriate ways.” Trout and her two sheriff’s investigators, Gregory Ezekian and John Falat were also members of the Warren County SPCA during the Russo years.
Gregory Ezekian Jr. stands in court on July 23, 2008
The Prosecutor’s office subpoenas Alpha for employment records of Sheriff’s Investigator Gregory Ezekian Jr. from his time as a police officer in that Warren County borough. Ezekian will resign in June, weeks after Trout confiscates his weapon at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office. He’ll later be charged with knowingly “provided false, inaccurate or incomplete answers” on his Sheriff’s Office employment application and comes to plead guilty and forfeit his right to possess weapons or hold a law enforcement position in the state.
Detectives from the Prosecutor’s Office
arrest Falat and charge him with falsification of records
, a fourth-degree crime. He’s accused of “knowingly making false statements under oath or equivalent affirmation, when he did not believe the statements to be true.” Falat’s attorney will later say that he’ll fight the charges rather than seek a plea deal.
Donna Simon
Donna Simon of Readington and other county residents launch OutWithTrout.org to oust Trout. They say they'll organize volunteers to circulate petitions and put a recall question on next November's ballot. Later that month the Freeholders narrowly pass a resolution calling for Trout to live up to her campaign promises or resign.
On Dec. 22, Prosecutor's Office detectives and State Police seize computers and documents related to Trout's hiring and administrative practices during a six-hour raid. About 10 Prosecutor's staffers scoured the sheriff's second-story offices, assisted by State Troopers. In a simultaneous raid in Bayonne, five detectives from the Prosecutor's Office execute a similar search warrant at the home of Falat, seizing his personal computer and other papers. The next day the Prosecutor's Office subpoenas more personnel records from Trout as part of an ongoing investigation into her office. The action comes as the sheriff's officers were holding their annual holiday luncheon at the county justice center.
The committee to recall Trout
makes New Jersey history by filing a Notice of Intent
to collect enough signatures to get the question on the Nov. 3 ballot. To get the recall question on the November ballot, OutwithTrout.org will have to collect about 22,000 signatures. Later that month, the 2007 drunken driving conviction of Ezekian is upheld by the Appellate Division of state Superior Court. By June, The OutWithTrout.org chairwoman Simon says the group
has only gathered about 6,700 signatures
and ends the effort.
Trout
to the state Fraternal Order of Police she won’t seek another term, saying she needs to spend time caring for her ailing father. She endorses Muller for the job. Russo, a Warren County resident, will announce in November that he’ll seek the Republican Party nomination for sheriff there.
Hunterdon County Sheriff Deborah Trout, left, Sheriff's Officer John Falat Jr. center, back, and Undersheriff Michael Russo, right-back.
Judge Ciccone announces indictments against Trout, Russo and Falat after a grand jury identifies 41 counts of official misconduct and other crimes. Hunterdon County Prosecutor J. Patrick Barnes resigns the same day and the Prosecutor’s Office is taken over by the state Attorney General’s Office. The assistant prosecutor who led the case will later claim that state officials forced Barnes “to resign on the same day the indictments were unsealed in order to create the public impression that (Barnes) made that decision.”
Acting County Prosecutor Dermott O’Grady announces that the case against Trout and her staffers is under review by the state Attorney General’s Office Division of Criminal Justice and could be dismissed. In August, the AG’s Office takes charge of the case and on Aug. 23, Superior Court Judge Paul Armstrong
after Deputy Attorney General Christine Hoffman tells him that she had reviewed the case and found “legal and factual deficiencies” in the indictments. The same day, Governor Chris Christie names Anthony P. Kearns III as Hunterdon County Prosecutor to replace interim prosecutor O’Grady.
Hunterdon County Assistant Prosecutor Bennett Barlyn is fired by O’Grady after he complains that the state takeover of the Trout case was to derail it. Assistant Prosecutor Charles Ouslander files retirement papers and is gone a week or so later. By November, a third assistant prosecutor, William McGovern, who led handled the Trout case, will also resign.
Interim Prosecutor O’Grady sends memo to the office staff barring them from discussing anything about the Trout case with newly named Prosecutor Kearns or anyone appointed by him. Trout, Russo, Falat and several others say they’ll seek $10 million in damages each from the Freeholders, former Prosecutor J. Patrick Barnes and a host of others, claiming false arrest, malicious prosecution, invasion of privacy, false imprisonment, damage to their reputation, emotional stress, and pain and suffering.
In papers filed in Superior Court, former Assistant Prosecutor Barlyn claims that state Attorney General Paula Dow and others in the Christie administration conspired to dismiss criminal charges against Trout and her associates. He hints that Gov. Christie may have played a role as well. Russo’s claims that Christie would make the charges “go away” are recalled. At an unrelated press conference later that month, Gov. Chris Christie
denies speaking with anyone about criminal charges
against Trout, Russo and Falat.
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