Suspended Hackensack Police
Chief Zisa found guilty of official misconduct, insurance fraud
Hackensack Police Chief
Ken Zisa, the leader of Bergen County’s
largest police department and scion of one if its most eminent political
dynasties, faces 23 years behind bars after being found guilty Wednesday of
insurance fraud and official misconduct.
After three days of
deliberation, a jury of five men and seven women delivered a split verdict,
acquitting Zisa, 58, of conspiracy and witness tampering charges, but finding
that he filed a false insurance report and acted improperly when he inserted
himself into two investigations involving his former girlfriend, Kathleen
Tiernan, who was also on trial.
Tiernan was found guilty of
filing a false insurance report, but acquitted on a conspiracy charge.
The courtroom was full of
friends and family members of Zisa and Tiernan as the jury read the verdict,
with employees from the Prosecutor’s Office filling all available seats and
standing along the back wall.
As the verdicts — five guilty counts for Zisa and one for Tiernan — were read, the courtroom fell silent. Joe Zisa, the city attorney and Ken Zisa’s cousin, closed his eyes and bowed his head. One of Tiernan’s sons rested his head against a courtroom wall. A young woman in the front row appeared to wipe away tears.
Zisa, a state assemblyman
from 1994-2002, closed his eyes and clenched his jaw but held his head erect.
Zisa, who has been
suspended from his job for two years, faces a maximum prison sentence of 45
years and a minimum of 23 years, 15 of which would be without parole, Assistant
Bergen County Prosecutor
Daniel Keitel said. Tiernan faces up to 5 years on the insurance fraud charge,
but there is no presumption of jail time. A sentencing hearing was tentatively
set for June 22.
“Obviously we are extremely
disappointed with the jury’s verdict,” Zisa’s attorney, Patricia Prezioso, told
Superior Court Judge Joseph Conte. She said an appeal is planned.
Keitel requested that bail
be set at $200,000 and asked for Zisa’s immediate removal from the office of
chief of police. Keitel also requested forfeiture of Zisa’s pension and
retirement.
Conte set bail for Zisa at
$50,000 with no 10 percent cash payment option, to be posted no later than
Friday at noon. Until then, Zisa remains free on his own recognizance. Tiernan
also remains free on her own recognizance with no bail set. The judge said he
would rule on the other requests at a to-be-scheduled hearing.
“He’s suspended, the fact
that he wasn’t removed today was of no moment,” said Keitel, who praised the
jury for their work.
Stephen Lo Iacono, Hackensack’s city manager,
said he will wait for direction from the courts on whether to remove Zisa from
office.
"Right now, as we
speak, his status is the same as it has been for the past two years. He is
suspended without pay,” Lo Iacono said. “He’s certainly not on the job.
Whatever process the legal system is going to take, we have to live with that
and wait for it.”
He called it a “terrible
day for the city.”
“Obviously, I’m sad for the
city,” Lo Iacono said. “Sad for the police department. But we have to move on.”
Councilman John Lebrosse,
who is often at odds with the council majority, said the city should remove
Zisa from office as soon as it can.
“We need to sever the tie
and move forward,” he said. “This has been wearing on the city, the police
department, the government and city officials for years now.”
The mayor and the other
city council members either could not be reached or declined to comment.
News of the verdict
traveled swiftly, and Capt. Thomas Padilla, who has served as acting officer in
charge since Zisa’s arrest two years ago, opted to return to police
headquarters to discuss the matter directly at the 5 p.m. roll call. In a
department roiled by this trial and more than a dozen civil suits filed by
officers against Zisa, Padilla said it was important to have his officers focus
on their core mission of serving the public.
“Moving forward, I hope we
come together as a department and strive to do the best we can,” he said.
Zisa and his family members,
including former Hackensack
Mayor Jack Zisa and city attorney Joe Zisa, declined to comment as they
followed him out of the courtroom, as did Lynne Hurwitz, the city's Democratic
Municipal Chairwoman, who spent every day of the six-week trial in the
courtroom.
Several jurors contacted
after the verdict said the panel as a group decided against commenting on the
verdict.
The verdict is certain to
have sweeping repercussions in Hackensack,
where Zisa has held his title throughout his two-year unpaid suspension, and
officials have resisted settling any of the civil lawsuits filed by more than
20 present and retired police officers that name the chief.
Those cases, asking for
several million dollars in damages, have been on hold pending a verdict in
Zisa’s criminal trial.
Lo Iacono, the city
manager, said the cost of defending the suits — already more than $2.4 million
in the last three years — might have already reached a threshold at which the
city’s insurer would require the city to settle them.
Lawyers for the police
officers said the conviction can be admitted as evidence in the civil cases and
will likely damage Zisa's credibility. Zisa in civil court also will no longer
be shielded by a pending criminal case, allowing plaintiff lawyers to depose
him for the first time, possibly as soon as next month.
“Clearly, the verdict does
speak to the chief’s conduct as chief,” said attorney Robert Woodruff, who is
handling two Zisa-related cases. “He was the king. That’s what he was. I guess
not.”
Prosecutors argued during
the six-week trial that the charges stemmed from a skewed system of justice in Hackensack, where Zisa was
the police chief for 15 years and members of his family held the top elected
and appointed positions for decades.
In a town known by the
family’s political opponents as “Zisaville,” there was one system of justice
for the Zisas and their friends, and another for everybody else, prosecutors
said.
That imbalance played out
in 2004 and 2008, when Zisa arrived on the scene of two incidents – in both
cases just before the break of dawn – and diverted investigations before
Tiernan and her family could be charged, prosecutors alleged.
In the first case in 2004,
prosecutors said Zisa coerced a subordinate officer, Laura Campos, to remove
then 16-year-old Ryan Tiernan’s name from a police report of an assault and
robbery of a 15-year-old, prosecutors alleged. In the second in 2008, the chief
arrived on the scene shortly after a visibly drunk Tiernan crashed his
Chevrolet Trailblazer into a utility pole, then whisked her away before she
could be tested for sobriety.
The couple then filed a
fraudulent insurance claim for $11,000, stating Tiernan swerved to avoid an
animal, a charge held up by the jury.
Prezioso argued that Zisa
acted appropriately during both investigations. She showed the jury reams of
documents from the police department and other sources she said proved that the
police officers who testified against their boss — many of whom stand to gain
from civil suits that could be bolstered by a guilty verdict— were lying.
Instead, Prezioso said Zisa
was the victim of a political conspiracy involving Bergen County Prosecutor
John L. Molinelli and fuelled by his disgruntled subordinates. Molinelli
declined to comment late Wednesday.
Prezioso said a group of
rogue Hackensack officers,
including John Hermann and Joseph Al-Ayoubi, brought the story of the 2008 car
crash to the Prosecutor’s Office when Zisa failed to take a bribe to drop
disciplinary charges against the leader of the police union, Anthony Ferraioli.
Tiernan was collateral
damage, Prezioso and Meehan argued. Her car accident, they claim, happened just
as it was described on the insurance claim.
Key testimony came from
Hermann and Al-Ayoubi, who said Tiernan was so drunk at the scene of the 2008
car crash she had trouble walking without Zisa’s assistance, but they filed a
false police report of the incident. To do otherwise, Al-Ayoubi testified,
would be “career suicide.”