5 Things To Know About New Indictments In The Brick Superintendent Case

BRICK, NJ — Nearly four months after a judge threw out the September 2015 indictments against Brick Township Schools Superintendent Walter C. Uszenski and three others, new indictments have been handed up by an Ocean County grand jury.

The indictments, handed up Wednesday, were more extensive than the first round of charges against Uszenski; his daughter Jacqueline Halsey; Andrew Morgan, the Brick Township School District's former interim director of special services, and Morgan's wife, Lorraine, who served as the district's academic officer.

The most of the charges in the original indictments related to special education services rendered to Halsey's son; those charges were thrown out by Ocean County Superior Court Judge Patricia B. Roe in late February.

In the wake of Roe's ruling, the Ocean County prosecutor's office had two options: appeal the ruling, which they had 45 days to do so, or seek new indictments. The appeal process could have dragged on for months. The prosecutor's office made its intent to move forward with the case clear from the day Roe issued her opinion.

“It is the intention of my office to pursue this case," Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato said Wednesday when new indictment was announced. "This case represents a serious breach of the public trust. We have carefully reviewed the Court’s decision, which resulted in the dismissal of a prior indictment. We are mindful of our legal responsibilities and obligations. The matter has been presented to another grand jury, which after evaluation of the evidence presented, returned this new indictment.”

Here are five things to know about this case in the wake of the new indictment:

1. Uszenski remains suspended without pay; his contract does not expire until June 30, 2018. Uszenski initially was suspended with pay by the Brick Township Board of Education on the evening of his arrest in May 2015; that suspension became without pay once the initial indictment was handed up Sept. 28, 2015.
2. Charges against Halsey are similar to those in the original indictment. Halsey, who has since moved to Pennsylvania with her son, again was indicted on charges of official misconduct and theft. The indictment claims the Individualized Education Program (IEP) arranged for her son was fraudulent and that he received "illegal and improper" in-home counseling and transportation beyond what he was entitled to receive. In her ruling throwing out the charges, Roe said Halsey's then preschool-aged son had an IEP that defined and entitled him to certain services and that prosecutors were aware of that when they sought the first indictment.
3. Lorraine Morgan, who had sought entry into pretrial intervention, a move Roe approved but one the prosecutor's office appealed, is charged with approving payment for the employee who provided the in-home counseling for Halsey's son, similar to the previous indictment. That issue had not been resolved at the time Roe dismissed the original indictment.
4. Uszenski and Andrew Morgan face a litany of new charges surrounding Andrew Morgan's criminal history and his employment by the Brick schools. Andrew Morgan was arrested in 1989 on charges of selling cocaine on five occasions, in amounts ranging from a half-ounce to more than 3 ounces, to undercover detectives assigned to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s investigation unit, according to a report in the New York Times. Morgan, who worked for the Canarsie, N.Y., was convicted in the case in 1990, but according to an investigator with the New Jersey Department of Education, Morgan received permission from a judge to work in public schools in spite of the conviction. Shortly after the hiring of both Andrew and Lorraine Morgan, residents in Brick notified the district that Morgan had criminal charges in his past, even posting information about them on the Patch. The new charges accuse Uszenski of failing to properly investigate Morgan and accuse both of lying about Morgan's past.
5. A tort claim filed by Uszenski and Halsey, seeking $20 million in damages for each of them and $20 million for Halsey's son, remains in place. The tort claim named the school district and members of the school board at the time of Uszenski's arrest, along with the prosecutor's office and township officials, including Mayor John G. Ducey, whose tip to the prosecutor's office is what sparked the investigation in the first place.

Read more on the case here:

• Brick Superintendent Uszenski, 3 Others Indicted Again: Prosecutor
• Brick Residents Urge School Board To Reinstate Superintendent
• Judge Throws Out Charges Against Brick Superintendent: Report
• Brick Superintendent, Three Others Indicted In Day Care Scheme
• Ex-Brick Administrator Had OK To Work Despite Drug Arrest, Investigator Says
• Brick Schools Superintendent, Two Others Arrested, Charged In Day-Care Scheme

Walter Uszenski, photo by Karen Wall