Case Against Ex-Brick Super, 2 Others Can Move Ahead, Judge Rules

BRICK, NJ — A state Superior Court judge has rejected a bid by the former Brick Township superintendent and two others to have indictments against them dismissed in an official misconduct case.

State Superior Court Judge Michael Collins on Thursday, Dec. 6, ruled Walter Uszenski and two others — his daughter, Jacqueline Halsey, and Andrew Morgan, the former director of special services for the Brick Schools — must proceed to trial in the case, which has been grinding through the courts since 2015.

Collins rejected a motion to dismiss the charges brought in the June 2017 indictment that allege a scheme to provide Uszenski's grandson with daycare paid for through the school district.

"In refusing to dismiss the indictment against the defendants, the judge found unpersuasive their arguments that the charges were not adequately supported by the evidence, and that the Prosecutor failed to present exculpatory evidence to the grand jury," the news release from Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer said.

Joseph J. Benedict, Uszenski's attorney, scoffed at the announcement, noting that a grand jury presentment includes the prosecution's case without real presentation of the defense.

"A jury is going to hear all of the evidence and is not going to be impressed," Benedict said. "At this point we're ready to take it to trial."

Collins, in his 46-page opinion, said the evidence presented to the grand jury in May and June 2017 was far more thorough than what was presented in 2015, when the three and Lorraine Morgan, Andrew Morgan's wife, initially were indicted. The first indictment was thrown out by Superior Court Judge Patricia B. Roe in February 2017, with Roe citing the withholding of exculpatory evidence — specifically that Halsey's son had been deemed in need of special education services — as part of the reason for throwing it out.

"This Court does not find any exculpatory evidence that directly negated the guilt of the defendants and that was clearly exculpatory in nature," he wrote.

"The items identified by defendants may prove to be fertile ground for cross examination and closing arguments, however, they do not compel a dismissal of this indictment," Collins wrote.

"We're going to grow Lady Justice out of that fertile ground," Benedict said. "She's going to pop right up and take a sword to their case."

Uszenski, Andrew Morgan, and Halsey all were arrested May 7, 2015, in what then-Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato described as a scheme to provide taxpayer-funded daycare for Halsey's son. Those three and Lorraine Morgan, the district's former academic officer, were indicted in late September 2015.

Lorraine Morgan, who approved some of the payments for the services Halsey's son received, applied for pretrial intervention and was ordered into the program in March 2016 by Superior Court Judge Wendel E. Daniels over the objections of Coronato and the PTI program's director. That order was overturned by an appeals court in July 2018 on the grounds that it's the prosecutor's decision who should be granted PTI. Lorraine Morgan’s motion to dismiss the indictment is presently pending before Daniels, Billhimer's office said.

The charges against Uszenski, Halsey and Morgan include official misconduct, theft, and false swearing and resulted from the investigation into what prosecutors say was a 2013-2014 scheme in which Uszenski, Halsey, and Andrew Morgan obtained private full-time preschool daycare and related services for Halsey's son, who is Uszenski’s grandson.

"The judge saw the issue as 'whether the defendants abused their authority to manipulate the process and to amend (the boy's) IEP under circumstances which were coercive or fraudulent in nature,' " Billhimer said, "and recognized 'the alleged coercive behavior Defendants exercised in influencing the Child Study Team and other persons to intervene on (the boy's) behalf.' "

Benedict said Uszenski "knew his grandson was in the school system and he knew enough to stay out of it," and that the services the boy received were necessary.

The 2017 indictment also focused on the hiring of Andrew Morgan, who had a 1990 criminal conviction on charges of selling cocaine while he was working as a teacher in New York. Morgan was indicted on two counts of false swearing, for denying he had a criminal conviction on drug charges, and for saying on his Brick schools employment application that he had a criminal conviction.

Uszenski is accused of knowing about the conviction and hiring Morgan anyway.

"Brick was not the first district to hire him," Benedict said, and claims that Uszenski knew about the conviction and that he and Morgan were close friends are false, saying Uszenski met Morgan when Uszenski was leaving a job and Morgan was transitioning in as his replacement. "They talked periodically they had never been social friends."

An investigator with the state Department of Education told Patch in 2015 that Morgan's record in the state database had a notation that he was approved to work in a school district despite his criminal conviction. That was due to a program that allowed people to show evidence they had been rehabilitated so they could regain their teaching credentials. That program ceased to exist in the late 1990s.

Uszenski and Halsey filed a lawsuit against the school district, the prosecutor's office and a host of others earlier this year, claiming the charges against Uszenski were retaliation for the demotion of Donna Stump, the former special services director who failed to file paperwork for state reimbursement of special education services and cost the district $750,000. Stump was demoted as a result of an audit of the special services department by Morgan. A tort claim notice said they were seeking $20 million each for Uszenski, Halsey and her son.

Benedict said the next meeting is set for mid-January on the case, which has a new prosecutor since Michel A. Paulhus, who was the assistant prosecutor at the time it began but was fired over the summer amid accusations of creating a hostile work environment.

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Walter Uszenski photo by Karen Wall, Patch staff