New Indictment Of Brick Superintendent 'Frivolous:' Attorney

BRICK, NJ — The attorney handling criminal charges against suspended Brick Superintendent Walter C. Uszenski has harsh words for the new indictment handed up Wednesday by an Ocean County grand jury, calling the action frivolous and a "cover your ass" move by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

"This is the third time they've sold a bill of goods to the grand jury," said Joseph Benedict, of the New Brunswick firm Benedict and Altman. "The charges are frivolous and very easily defensible."

The new indictment, released Wednesday evening, focuses most of the charges against Uszenski and Andrew Morgan, who served as the interim director of special services, on the hiring and employment of Morgan in the district.

Morgan, who was hired as Brick's interim director of special services in 2013, was arrested in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1989 on charges of selling cocaine to an undercover police officer. Morgan, who was a teacher in the Canarsie, N.Y., school district at the time, was convicted on the charges in 1990.

The previous indictment said an audit of the special education services programs was a ruse to hire Morgan, but in her ruling, Ocean County Superior Court Judge Patricia B. Roe said the audit resulted from a $750,000 shortfall in the special education budget caused when Donna Stump, the former director of special services, failed to submit invoices that would have resulted in reimbursement to the district.

Those charges were not included in the most recent grand jury presentment.

Roe threw out the charges against Uszenski, Andrew Morgan, Morgan's wife Lorraine and Uszenski's daughter, Jacqueline Halsey, in a Feb. 28, 2017 ruling. Roe, in her opinion, dismissed all but three charges — two against Andrew Morgan over his application to the district and one against Lorraine Morgan because that charge was tied up in an appeal of Lorraine Morgan's request for admission into pretrial intervention.

Uszenski and his daughter have filed a notice of tort claim seeking $20 million in damages for Uszenski, Halsey and Halsey's son; that claim is separate from the criminal proceeding.

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.

Benedict said the charges in the new indictment that claim Uszenski should have more thoroughly investigated Andrew Morgan's criminal history are without merit.

Earlier in his career, Uszenski had been hired as a principal in another school district, and the person who was the second choice for the position was Andrew Morgan, Benedict said. When Uszenski left that district, "that same school board hired Morgan to replace him," Benedict said.

When Morgan was hired in Brick, he had an established record of working in public education in New Jersey, Benedict said, because Morgan had been granted a certificate of rehabilitation from the New Jersey commissioner of education that said he had proven himself to be rehabilitated from the drug charges and worthy of employment. It's a program that no longer exists in New Jersey, Benedict noted.

Uszenski had no reason to believe Morgan had a criminal past based on those reasons, Benedict said.

The district received a letter from the state Department of Education stating Morgan was disqualified from working in a school district because he had a criminal record, but Benedict said Morgan said it was a mistake and a follow-up letter issued by the state said Morgan was indeed qualified to work in a public school.

Benedict said it was later, after Morgan was already working for the district, that officials were presented with information specific to the drug charges. Benedict said the information was dug up by the husband of Donna Stump in the wake of his wife's demotion over the $750,000 deficit.

Benedict said the result was Morgan was agreeing to resign as the interim special services director.

"He (Morgan) somehow assumed (the rehabilitation certification) meant he had no record," Benedict said. "This was not the first employment contract he had signed."

"I don't think a jury is going to find any merit in this," he said. "Once you know the facts, (you see) the claim is just frivolous. You can make anything seem nefarious."

Benedict, who said he and the rest of the attorneys on the defense side of the case, have sent letters asking the state attorney general's office to intervene and force Michel Paulus, the executive first assistant prosecutor, to recuse himself from the case, but those have gone nowhere.

"I think this is just a cover-your-ass motiviation behind this indictment," Benedict said.

Andrew Morgan photo via Ocean County Prosecutor's Office; Walter Uszenski by Karen Wall