Toms River Councilman Refuses Request To Resign; Council Considers Its Options

Toms River resident John C. Sevastakis will remain vice president of the township council -- at least for now.

That was the decision reached Tuesday night as the Township Council discussed in closed session whether Sevastakis should continue to sit on the council after it was revealed last week that he had forged a homeowner’s signature and lied on construction permits in a 2003 project.

Township Attorney Ken Fitzsimmons said Sevastakis told the council he will not step down but intends to remain in office until the end of this year, when his term expires. Sevastakis had said earlier this year that he was not seeking re-election.

The council, Fitzsimmons said, has directed him to research the council’s options in the matter. One resident asked whether the cost involved in trying to remove Sevastakis from the council through legal channels would be worth it, considering his term has only three months left, and Council President Jeffrey Carr said that was one of the considerations.

After the meeting Sevastakis reiterated comments he made last week, saying the project at the Coluccios’ home happened before he joined the council. Sevastakis was elected to the council in November 2003 and took office in January 2004. The contract with the Coluccios to build the addition was signed in April 2003.

Sevastakis said he could not comment further on the situation.

Mayor Thomas Kelaher, who last week called for Sevastakis to resign, said at the time: “While this is a civil matter, and not a criminal one, in light of the Judge’s decision, I do not believe that John should serve on the council any longer.”

Kelaher and the council did not comment last night, on Fitzsimmons’ advice.

The information about Sevastakis’s actions in the 2003 project came to light when the state appellate court ruling became public.

In a decision dated Aug. 27, State Appellate Court Judges Carmen Messano and Mitchel E. Ostrer rejected the appeal by Sevastakis, upholding the ruling of a trial court judge that Sevastakis made intentional misrepresentations on plans drawn up an addition to the home of Frank and Josephine Coluccio in 2003.

The couple sued Sevastakis and his construction company, Sevas Builders, in 2006, and the case dragged through the court system until a Monmouth County judge in 2013 awarded the Coluccios $761,527. Sevastakis’s appeal sought to have the judgment against him and his company overturned on the basis that the Coluccios were operating an illegal day care from their home, saying they failed to tell him that up front.

Messano and Ostrer’s ruling included a lengthy summary of the findings by the Monmouth County trial judge, which found Sevastakis “provided no credible explanation” for labeling a school room as a “great room” on the architectural drawings. The trial judge, additionally citing Sevastakis’s signing of Frank Coluccio’s name to a permit, saying Coluccio was the principal contractor, said the misrepresentations were deliberate, saying Sevastakis was “unquestionably aware” that designating the room as a school room on the drawings would have resulted in a host of questions and a more extensive permitting and approval process.