{"id":10921,"date":"2017-05-10T01:27:43","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T05:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=10921"},"modified":"2017-05-10T11:29:55","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T15:29:55","slug":"suspended-brick-schools-super-uszenski-may-sue-for-60-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2017\/05\/suspended-brick-schools-super-uszenski-may-sue-for-60-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspended Brick Schools Super Uszenski May Sue for $60 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Suspended<\/a>

Suspended Brick schools superintendent Walter Uszenski. (File Photos)<\/p><\/div>\n

Suspended Brick Township schools superintendent Walter Uszenski has retained a high-powered law firm and may seek $60 million in damages against the school district, Brick Township and Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office, Shorebeat has learned.<\/p>\n

Uszenski, though still suspended from his superintendent position, \u00a0had an indictment dismissed in February<\/a> after Superior Court Judge Patricia Roe found the prosecutor\u2019s office left out evidence that could have exonerated Uszenski from its presentation to a grand jury. While the prosecutor\u2019s office chose not to appeal Roe\u2019s decision, Uszenski\u2019s attorney has told Shorebeat the office will seek a new indictment in the case, in which Uszenski is charged with providing his grandson special education services \u2013 namely, after school care \u2013 to which he was not entitled.<\/p>\n

But Uszenski\u2019s legal team, the labor law firm of Smith Mullin, which has recently garnered headlines for its representation of former Fox News Channel host Gretchen Carlson<\/a>, stated in a tort claim form \u2013 a legal notice required in New Jersey before a lawsuit can be filed against a governmental agency \u2013 that Uszenski was a victim of \u201cmalicious prosecution, false arrest, false imprisonment, abuse of process, educational malpractice, interference with an employment contract, trade libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit seeks $20 million each for Uszenski, his daughter, Jacqueline Halsey, who was also charged in the case, and his grandson, who the suit claims was denied access to special education services to which he was entitled. Tort claim forms were served upon the school district, the Brick municipal government as well as the prosecutor\u2019s office. A slew of elected officials, including Mayor John Ducey, are named in the suit. Also named is former school bus driver Marcella Butterly, who provided\u00a0information against Uszenski<\/a> \u2013 which has since been proven incorrect \u2013 to Ducey, who in turn went to the prosecutor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

In the tort claim notice, Neil Mullin, Uszenski\u2019s attorney, leaned heavily on Roe\u2019s decision, in which she excoriated the prosecutor\u2019s office for declining to include the potential exculpatory evidence in the grand jury presentation.<\/p>\n

The prosecutor\u2019s office said it was \u201cevaluating\u201d the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re continuing to evaluate our position as to what we will do moving forward,\u201d said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the prosecutor\u2019s office. \u201cIt\u2019s moving forward in the court, back and for, between the defense and us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The notice alleges the prosecutor\u2019s office purposefully left out the evidence and \u201ccaused deliberate harm\u201d to Uszenski. Ducey, the tort claim alleges, is included in the suit because he \u201cdeliberately lied to the press\u201d about his role in the matter, harming Uszenski\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n

The tort claim form\u00a0states the $60 million total represents both compensatory and punitive damages.<\/p>\n

The Board of Education is scheduled to meet on Thursday. It is not known whether the matter will be discussed in public or private session. Despite the charges being dropped, Uszenski is still suspended, as his contract runs through the 2017-18 school year. In a similar scenario that played out in Lacey Township two years ago, a suspended superintendent was reinstated as soon as an indictment against her was dismissed.<\/p>\n

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Brick Township\u00a0High School.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suspended Brick Township schools superintendent Walter Uszenski has retained a high-powered law firm and may seek $60 million in damages against the school district, Brick Township and Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office, Shorebeat has learned. Uszenski, though still suspended from his superintendent position, \u00a0had an indictment dismissed in February after Superior Court Judge Patricia Roe found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[24,878,606,2889,1281],"class_list":["post-10921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","category-brick-schools","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-lawsuit","tag-ocean-county-prosecutors-office","tag-smith-mullin","tag-walter-uszenski"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/uszenski_court.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2Q9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}