Red Bank’s city manager deployed a police lieutenant Wednesday to block a defense attorney’s efforts to copy documents concerning termination hearings for his clients, two Red Bank police officers.
Cpl. Rebecca Chauncey and Officer Bradley Hanon each separately sued the city this summer for $1.5 million, alleging that city officials retaliated against them after they exposed police misconduct.
Now the city is moving to fire them. They’re accused of watching a bail bondsman force his way into the wrong home as he looked for a fugitive. A hearing is scheduled for today.
On Wednesday, Chauncey, Hanon and their attorney, Robin Flores, drove to the courtroom at Red Bank City Hall to review a preliminary internal affairs report about the bondsman incident.
But Lt. Jay Lamance, second in command of the police department, monitored the review and prevented copies from being made.
Flores later sent an e-mail to Red Bank City Attorney Arnold Stulce calling on him to stop what he said was “these games your clients wish to play.”
“Lamance’s insistence on sitting at the same table with me and my clients not only rises to an effort to violate attorney-client communications, it stymies the discovery process in order to prepare a meaningful defense,” Flores wrote.
Stulce did not return several calls seeking comment.
Red Bank City Manager Chris Dorsey disputed Flores’ claim.
“We didn’t deny Flores access to those records,” Dorsey said. “We just didn’t give him copies. We’re not done looking into it.”
Dorsey has said today’s hearings for Chauncey and Hanon are limited to their actions during the Nov. 16 bondsman incident. But Flores called them retaliation and “mere formalities bordering on kangaroo” in his e-mail to Stulce.
His e-mail promised more litigation against Red Bank for suppressing documents.
Dorsey said the city isn’t doing anything wrong since the investigation is incomplete. Then he said former interim chief Dan Knight’s “final” decision before he left the position Friday was to recommend that Chauncey and Hanon immediately be terminated.
Knight is named as a defendant in both lawsuits.
The termination hearings begin today at 3 p.m. in Red Bank City Hall. They are closed to the public and the media.
A third officer involved in the bondsman incident, Eric Massengale, received a written reprimand.
Contact staff writer Chris Carroll at ccarroll@times freepress or 423-757-6610.