A lawsuit filed in Hudson County Superior Court on Thursday alleges that a 12-year-old boy, identified only as John Doe, was sexually assaulted by now-retired Secaucus police officer Walter Hurrell back in 1994.
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
The four-count lawsuit was filed by attorney Olivia Marie Clancy and Wendy Fleishman, of Clancy Fleishman LLP, as well as Michael Kalmus, of his own West Orange-based firm, names the Town of Secaucus, the Secaucus Police Department, and Hurrell as defendants.
When Doe was a minor, the lawsuit alleges that Hurrell, then Secaucus police officer and a supervisor with the Town, allegedly sexually abused Doe at Hurrell’s home in the fall of 1994.
In addition, Doe’s mother was employed as a police dispatcher at the Secaucus PD, and Hurrell exercised supervisory authority within the department, including over his mother whom he could discipline in her role.
The lawsuit states that from a young age, Doe “admired police officer, trusted them, and aspired to become one himself,” also growing up with officers in the family and reinforced by his mother’s dispatcher position.
According to the lawsuit, Hurrell exploited his position of “authority, trust, access, and control” as a law enforcement officer and supervisor employed by the Town when he allegedly sexually assaulted Doe when he was about 12-years-old.
For a period of time before the incident, Hurrell told Doe’s mother that he “needed help cleaning underneath the deck surrounding his above-ground pool at his home.”
According to the lawsuit, Hurrell repeatedly asked Doe’s mother to send him to Hurrell’s home to assist with the deck cleaning work.
The lawsuit states Hurrell made these requests while invoking, “implicitly and explicitly,” his authority and status as a police officer and supervisor within Secaucus PD.
Relying on Hurrell’s authority and position, Doe’s mother eventually asked him if he would help with the requested work, which the lawsuit states Doe agreed to because “he idolized police officers” and “trusted Hurrell as a police officer” after meeting him at the Secaucus PD after school and as the supervisor of his mother.
While at work, Doe’s mother eventually acquiesced to Hurrell’s request to have Doe complete the work under his deck.
Then, on the day of the alleged sexual assault, Doe was dropped off at Hurrell’s home to assist him with the requested work then be driven to marching band practice at Secaucus High School afterwards.
When Doe arrived at Hurrell’s home, he began by assisting Doe with cleaning under the deck by allegedly climbing underneath to remove garbage and debris that had accumulated.
However, after Doe had been working under the deck for a while, Hurrell allegedly instructed Doe to stop and directed him to go inside his home.
There, Hurrell allegedly directed Doe into a room with a desktop computer which displayed pornographic material to the 12-year-old boy.
After that, Hurrell told Doe he was “dirty” and insisted he take a shower, before allegedly taking Doe to his bedroom and instructing the boy to undress.
While Doe complied, he attempted to cover his genitals with his hands but Hurrell allegedly forcibly pulled his hands away and making “demeaning, sexually charged statements” to shame and humiliate Doe while “undermining his sense of masculinity.”
That is when Hurrell allegedly touched and fondled the boy’s genitals “including his penis and scrotum” with his hands, after which he allegedly directed Doe to the bathroom and insisted he shower.
When Doe was in the bathroom, Hurrell allegedly questioned the 12-year-old about “masturbation and sexual development,” including whether the young boy was “capable of ejaculation, in a sexually explicit, inappropriate, and coercive manner.”
Hurrell then allegedly turned on the shower, which had clear glass doors, and order Doe to masturbate in front of him while in the shower.
According to the lawsuit, Doe complied with Hurrell out of “fear, confusion, coercion, and the authority Hurrell wielded as a police officer and supervisor” of his mother.
“During this time, Defendant Hurrell removed his own clothing, stood in the bathroom,
and masturbated while watching Plaintiff. Defendant Hurrell ejaculated in Plaintiff’s presence,” the lawsuit contends.
“After the sexual abuse concluded, Plaintiff exited the shower, got dressed, and prepared
to leave.”
Doe was then driven by Hurrell to marching band practice in his personal vehicle, a culmination of what the suit describes as Hurrell using his “position of authority, trust, and control” to groom Doe, gain access to him, isolate him, and allegedly sexually abuse him.
The suit states Doe did not disclose the abuse at the time out of “fear, shame, confusion, trauma, and the overwhelming authority” of Hurrell as his mother’s supervisor at work.
Instead, Doe waited to tell his mother until he was 18-years old, having suffered “severe emotional distress, psychological trauma, anxiety, disordered eating, diminished self-worth, and long-lasting emotional injuries” as a direct result of Hurrell’s alleged sexual abuse.
Around the fall of 1998, the lawsuit states that Hurrell made “material misrepresentations and omissions of fact” to Doe and his mother by representing that he was acting in the scope of his lawful authority as a police officer when requesting Doe’s presence at his home.
According to the suit, Hurrell further misrepresented and canceled the true purpose of his request by falsely portraying it as legitimate assistance or work, when his intention was to allegedly sexually abuse Hurrell.
The suit states Hurrell knew this was false, but made them so Doe and his mother would believe the alleged lies to allow her son to go to his residence and to allegedly force Doe to comply with his directives.
Hurrell’s alleged “conduct was willful, wanton, intentional, and malicious, and constituted an abuse of official authority entrusted to him by” SPD and resulting in Doe’s “sustained severe emotional distress, psychological trauma, and other damages.”
Despite the trauma allegedly inflicted upon him, Doe’s ultimately fulfilled his childhood aspiration of becoming a police officer.
Now, Doe is employed by the Jersey City Police Department and filed the complaint “as a pseudonym because of the severe and complex nature of his injuries, the extreme emotional distress he suffered and the risk of retaliatory physical or mental harm Plaintiff and to innocent non-parties.”
“New Jersey’s Child Sexual Abuse Act expressly extends the statute of limitations for civil actions arising from sexual abuse of a minor, which Plaintiff was at the time of the sexual abuse and permits the commencement of previously time-barred actions based on sexual abuse,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks to hold Hurrell directly liable for the alleged sexual abuse and Secaucus and SPD jointly liable for the acts of Hurrell as an officer “whose authority and position enabled the abuse.”
According to the suit, Secaucus and the Secaucus PD failed to “implement, develop, create, or enforce adequate policies, procedures, and safeguards to protect minor children from sexual abuse by police officers vested with authority and access.”
The alleged failure “to exercise appropriate oversight, supervision, and control over Hurrell” facilitated and enables his sexual abuse of Doe, creating a “foreseeable and unreasonable risk” that Hurrell could exploit his position to initiate contact with, groom, and ultimately allegedly abuse a minor “on department premises without detention or intervention.”
The lawsuit concludes that Hurrell’s conduct was also “seriously harmful to the public, which has a compelling interest in ensuring that children are protected from sexual predators cloaked with law enforcement authority.”
Hurrell is accused of sexual battery, violation of the New Jersey Child Sexual Abuse Act, and vicarious liability, and Doe is seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages, costs, attorneys’ fees, interest, and such other and further relief as the court deems just and equitable.
