The trial to resolve the civil lawsuit of now retired Union City Police Officer Juan Estrella alleging he was passed over for a promotion due to discrimination kicked off with opening statements today in Hudson County Superior Court in Jersey City.
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
In Hudson County Superior Court today at the Brennan Courthouse in Jersey City, Judge Kalimah Ahmad heard opening statements of the trial from both Estrella’s attorneys and those on behalf of the defendants.
On behalf of Union City, Mayor Brian Stack, the Union City Police Department, and former Police Chief Nichelle Luster, Corey Repasy and Philip Morrow – attorneys for Calcagni & Kanefsky LLP – argued that the New Jersey Civil Service Commission provides the “Rule of Three.”
This means that municipalities, in this case police departments, don’t have to promote the number one candidate for the job, which was at the time, Estrella – his counsel argued – but from the top three candidates.
They also contended that Estrella was not promoted only due to the instances he was disciplined or would not follow departmental rules, never anything to due with his ethnicity – which there is no documented proof of.
Repasy and Morrow declined to elaborate on their opening statements when HCV asked for additional comment today.
According to a pre-trial information report, they deny the allegations and instead maintain that the plaintiff Estrella was not promoted because of his “lengthy disciplinary record” with issues they claim persisted across his 15 years in the department.
They therefore argue that he was not suited for the supervisory responsibilities required of police sergeants.
Meanwhile, Estrella’s attorneys began the jury trial by seeking to present evidence to the contrary.
Plaintiff attorney Ernest Ianetti fired back in an interview, contending that the “Rule of Three” doesn’t apply if the reason a candidate wasn’t selected for a promotion was due to their national origin.
“Our client was number one. But they can choose from among the first three. But they can’t choose based on a discriminatory reason,” he asserted.
“The reason that they gave is that he has a disciplinary history, but the evidence we have is that they promoted officers with far worse discipline than him. And we’re saying that they singled him out because of his Dominican heritage.”
Ianetti also noted an instance of an officer who allegedly sexually assault a Union City PD phone operator, but somehow managed to still get promoted.
“He has nothing that compares to one officer who committed a sexual assault against a civilian employee in the police department,” Ianetti exclaimed.
“It was a telephone operator, and the evidence against him was that he harassed her for several months. He offered to give her money for sex. He said he’d make her job easier for sex. And he finally just wore her down and she performed oral sex on him in the police department.”
After that incident, the operator reported the male officer and he was disciplined with a 200-day suspension.
According to Ianetti, the city paid the woman $100,000 not file a lawsuit as she was having lawyers draw it up, and the officer was promoted despite the whole ordeal.
“He was nevertheless promoted and he was not Dominican, so he got favorable treatment,” Ianetti said.
He also cited another officer who was injured off the clock, but claimed it happened at work to collect benefits from Union City, and he too was promoted after receiving a 100-day suspension.
Ianetti also argued against the idea that Estrella wasn’t promoted due to the “minor” disciplinary infractions but also because “he couldn’t follow the rules” and that was required to supervise officers – although he already had in his current role.
“He couldn’t supervise officers, and getting promoted to sergeant would be the first level of supervision. But he did supervise officers. He was assigned to train officers when he was a patrol officer. All of his evaluations indicate that he was a good officer,” Ianetti stated.
“There’s not one negative mark on his evaluations, but they said the discipline proves that he didn’t have the ability to follow the rules and, therefore, he couldn’t be a supervisor.”
Ianetti contrasted any discipline Estella received with the aforementioned officers’ transgressions and subsequent promotions.
“A basic rule is, you don’t sexually assault your co-workers. A basic rule is you don’t come and try to steal money from your employer, but those two guys were promoted.”
In addition, Ianetti tackled the argument made by the defense counsel that there are no documents explicitly stating Estrella was not promoted because he was Dominican.
“One of the arguments defense counsel made, that I actually intended to address, but I forgot, which is that, there’s nothing in writing that says: ‘We’re not going to promote him because he’s Dominican,’” Ianetti said.
“They made a big deal in their openings about the fact that there’s no documentation to support the proposition that we’re not promoting because he’s Dominican. But nobody puts that in writing. You really have to look at what was done.”
According to Ianetti, there was a Dominican officer who was promoted within internal affairs officer, but forced into the “graveyard shift” in another division shortly thereafter.
“Their job is 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. They always have weekends off, they always have holidays off. Within days of getting promoted, he was transferred out of internal affairs and put on the graveyard shift. So a Dominican officer who rises up their ranks has to pay a tax for that,” he argued.
Ianetti acknowledged that Estrella was disciplined by the Union City PD, but all of it was minor.
“The defense counsel went through it. He didn’t wear a seatbelt in the car at one point. He left the car running when he ran into headquarters to get something. And he was written up for those things, which are minor. None of them equate with sexual assault or stealing.”
In addition, Estrella’s attorneys contend that the defendants’ reliance on discipline for Estrella was inconsistent with the department’s treatment of other officers and was not supported by a documented comparative analysis at the time of the decision.
Estrella further argues that Luster participated in the decision by recommending that Plaintiff not be promoted and by relying on his disciplinary history without applying the same standard to non-Dominican officers.
He also argues that Stack, as mayor, the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, and appointing authority, had final authority over promotions, approved the decision, and failed to conduct an independent review of the stated reason for the bypass.
On the other hand, Union City maintains Estrella’s Dominican national origin played any role in the promotion decision.
Back in April 2022, Estrella filed an eight-count, 32-page complaint in Passaic County Superior Court in April of 2022 alleging “bogus disciplinary accusations” prevented his promotion to sergeant, as only HCV reported.
An amended complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in July of 2022, reiterated the same eight counts, but included an additional 10 pages mostly for anonymously outlining alleged misconduct of nearly a dozen colleagues who were previously promoted.
The case was transferred from Passaic County to Hudson County Superior Court in January of 2023, where proceedings have been drawn out over the years regarding evidence discovery until a jury was finally selected Friday after a two-week process.
