00001
1 SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
LAW DIVISION - HUDSON COUNTY
2 DOCKET NO. HUD-L-3520-04
PETER deVRIES and TIMOTHY
3 CARTER
TRANSCRIPT
4 OF PROCEEDING
Plaintiffs,
5 TRIAL DAY 2
Vs.
6
THE TOWN OF SECAUCUS,
7 Defendant.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
8
HUDSON COUNTY COURTHOUSE
9 595 Newark Avenue
Jersey City, New Jersey 07306
10 May 8, 2008
Commencing 9:10 a.m.
11
B E F O R E:
12 HONORABLE BARBARA A. CURRAN
13 TRACEY R. SZCZUBELEK, CSR
LICENSE NO. XIO1983
14
15
16
17
18
19
20 SCHULMAN, WIEGMANN & ASSOCIATES
21 CERTIFIED SHORTHAND REPORTERS
22 216 STELTON ROAD
23 SUITE C-1
24 PISCATAWAY, NEW JERSEY 08854
25 (732) - 752 - 7800
00002
1 A P P E A R A N C E S:
2
3 SMITH MULLIN, ESQS.
4 Attorneys for the Plaintiffs
5 240 Claremont Avenue
6 Montclair, New Jersey 07042
7 BY: NEIL MULLIN, ESQ.
8 NANCY ERIKA SMITH, ESQ.
9
10 PIRO, ZINNA, CIFELLI, PARIS & GENITEMPO, ESQS.
11 Attorneys for the Defendants
12 360 Passaic Avenue
13 Nutley, New Jersey 07110
14 BY: DANIEL R. BEVERE, ESQ.
15 DAVID M. PARIS, ESQ.
16
17 CAMMARATA, NULTY & GARRIGAN, ESQS.
18 Attorneys for Charles Snyder, Sr.
19 850 Bergen Avenue
20 Jersey City, New Jersey 07306
21 BY: JOHN P. NULTY, ESQ.
22
23
24
25
00003
1 I N D E X
2 WITNESS DIRECT VOIR CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS
3 DIRE
4 CHARLES F. SNYDER, SR.
5 By: Mr. Mullin 48 73
6 By: Mr. Bevere 65
7
8 WITNESS DIRECT VOIR CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS
9 DIRE
10 TIMOTHY CARTER
11 By: Mr. Mullin 79
12
13 E X H I B I T S
14
15 NUMBER DESCRIPTION PAGE
16 P-163A Photo board 94
17 P-163B Photo board Bates stamped 0000972 99
18 P-163C Photo board Bates stamped 0000969 101
19 P-163D Photo board Bates stamped 0000966 103
20 P-163E Photo board Bates stamped 0000971 120
21
22
23
24
25
00004
1 JUDGE CURRAN: In the matter of
2 deVries and Carter versus the City of Secaucus.
3 I will note that the jury is not in the jury
4 box. Counsel and the parties are present.
5 Miss Smith.
6 MS. SMITH: Judge, Plaintiffs move
7 for sequestration of witnesses.
8 JUDGE CURRAN: Do we know who may
9 be here so far?
10 MR. BEVERE: The Mayor is here.
11 JUDGE CURRAN: Anybody else coming
12 that --
13 MR. BEVERE: That's going to be a
14 witness? I don't see anyone here. I don't
15 anticipate anyone.
16 JUDGE CURRAN: Do you
17 anticipate -- okay, no.
18 MR. BEVERE: I mean, I could tell
19 you that the plaintiffs that were here yesterday
20 are not going to be here today. I'm not aware
21 of anyone else coming to watch what's going on
22 today.
23 JUDGE CURRAN: Okay.
24 MR. BEVERE: Just the Mayor and
25 Town Administrator. The Mayor would be a
00005
1 witness in the trial. We received a notice for
2 and subpoena from Mr. Mullin to be a witness.
3 Mr. Drumeler will not be a witness.
4 MS. SMITH: So, therefore, he has
5 to be sequestered.
6 MR. BEVERE: Judge, I'm sorry,
7 Mr. Drumeler told me that in the event he may
8 have to leave at some point, he may have the
9 Police Chief sit in his stead. So the Police
10 Chief may come at some point today.
11 JUDGE CURRAN: Is the Police Chief
12 going to be a witness? That wouldn't work,
13 then, unless there is no sequestration.
14 Mr. Paris, did you wish to
15 comment?
16 MR. PARIS: Part of the problem is
17 that -- that, you know, the plaintiffs are --
18 are here. And I understand they are plaintiffs
19 in the lawsuit and each one is named
20 individually. And, you know, in fact, they're
21 both going to be recounting events of a
22 particular evening; and they're both going to
23 have the opportunity to hear each other's
24 testimony before -- at least before Mr. deVries
25 testifies he is going to have the opportunity to
00006
1 hear Mr. Carter's testimony.
2 All of these witnesses have been
3 deposed. I believe they have all been deposed.
4 And it really puts us at a -- at a disadvantage,
5 if we're not allowed to have people here
6 representing the Town and listening to the
7 testimony as it goes on to assist us at various
8 points during the trial.
9 Now, I don't know what else to
10 say. I mean, we have the Mayor here. Clearly,
11 he is going to be a witness. You know, we
12 certainly are entitled to have representatives
13 of the Town here who were involved in this
14 matter to assist us as we proceed and also to
15 act as representatives for the Town. The Town
16 is a party.
17 So we haven't brought every
18 witness in here to listen to all of the
19 testimony. But by the same token, you know,
20 just a blanket sequestration order against the
21 Town so that none of our people can sit in at
22 any point in time -- and theoretically, we can't
23 even prep them in certain ways for their
24 testimony coming up, you know, telling them what
25 transpired, in order to, you know, address
00007
1 preparation of witnesses, you know, that
2 becomes -- that becomes a problem.
3 JUDGE CURRAN: I don't see this as
4 a blanket sequestration request against
5 everybody representing the Town. As I
6 understand it and as would be appropriate, it's
7 a motion to sequester witnesses, not a motion to
8 sequester any representative of Town government.
9 That wouldn't be appropriate.
10 MR. PARIS: Well, the Chief of
11 Police is going to be a witness. It just -- you
12 know, it also so happens he would be an
13 appropriate representative of the Town. The
14 Mayor is an appropriate representative of the
15 Town. It so happens he is going to be a
16 witness.
17 You know, all of these people
18 have been provided with notices in lieu of
19 subpoena. Theoretically, they intend to call
20 them as witnesses. Probably if they didn't, we
21 would. So, you know, a sequestration saying
22 that the Mayor can't be here or the Police Chief
23 can't be here, you know, those are probably the
24 two -- you know, the two most likely
25 representatives, probably as well as Captain
00008
1 Buckley, who was in charge of the overall case.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
3 Miss Smith.
4 MS. SMITH: Judge, the defendants
5 have to designate a representative. They can't
6 choose three important witnesses and say, oh, at
7 various times they're going to be our
8 representative. The way I understand the law
9 and the way it's been enforced in other cases
10 that I have, the defendant picks a
11 representative. The Town Administrator has been
12 here throughout --
13 JUDGE CURRAN: Excuse me. Is
14 there a juror?
15 MS. HAWKS: There is a juror
16 coming.
17 JUDGE CURRAN: I'm sorry.
18 MS. SMITH: It's all right.
19 JUDGE CURRAN: I just don't like
20 those jurors to be out in the hallway.
21 MS. SMITH: Oh, no.
22 (Whereupon, a juror enters the
23 courtroom.)
24 MS. HAWKS: We are waiting on one
25 more.
00009
1 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you very
2 much.
3 MS. HAWKS: I am going to call her
4 in a few minutes.
5 JUDGE CURRAN: Great, thank you.
6 Please proceed.
7 MS. SMITH: Judge, the Town
8 Administrator has been sitting here through most
9 of jury selection as the representative of the
10 Town. The rule clearly provides for one
11 representative. And you can't change your
12 representative, especially if you are going to
13 rotate witnesses.
14 And certainly, it would be
15 improper for defense counsel to, in a case where
16 sequestration is granted, to talk about what
17 people say on the witness stand. That doesn't
18 mean they can't prepare their witnesses. But a
19 sequestration order prevents us from telling
20 people what was said on the witness stand, and
21 it prevents them from telling witnesses what was
22 said on the witness stand in this court.
23 It's -- I understand, you know,
24 generally that sequestration orders should be
25 enforced. And I certainly agree they're
00010
1 entitled to a Town representative.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Paris.
3 MR. PARIS: Well, the difficulty
4 we also have is that there is not a Town
5 representative who is going to be here or be
6 able to be here for the entire month of May.
7 Mr. Drumeler has been in and out during the jury
8 selection process. He is not going to be able
9 to not work as the administrator of the Town for
10 the month-long period of time that this trial is
11 going to take. So it's really going to be
12 impossible for us to necessarily have a
13 representative of the Town as a single person
14 through the entirety of the trial.
15 And that -- the same would go for
16 the Mayor or Police Chief. You know, they all
17 have duties back at the Town that are going to
18 require them to do that and not be here during
19 the entire course of the trial. So to require
20 us to designate a singular person is -- is a --
21 you know, is difficult.
22 JUDGE CURRAN: That's usually the
23 way it works, whether it's -- usually we see
24 this in municipal cases or county cases usually.
25 I'm not saying there are not other examples, but
00011
1 usually one person is designated.
2 Frankly, I will tell you that I
3 have had cases where one person pretty much was
4 here all the time and then there was something
5 unexpected, there was a problem back at the
6 office or maybe a personal problem and then
7 someone else or another representative was
8 designated; but it wasn't musical chairs.
9 MR. PARIS: Well, I -- I don't
10 know whether we can -- if we can provide,
11 perhaps, three representatives and -- and it
12 would only be those three.
13 MS. SMITH: And two of them are
14 going to be witnesses?
15 JUDGE CURRAN: No, no, no, we are
16 not on that issue. I'm sorry.
17 MS. SMITH: Okay.
18 JUDGE CURRAN: Why don't we do
19 this? I don't want to create a hardship for
20 either side. If by tomorrow morning you can
21 give us a list of three witnesses and we'll
22 discuss those witnesses that will --
23 MR. BEVERE: Representatives.
24 JUDGE CURRAN: I'm sorry, three
25 representatives of the Town.
00012
1 In regard to the witnesses, it is
2 clear that if there is a sequestration order,
3 that unless there is some kind of unusual or
4 good cause circumstance that would prevent it, a
5 sequestration order is granted. So anybody
6 who's going to be a witness, anybody who's been
7 subpoenaed, anybody either side feels is going
8 to be a witness cannot be in the courtroom
9 during testimony.
10 I will ask -- I'm sure it's not
11 necessary, but I will certainly ask both sides
12 to be fair and professional about it. In other
13 words, let's not say we think X person is going
14 to be a witness when we know darn well they're
15 not going to be. I don't think that's a problem
16 here, but I think it's important just to put it
17 on the record.
18 So anybody who is going to be a
19 witness will be sequestered. That means that
20 the Mayor -- I presume that is the Mayor. He
21 was identified to me as such yesterday -- would
22 not be able to remain in the courtroom this
23 morning.
24 MR. PARIS: And if that's the
25 Court's order, is the jury going to be
00013
1 instructed that the witnesses are being
2 sequestered and that they're not able to -- you
3 know, they are not -- any witness is not able to
4 be present in the courtroom during testimony
5 until after they've testified, except for
6 Mr. deVries?
7 JUDGE CURRAN: We could -- well,
8 no, no, no. If we get into those kinds of
9 instructions -- if it's appropriate, we can do
10 that. But with all due respect -- and I really
11 do not mean this to be rude -- that jury doesn't
12 probably know or probably shouldn't know, other
13 than the one juror who lives in Secaucus, what
14 any of the witnesses or any of the
15 representatives even look like. So you know,
16 they wouldn't -- they wouldn't necessarily
17 understand that.
18 MR. PARIS: That's not my concern,
19 Your Honor. My concern is that the jury have
20 the impression that the Township and its
21 representatives, employees, witnesses, whatever
22 really don't care that much to attend and listen
23 to the case.
24 JUDGE CURRAN: I understand that.
25 But I don't understand that concern, if you have
00014
1 a representative sitting right behind you.
2 MR. PARIS: Well -- well, during
3 openings various people were here; and suddenly
4 no one is going to be here. I mean, if the
5 Court just told the jury that witnesses are
6 being sequestered, which means that they're not
7 permitted to be present until after they've
8 testified, that would be fine.
9 JUDGE CURRAN: Any objection?
10 MS. SMITH: Judge, I have never
11 heard of that, the jury being told about
12 sequestration, in my life. And the jury has
13 seen the Town Administrator here and not anybody
14 else. A lot of people were here for openings.
15 JUDGE CURRAN: Frankly, there were
16 more people here on the defense side for
17 openings than the plaintiffs' side.
18 MR. PARIS: And that's a little
19 bit of what my point is. In other words, you
20 know, people were here for openings; and it's
21 like well -- and then they didn't show up ever
22 again, except for Mr. Carter and Mr. deVries,
23 who were here for the entire case. Frankly,
24 absent a sequestration order, there would be
25 other people from the Town who would be here
00015
1 during the course of the case.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: Okay.
3 MR. PARIS: That's my concern. It
4 gives the impression that the only person from
5 the Town is Mr. Drumeler and he is not even
6 going to be a witness, he doesn't know anything
7 about the case and nobody else really cared to
8 come to trial. I just think it should be clear
9 to the jury that the reason -- you don't even
10 have to say the reason no one is here. That
11 witnesses are being sequestered so that other --
12 other than Mr. --
13 JUDGE CURRAN: I got it. I'll --
14 I'll do that. And I will also say, although
15 this is not necessary, we do have two plaintiffs
16 here; and if you are worried about people in the
17 jury counting heads, I have no objection, if you
18 give us the list tomorrow morning of the three,
19 if two out of the three are here every day.
20 That's a decision that the Town makes. I know
21 it's not required; but that's a decision that
22 the Town makes, so that each side has a fair
23 number of individuals.
24 MR. PARIS: That individual would
25 have to be a non-witness?
00016
1 JUDGE CURRAN: That individual --
2 those three people have to be non-witnesses.
3 MR. PARIS: And once a witness
4 testifies, then they can remain in court after?
5 JUDGE CURRAN: Separate issue.
6 Unless, again -- and as professionals, I would
7 ask you to adhere to the basic rules. Unless
8 there is a thought that there might be a
9 rebuttal witness.
10 MS. SMITH: Right.
11 JUDGE CURRAN: But I'm sure both
12 sides here are professional and honest enough
13 with each other that that will not be a problem.
14 MR. PARIS: Thank you.
15 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
16 Anything else?
17 MS. SMITH: Other thing, Judge, I
18 was just going to ask Your Honor to confirm or
19 ask counsel to confirm that the witnesses that
20 are supposed to be here that apparently are not
21 here yet, the subpoenaed Snyders and Mutschler.
22 MR. BEVERE: They were not
23 subpoenaed through me, Your Honor. They have
24 separate counsel. The plaintiffs served them
25 with subpoenas directly. I was not asked to
00017
1 produce them for this trial.
2 MR. MULLIN: I thought you said
3 you would produce them. But if you didn't, you
4 didn't. The point is, you're right, we all
5 agree I subpoenaed them.
6 MR. BEVERE: You subpoenaed them
7 directly. I was not asked to produce them.
8 MR. MULLIN: If they are not here,
9 they are not here in contempt of court. And so
10 I'm going to move to have them found in contempt
11 of court and arrested. I -- I advised counsel
12 that they were going to be arrested. I assume
13 counsel for the Town alerted these people.
14 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
15 MS. HAWKS: Jurors.
16 (Whereupon, a juror enters the
17 courtroom.)
18 JUDGE CURRAN: We have them all
19 now?
20 MS. HAWKS: Yes.
21 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. I'm
22 sorry, Mr. Mullin.
23 MR. MULLIN: Yeah, Miss Smith and
24 I were under the impression -- we had a
25 conversation yesterday -- that Mr. Bevere and
00018
1 Mr. Paris were going to produce these Town
2 employees today. We did subpoena these -- these
3 witnesses for appearance at trial. They have
4 never showed up at trial. Not on -- not on
5 any -- it was a continuing subpoena. It was
6 duly served. Counsel for the Town concedes that
7 they were subpoenaed. It was served.
8 These are Town employees, and
9 they are not here today. I wanted to start my
10 trial with them, and counsel for the Town knows
11 that. So they're not here.
12 These are witnesses who think
13 they're above the law. And I think what needs
14 to happen today is a bench warrant needs to be
15 issued and they need to be arrested and brought
16 to court and so that I can begin my trial as I
17 intended to begin my trial. They are right over
18 in the Town of Secaucus. And they should be
19 arrested.
20 JUDGE CURRAN: Who is their
21 attorney?
22 MR. BEVERE: John Nulty.
23 JUDGE CURRAN: I am sorry, I don't
24 have my papers from the file here. Where is Mr.
25 Nulty's office? I don't know the individual.
00019
1 MR. BEVERE: He is in Jersey City.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: What I will do, if
3 there is no objection -- did you wish to
4 comment, Mr. --
5 MR. PARIS: Well, yeah, I do.
6 Right from the outset of this case there was
7 never an agreement to produce Snyders or
8 Mutschler. I asked Mr. Mullin, "Who are you
9 starting with?" But we never indicated we were
10 going to produce them. We took notices in lieu
11 of subpoena as a courtesy.
12 JUDGE CURRAN: I got it,
13 Mr. Paris.
14 MR. PARIS: But to try to lay the
15 responsibility of producing these witnesses at
16 us -- on depositions they were represented by
17 private counsel.
18 MR. MULLIN: I won't even lay it
19 on them.
20 MR. PARIS: All right.
21 MR. MULLIN: I won't even lay it
22 on them. I was under the impression from what
23 they said they were --
24 JUDGE CURRAN: But I understood
25 that to be an informal personal comment. There
00020
1 is no question, if they have personal counsel,
2 neither Mr. Paris or Mr. Bevere is responsible
3 for getting them here today.
4 I will, however, ask that we go
5 off the record; and I am asking, just so we are
6 all acting professionally, if one of you will
7 call Mr. Nulty --
8 MR. BEVERE: I will.
9 JUDGE CURRAN: -- out of pure
10 professional courtesy.
11 MR. PARIS: Sure.
12 JUDGE CURRAN: Explain to him
13 there is a request on the record.
14 MR. BEVERE: I will be -- be happy
15 to.
16 JUDGE CURRAN: I will issue the
17 civil warrant, if I don't have some kind of a
18 satisfactory answer.
19 MR. BEVERE: Okay.
20 JUDGE CURRAN: But that is not the
21 responsibility of Mr. Bevere nor Mr. Paris.
22 I -- I am asking them to do that.
23 MR. BEVERE: I will call right
24 now.
25 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. Off the
00021
1 record.
2 COURT CLERK: Off the record.
3 (Whereupon, a brief recess is
4 taken.)
5 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Bevere.
6 MR. BEVERE: Mr. Nulty said that
7 he did not receive a call from anyone telling
8 him his clients had to be here today. If he
9 had, he would have done it. He is going to
10 reach out to them now and try and get them.
11 He said one thing, though; he
12 wasn't sure if he represented Charles Mutschler
13 or not. He knows he represents the Snyders. He
14 is not sure if he represents Charles Mutschler.
15 He is going to check that out.
16 He also wanted Your Honor to be
17 aware --
18 JUDGE CURRAN: He wanted you to
19 put on the record he is not sure whether or not
20 he represented --
21 MR. BEVERE: He has to go back and
22 check his record.
23 He said they got subpoenas to be
24 here April 14th, and he said he was waiting to
25 here from Plaintiffs' counsel to tell him to
00022
1 have his people here on a certain day.
2 In addition, he wanted Your Honor
3 to know that his clients intend on taking the
4 Fifth.
5 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
6 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, I served
7 subpoenas, which have been faxed to your office.
8 They were duly served. They required these men
9 to appear here at the start of trial and be
10 present from day-to-day thereafter. I don't
11 have to make phone calls to Mr. Nulty or anybody
12 else. They weren't here.
13 JUDGE CURRAN: When did you fax
14 them to your office?
15 MR. MULLIN: They should be in
16 your office right about now.
17 JUDGE CURRAN: Now?
18 MR. MULLIN: And Miss --
19 JUDGE CURRAN: Miss Castelli,
20 would you please check to see if we have got
21 then those faxes?
22 I'm sorry, Mr. Mullin.
23 MR. MULLIN: And -- so they should
24 have been here on the 17th, as they were ordered
25 by the Court through subpoena to do. And had
00023
1 they been here, I would have been happy to
2 arrange the schedule.
3 Subpoena is a court order.
4 They -- by the way, these witnesses chose simply
5 not to show up for their scheduled depositions.
6 These individuals have behaved lawlessly before.
7 I chose not to bother the Court on that
8 occasion.
9 Now, here is a subpoena for a
10 trial; and I have told them to be here.
11 Now, the other thing is that Mr.
12 Bevere asked me would I please give him a heads
13 up as to the witnesses I am going to call, so he
14 could arrange to bring them. I got the
15 impression from that statement, which was heard
16 by my partner, that he was going to arrange to
17 bring them here. I told him the name of these
18 three witnesses; and he never said, "You know
19 what, I'm not going to arrange to bring them
20 here." I gave him the courtesy of this, and now
21 he has not lived up to that -- to his word in
22 that regard. So while I understand he doesn't
23 represent these individuals, he gave me the
24 clear impression he was going to make sure they
25 were here.
00024
1 They are employees, as I
2 understand it, of the Town of Secaucus. The
3 Mayor of Secaucus is -- is here today. The Town
4 of Secaucus is perfectly capable of telling
5 these gentlemen, "There is a trial, and we" --
6 "we expect you to obey a subpoena." But that's
7 a secondary point.
8 And I'll never tell him what
9 witnesses I'm calling again. I will not trust
10 Mr. Bevere again.
11 MR. BEVERE: Judge, I can't
12 believe I'm being blamed for this. I cannot
13 believe that I am being blamed for this.
14 MR. MULLIN: I know what I said,
15 and I know what you said. And an attorney's
16 word means something, and your word doesn't.
17 MR. BEVERE: And I never went back
18 on a word, Your Honor; and I resent that
19 implication before this Court. They were
20 subpoenaed. I was never asked to produce them
21 for this trial.
22 MR. MULLIN: This is a trick.
23 JUDGE CURRAN: Gentlemen.
24 MR. MULLIN: This is not right.
25 JUDGE CURRAN: Gentlemen, let me
00025
1 just say that, in any event -- Mr. Mullin.
2 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, I simply
3 want to enforce the subpoena.
4 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Mullin, I
5 understand that. We are not going to get to ad
6 hominem arguments here or comments or assertions
7 because, if we do, the issues that are in this
8 case, which are very important to both sides,
9 will be secondary.
10 MR. MULLIN: Well, I agree with
11 you, so I will stick to the issue. The issue --
12 JUDGE CURRAN: The issue is --
13 MR. MULLIN: I have a subpoena,
14 and I want it enforced. I want these men
15 arrested immediately.
16 JUDGE CURRAN: All right. Is
17 Mr. Nulty going to call back?
18 MR. BEVERE: He is going to call
19 back.
20 JUDGE CURRAN: He is going to call
21 you back on your cell phone?
22 MR. BEVERE: I gave him my cell
23 phone number; and I will speak to him, Your
24 Honor. And --
25 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
00026
1 We are still on the record.
2 That's fine. Thank you.
3 Anything else, Mr. Bevere?
4 MR. BEVERE: No. And I apologize,
5 Your Honor, for my -- for my outburst.
6 JUDGE CURRAN: No apologies needed
7 on either side.
8 MR. BEVERE: And for the record,
9 Judge, for the record, there were numerous Town
10 representatives that Mr. Mullin asked me to take
11 notices in lieu of subpoena for, which I agreed
12 to do. Even though we have consistently taken
13 the position in this action that the individual
14 firefighters for the Town were not being
15 defended by the Town because they were not on
16 duty that night; but nevertheless, I agreed to
17 take notices in lieu of subpoena from Mr.
18 Mullin. So I need Mr. Mullin to tell me who he
19 wants as witnesses; otherwise -- I cannot be in
20 a position where I have 20 witnesses in the
21 hallway waiting to be called.
22 JUDGE CURRAN: I understand that,
23 Mr. Bevere. At best I think that -- at best was
24 a misunderstanding. Mr. Mullin says that he
25 indicated to you that he wanted certain
00027
1 individuals whom you don't represent. And his
2 understanding was that you were going to make
3 sure they were here. Your understanding was
4 different.
5 MR. BEVERE: And I apologize for
6 the misunderstanding, Your Honor; but I
7 certainly didn't do it in any way to sandbag Mr.
8 Mullin or to hold up the proceedings in this
9 Court or as to cause him any --
10 JUDGE CURRAN: I understand.
11 MR. BEVERE: -- problem. I
12 assumed he was going to call Mr. Nulty and he
13 was going to make the arrangements because they
14 subpoenaed them through Mr. Nulty.
15 JUDGE CURRAN: Okay. What is --
16 I'm going to go off the record and allow counsel
17 for the plaintiff to talk -- I don't know if
18 those individuals are even in Secaucus today or
19 even in New Jersey. I -- I know they are, as
20 you say, employed; but we can't hold up the
21 trial, in case we can't find them.
22 What I will do is ask if you will
23 draft, which you probably already have, an
24 arrest warrant. I will sign the warrant, unless
25 we hear from Mr. Nulty in a reasonable amount of
00028
1 time that they're on the way. Then we will,
2 however, need to proceed.
3 I'm going to go off the record,
4 so everybody on every side -- everybody on each
5 side can discuss the issue.
6 MS. SMITH: Thank you, Judge.
7 MR. MULLIN: Thank you, Your
8 Honor.
9 COURT CLERK: Off the record.
10 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
11 (Whereupon, a discussion is held
12 off the record.)
13 JUDGE CURRAN: Back on the record.
14 I'm sorry, Mr. Bevere.
15 MR. BEVERE: Mr. Paris made a
16 comment I need to clarify. Charles Snyder,
17 Charles T. Snyder, who is referred to as Snyder,
18 Jr. and Charles Mutschler do not work for the
19 Town of Secaucus. Only --
20 JUDGE CURRAN: I did know --
21 MR. BEVERE: Only Charles F.
22 Snyder works for the Town of Secaucus.
23 JUDGE CURRAN: Charles T. Snyder.
24 MR. BEVERE: Snyder --
25 JUDGE CURRAN: Junior or Senior?
00029
1 MR. BEVERE: Junior.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: He is the one
3 who --
4 MR. BEVERE: He does not work for
5 the Town.
6 JUDGE CURRAN: No, no, I
7 understand that.
8 MR. BEVERE: The father works for
9 the Town.
10 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. Off the
11 record.
12 COURT CLERK: Off the record.
13 (Whereupon, a discussion is held
14 off the record.)
15 COURT CLERK: On the record.
16 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you, Mr.
17 Bevere.
18 MR. BEVERE: Your Honor,
19 Mr. Drumeler from the Town of Secaucus --
20 JUDGE CURRAN: Who I'm sure is
21 thrilled that he is here today.
22 MR. BEVERE: Yeah. You know, once
23 again I just want to put on the record that it
24 was a misunderstanding. I thought that Mr.
25 Mullin was going to make the contact with
00030
1 Mr. Nulty and the witnesses. Mr. Mullin thought
2 I was going to make that contact. So -- and it
3 really was a result of a misunderstanding. It
4 wasn't anything purposeful.
5 But that having been said, Chuck
6 F. -- Charles F. Snyder, known as Chuck Snyder,
7 Sr., is a municipal worker for the DPW.
8 Mr. Drumeler has made contact with him. They
9 are having him come down here now.
10 I also spoke to Mr. Nulty. He is
11 coming down, as well, to act as Mr. Snyder's
12 counsel.
13 And we are trying to reach out
14 for Chuck Snyder, Jr. because Chuck Snyder, Jr.
15 doesn't work for Secaucus. He works for North
16 Hudson Regional. Trying to have contact made
17 with him.
18 Mr. Nulty also advised me that he
19 doesn't represent Charles Mutschler. So -- but
20 he --
21 JUDGE CURRAN: Well, that's good.
22 MR. BEVERE: Although he did say
23 he thinks that someone should try and reach out
24 for Charles Mutschler before a warrant gets
25 issued, you know, because -- he said that --
00031
1 that Mr. Nulty said that he received a letter
2 from Plaintiffs' counsel saying that trial was
3 scheduled for certain day and we'd keep him
4 advised.
5 So now -- but based upon what he
6 is saying vis-a-vis not representing Mutschler,
7 I don't know what that has to do with Mutschler,
8 but I can tell you at least with regard to the
9 Snyders.
10 But Chuck Snyder, Sr. is on his
11 way. He is coming down. And they are going to
12 reach out for Chuck Snyder, Jr. and see if he
13 can come down.
14 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
15 Which Snyder did you -- with
16 which Snyder did you intend to start, Mr.
17 Mullin?
18 MR. MULLIN: I will start with
19 whatever Snyder shows up first, so we can get
20 this thing moving. My preference was Chuck
21 Snyder, Sr.
22 MR. BEVERE: And that's most
23 likely who it will be, Judge.
24 MR. PARIS: Your Honor,
25 Mr. Drumeler indicated that he is also going to
00032
1 reach out for the Fire Chief now and see if he
2 can reach out for Mr. Mutschler, to see where he
3 is and get the status on Mr. Mutschler.
4 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
5 MR. BEVERE: And Your Honor, I
6 mean, I understand -- I mean, there was
7 obviously a misunderstanding here. No one was
8 trying to sandbag anybody. I think that if, you
9 know -- if we could, you know, maybe give these
10 guys just a little bit of notice and maybe have
11 them in on Monday. Not -- not Snyder, Sr.; he
12 is on his way. And obviously, he will testify.
13 And if we can get Junior, he can testify. But
14 as opposed to, you know, issuing warrants based
15 upon a misunderstanding, may be best if we give
16 him a little bit of notice and little bit of
17 opportunity to come down.
18 JUDGE CURRAN: Okay. We'll see
19 where we are. Do we have any time frame?
20 MR. BEVERE: Well, he is in
21 Secaucus, so whatever it takes to get here from
22 Secaucus. I would say probably 20 minutes.
23 JUDGE CURRAN: It can take 20
24 minutes to get from the Pulaski Skyway to this
25 courthouse in this city but --
00033
1 MR. BEVERE: Well, that's true;
2 but it's a little later than the traffic time,
3 so --
4 JUDGE CURRAN: Okay. What I'm
5 going to do is let the jury go downstairs until
6 10:15. I don't want to keep them locked up in
7 there.
8 Miss Hawks, would you be kind
9 enough to let the jury just come out there?
10 They don't have to go into the jury box. And
11 you can tell them I am going to excuse them for
12 a break; but I just want to say that on the
13 record, so they know.
14 MS. HAWKS: You said they don't
15 have to go into the jury box?
16 JUDGE CURRAN: No, they can stay
17 right there.
18 MS. HAWKS: Stay right there,
19 okay.
20 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
21 COURT CLERK: On the record.
22 (Whereupon, the jury is brought
23 into the courtroom.)
24 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. Right
25 there is fine, sir.
00034
1 Ladies and Gentlemen, you're
2 fine. This will be one minute. As I indicated
3 yesterday, jury trials certain legal issues come
4 up that we must address before we can have any
5 kind of continuation in front of the jury. We
6 do have one of those legal issues now. And
7 knowing how comfortable our jury room is, we are
8 not going to make you stay in there any longer.
9 I am going to excuse you for the
10 morning break early. If you would come back
11 about maybe 10:20, we would appreciate it.
12 You're free to stay in the jury room, if you
13 like. Or you're free to go downstairs.
14 What I would ask is that you
15 don't go back and forth because every time a
16 juror comes in, we have to stop the argument.
17 So if you want to stay in there, you're free to
18 do that. If you want to leave, you are free to
19 do that too. Any questions? Thank you. We'll
20 see you about 10:20, thank you.
21 (Whereupon, the jury is excused.)
22 COURT CLERK: Off record.
23 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
24 (Whereupon, a brief recess is
25 taken.)
00035
1 JUDGE CURRAN: We are on the
2 record, please. We are on the record. Good
3 morning, sir.
4 MR. NULTY: Good morning, Your
5 Honor, John Nulty, N-u-l-t-y. Cammarata, Nulty
6 & Garrigan. I apologize for the casual attire.
7 I didn't know I'd be here today.
8 JUDGE CURRAN: No problem.
9 MR. NULTY: I represent Charles
10 Snyder. I am going to call him "Charles Snyder,
11 Jr.," although I believe it's just a different
12 middle initial.
13 JUDGE CURRAN: T.
14 MR. NULTY: T. I do not represent
15 Mr. Mutschler, so I don't know his status.
16 Mr. Snyder, the elder, is on his way here.
17 Mr. Snyder, the younger, is on-duty, the North
18 Hudson Fire Department, Judge. So I would ask
19 the Court to make some accommodation for him to
20 be able to come in on a different date.
21 JUDGE CURRAN: Well, he was
22 subpoenaed to be here, so I doubt that's going
23 to work.
24 MR. NULTY: Judge.
25 JUDGE CURRAN: I'll ask
00036
1 Plaintiffs' counsel as to what their request is.
2 MR. NULTY: Judge, he was
3 subpoenaed to appear --
4 JUDGE CURRAN: On the 14th.
5 MR. NULTY: -- on April 4th.
6 JUDGE CURRAN: Right.
7 MR. NULTY: I talked to Mr.
8 Mullin. He said, "Have him on-call. I will
9 give you a call, so we can make arrangements."
10 Judge, I never got the call. I'm sure Mr.
11 Mullin is very busy with this case. I didn't
12 know this case was going on until I read The
13 Ledger this morning and saw it.
14 So it's difficult, I think, to
15 blame Mr. Snyder for not making himself
16 available six weeks after he was subpoenaed to
17 be someplace. And as a fireman, he just can't
18 get up and leave his post. So he would love to
19 make himself available when possible.
20 Just so the Court also knows,
21 both Mr. Snyders intend to assert the Fifth
22 Amendment privilege, so perhaps there is a way
23 an accommodation could be made in that way.
24 MR. MULLIN: We will make the
25 accommodation.
00037
1 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
2 MR. MULLIN: I don't recall the
3 phone call, but --
4 MR. NULTY: It was a long time
5 ago.
6 MR. MULLIN: I don't recall it;
7 but we will make the accommodation, as long as
8 Mr. Snyder is there. And I will walk out with
9 you when we bring him out.
10 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Nulty, I have
11 just indicated I am going to wait -- the jury is
12 supposed to go back at 10:20. If the jury comes
13 back and Mr. Snyder is not here, we are going to
14 move to the next witness because we have already
15 delayed almost an hour-and-a-half.
16 MR. NULTY: I understand.
17 JUDGE CURRAN: I was going to
18 order Mr. Snyder to stay in the courtroom
19 before -- because of what I now know is the next
20 witness, I was going to ask him to wait outside.
21 I will ask you as a member -- as an officer of
22 the Court to be responsible for making sure that
23 Mr. Snyder does not leave until he testifies.
24 MR. NULTY: Thank you, Your Honor.
25 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you very
00038
1 much. Go off the record.
2 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor.
3 JUDGE CURRAN: Sorry, stay on the
4 record.
5 MR. MULLIN: Sure. Can we ask to
6 have Mr. Snyder, Sr., who is on his way here,
7 called to see how far he is?
8 JUDGE CURRAN: I think that was
9 just done. Was it? Can you call -- what was
10 your latest conversation with him.
11 MR. DRUMELER: Judge, that he was
12 in route. And Mr. Nulty --
13 MR. NULTY: Judge, I will step
14 outside and call him.
15 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
16 Mr. Nulty, you may want to, if
17 you don't mind, arrange to meet him downstairs.
18 My fear is he might get into the elevator, see
19 someone he knows, there might be a juror in the
20 elevator, he might be asked, "What are you doing
21 here" and make a comment. It would be innocent
22 on his part, but I don't want to have a problem.
23 And we did have that in a past case.
24 MR. NULTY: I will step out, call
25 him, come in, tell you where he is and meet him
00039
1 downstairs.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. Off the
3 record.
4 COURT CLERK: Off the record.
5 (Whereupon, a brief recess is
6 taken.)
7 JUDGE CURRAN: In regard to
8 Mr. Snyder, Jr., Mr. Mullin, will you or someone
9 from your office be responsible for working with
10 Mr. --
11 MR. MULLIN: Nulty.
12 JUDGE CURRAN: -- Nulty to work
13 that out?
14 MR. MULLIN: Yes, we'll work it
15 out.
16 JUDGE CURRAN: Will you request
17 that someone from your office send a letter to
18 Mr. Mutschler saying he is due here whenever you
19 want him to be --
20 MR. MULLIN: Okay.
21 JUDGE CURRAN: -- here? I -- I
22 would just put on the record that because he
23 isn't represented by counsel and because he was,
24 as everybody was, subpoenaed for April 14th.
25 And in fairness, I'm not indicating you should
00040
1 have contacted him because I think there was a
2 belief that he was represented by Mr. Nulty; but
3 he wasn't. So if you will contact -- have your
4 office send a letter for whatever date that you
5 want Mr. Mutschler here and then provide copies
6 to everybody, just so it's in the record.
7 MR. MULLIN: Yes.
8 JUDGE CURRAN: That's all.
9 MR. MULLIN: I will do so.
10 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. Off the
11 record.
12 (Whereupon, a brief recess is
13 taken.)
14 COURT CLERK: On the record.
15 MR. MULLIN: I understand that I
16 have been advised by Mr. Nulty that Mr. Snyder
17 is going to take the Fifth as he did in his
18 deposition. I want Mr. Snyder to take the Fifth
19 with his own speaking. I don't want Mr. Nulty
20 to testify. He is not a witness in this case.
21 I understand Mr. Nulty is standing by in some
22 sort of representative capacity. I have no
23 objection to that at all. But I just want to
24 make clear I am going to ask questions of
25 Mr. Snyder and he is go going to take the Fifth,
00041
1 as opposed to having a lawyer speak for him.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Nulty.
3 MR. NULTY: Judge, that is my
4 understanding of the way it should proceed. He
5 is going to identify himself as who he is, and
6 every other question he is going to take the
7 Fifth Amendment. And if there is a legal issue,
8 I will be here to respond.
9 JUDGE CURRAN: Is there any
10 objection to my indicating to the jury, when we
11 do appearances -- they have obviously not seen
12 Mr. Nulty before. I will indicate that I
13 requested that Mr. Nulty be here and that I only
14 did it at the last minute and that is why he is
15 not dressed for court. Is that fair to say,
16 Mr. Nulty?
17 MR. NULTY: I appreciate that.
18 JUDGE CURRAN: Rather than your
19 having to say that.
20 MR. NULTY: I appreciate that,
21 Your Honor.
22 JUDGE CURRAN: Now, we do have a
23 whole thing going here?
24 MR. NULTY: I feel very
25 self-conscious, actually.
00042
1 JUDGE CURRAN: If we see -- now,
2 when I was in criminal, I used to go to the
3 thrift shops and get all of these jackets and
4 things for the prisoners because they would come
5 to court sometimes not properly dressed.
6 Actually, we could have asked one of the
7 criminal judges. I'm sure they'd at least have
8 a jacket for you.
9 MR. NULTY: My partner keeps one;
10 but I am a little bigger than he is,
11 unfortunately.
12 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Paris.
13 MR. PARIS: I assume the jury is
14 going to be advised Mr. Snyder is represented by
15 private counsel, Mr. Nulty?
16 JUDGE CURRAN: Yes, absolutely.
17 MR. PARIS: Thank you.
18 JUDGE CURRAN: Is there anything
19 I'm not anticipating? You are going to ask him;
20 he is going to take the Fifth?
21 MR. MULLIN: I am going to
22 question him like I did in his deposition about
23 various issues. He is going to take the Fifth.
24 And I am going to call Mr. Carter as my next
25 witness.
00043
1 JUDGE CURRAN: Anything else?
2 Thank you.
3 We will bring out the jury.
4 Thank you.
5 You are free to put your papers
6 down, Mr. Nulty. You can even put them on
7 counsel table.
8 MR. NULTY: That's okay.
9 MS. SMITH: You want to sit up
10 there?
11 JUDGE CURRAN: Absolutely. I
12 didn't --
13 MR. NULTY: Your Honor, the only
14 other thing, maybe we can discuss before the
15 jury comes out --
16 JUDGE CURRAN: Sure. Would you
17 please ask them not to come out for a moment?
18 MR. NULTY: -- is the younger
19 Mr. Snyder's appearance.
20 JUDGE CURRAN: Just ask them to
21 give us one minute.
22 Mr. Nulty, Mr. Mullin and
23 Miss Smith have agreed that they will work with
24 you on his appearance.
25 MR. NULTY: Okay.
00044
1 JUDGE CURRAN: They have also
2 agreed at my request that they will notify
3 Mr. Mutschler, because he is not represented by
4 counsel to the best of anybody's knowledge --
5 MR. NULTY: Right.
6 JUDGE CURRAN: -- they will notify
7 him as to when he is requested to appear because
8 the subpoena of April 14th, obviously, is one
9 that, perhaps, he believed is simply proforma
10 and he didn't have a date. He will be given a
11 date by them; and copies will be given to all
12 counsel of the letter to Mr. Mutschler and
13 including, I'll ask, Mr. Nulty.
14 MR. NULTY: Thank you, Your Honor.
15 MS. SMITH: And, Judge, we are
16 sending Mr. Nulty a letter. We request that he
17 be available next Thursday, a week from today.
18 JUDGE CURRAN: Very good. I
19 believe Thursday we are not starting until 11;
20 is that correct?
21 MS. SMITH: Yes.
22 JUDGE CURRAN: So we will have to
23 adjust it that way. Thank you.
24 We will bring the jury out, thank
25 you. One last time.
00045
1 MS. HAWKS: Your Honor, is it okay
2 if they bring out their coffee?
3 JUDGE CURRAN: Sure, they can.
4 As we indicated yesterday, I am
5 going to allow the jury to bring their coffee
6 out because they have been inconvenienced. And
7 if we can keep them happy a little bit, it's
8 fine with me. Judge Gallipoli comes down here,
9 everyone's required to put their coffee down.
10 You will note, if you are dying, I would have
11 nothing up here.
12 (Whereupon, the jury is brought
13 into the courtroom.)
14 JUDGE CURRAN: Good morning,
15 again. I think I saw juror number ten about an
16 hour-and-a-half ago. Good morning, Ladies and
17 Gentlemen. We appreciate your patience. I
18 would just want to indicate a few things.
19 Do you want that fan off, sir
20 pardon me.
21 JUROR: Maybe low.
22 JUDGE CURRAN: I know it has more
23 than one speed, Mr. Mumford, so maybe we can try
24 that. That looks louder and faster to me. Or
25 no?
00046
1 JUROR NUMBER 10: That was it.
2 That was low.
3 JUDGE CURRAN: Okay. If it
4 bothers Juror Number 5, then we'll just turn it
5 off, okay.
6 Good morning. I'm going to ask
7 counsel to put their appearances on the record
8 one more time. You will note that there is an
9 additional attorney here. I will comment on
10 that in a moment.
11 On behalf of the plaintiffs.
12 MR. MULLIN: Good morning, Your
13 Honor. Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen.
14 Neil Mullin, Nancy Erika Smith for the
15 plaintiffs.
16 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
17 Mr. Paris.
18 MR. BEVERE: Good morning, Your
19 Honor. Dan Bevere, David Paris on behalf of
20 Town of Secaucus.
21 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. Nulty.
22 MR. NULTY: Good morning, Your
23 Honor. John Nulty. I represent Charles T.
24 Snyder.
25 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. Ladies
00047
1 and Gentlemen, Mr. Nulty is here at my request.
2 And he has already apologized because he is not
3 dressed for court. That is my responsibility.
4 I did not notify him prior to this. And he is
5 private counsel for Mr. Snyder. Mr. Bevere and
6 Mr. Paris represent Secaucus. They do not
7 represent any individuals. Okay. Thank you.
8 Mr. Mullin or Miss Smith,
9 whomever.
10 MR. MULLIN: I'm going to call
11 Charles Snyder, Sr. to the stand.
12 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
13 MR. MULLIN: I believe his middle
14 initial is F.
15 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
16 MR. MULLIN: Charles F. Snyder.
17 JUDGE CURRAN: That's what my
18 record shows.
19 Good morning, sir. Please come
20 up here. Please put your left hand on the Bible
21 and raise your right hand.
22 C H A R L E S F. S N Y D E R, is duly sworn by
23 a Notary Public of the State of New Jersey and
24 testifies under oath as follows:
25 JUDGE CURRAN: For the record
00048
1 please state your full name and spell your last
2 name, please.
3 THE WITNESS: Charles F. Snyder.
4 MS. HAWKS: Spell your last name.
5 THE WITNESS: S-n-y-d-e-r.
6 MS. HAWKS: Thank you very much.
7 Your witness, Counselor.
8 JUDGE CURRAN: Please be seated,
9 sir. Please give us your address for the
10 record.
11 THE WITNESS: 14 Kroll Town --
12 excuse me, 14 Kroll Terrace, Secaucus, New
13 Jersey.
14 JUDGE CURRAN: Please move a
15 little closer to the microphone, if you will.
16 Thank you.
17 Your witness, Mr. Mullin.
18 DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. MULLIN:
19 Q Are you currently employed by the
20 Town of Secaucus?
21 A I invoke my Fifth Amendment rights.
22 Q What did you say?
23 A I respectfully revoke -- give you my
24 Fifth Amendment rights.
25 Q Are you refusing to testify upon
00049
1 the grounds that it may tend to incriminate you
2 under the Fifth amendment.
3 A Yes, I am.
4 Q Have you been a foreman at the
5 Department of Public Works of Secaucus?
6 A I plead the Fifth on that also.
7 Q Have you been a firefighter at the
8 North End Firehouse of Secaucus?
9 A I also plead the Fifth on that.
10 Q Have you held the position of
11 captain of the Secaucus Firehouse?
12 A I also take the Fifth on that.
13 Q Did you get a stipend, a cash
14 stipend in the sum of hundreds of dollars per
15 year from the Secaucus Town during the time that
16 you have been a firefighter?
17 A I plead the Fifth.
18 Q As a firefighter in Secaucus at
19 the North End did you report to the Fire Chief?
20 A I plead the Fifth.
21 Q Did the Mayor and Town Council
22 have authority over the firefighters, including
23 the power to suspend or fire -- firefighters?
24 A I plead the Fifth.
25 Q Were you ever suspended or fired
00050
1 for an attack in which you participated on
2 April 24th to 25th on the home of Peter deVries
3 and Jim -- and Tim Carter at 988 Schopmann?
4 A I plead the Fifth.
5 Q You and your son, Charles Snyder,
6 Jr., and the firemen -- and an ex-captain named
7 Mutschler led the attack, led a mob in an attack
8 on the home of Tim Carter and Peter deVries on
9 April 24th, 25th at 988 Schopmann; isn't that
10 true?
11 A I plead the Fifth.
12 Q That happened in April of 2004,
13 right?
14 A I plead the Fifth.
15 Q You threatened to kill them that
16 night, didn't you?
17 A I plead the Fifth.
18 Q Did you fire a gun that night?
19 A I plead the Fifth.
20 Q Did you see anyone, any
21 firefighters fire a gun that night?
22 A I plead the Fifth.
23 Q Do you carry guns in your car?
24 A I plead the Fifth.
25 Q Do any of your fellow firefighters
00051
1 at the North End Firehouse carry guns in their
2 car in gun racks?
3 A I plead the Fifth.
4 Q You threatened to kill my clients'
5 dogs that night, didn't you, sir?
6 A I plead the Fifth.
7 Q You referred that night and on
8 other occasions to my clients as fags, faggots
9 and homos; isn't that true, sir?
10 A I plead the Fifth.
11 Q In the past you threw used,
12 semen-filled condoms onto the porch of the home
13 of Tim Carter and Peter deVries, correct?
14 A I plead the Fifth.
15 Q And you did that because you hated
16 them because they were gay; is that a fact?
17 A I plead the Fifth.
18 Q And you witnessed other firemen,
19 other firefighters at the North End Firehouse
20 throw condoms on their porch, correct?
21 A I plead the Fifth.
22 Q At some point my client was
23 directed to telephone you before the incident of
24 April 24th and 25th; isn't that true?
25 A I plead the Fifth.
00052
1 Q He was directed by the office of
2 the Fire Chief to telephone you and complain
3 about firemen throwing used, semen-filled
4 condoms onto his porch; you recall that, don't
5 you?
6 A I plead the Fifth.
7 Q And he complained to you about it;
8 and you said, "You have smelly dogs"? Wasn't
9 that your response?
10 A I plead the Fifth.
11 Q When Police Officer Ulrich arrived
12 at the scene of the mob attack you led on
13 April 25th against my clients' homes, Ulrich
14 witnessed you still yelling and screaming
15 homophobic remarks at my clients; isn't that
16 true?
17 A I plead the Fifth.
18 Q And you were banging on my
19 clients' house and screaming the word,
20 "homo," "homo," "homo," weren't you?
21 A I plead the Fifth.
22 Q And your son was right with you;
23 and he was doing the same thing, wasn't he.
24 A I plead the Fifth.
25 Q That's Chuck Snyder, Jr. He was
00053
1 your son and doing the same thing, wasn't he,
2 sir?
3 A I plead the Fifth.
4 Q Mr. Mutschler was there and he was
5 doing the same thing, right?
6 A I plead the Fifth.
7 Q And then Sergeant Amodeo arrived
8 at the scene and you spoke to him, didn't you,
9 sir?
10 A I plead the Fifth.
11 Q And you said to him, "Who are you
12 going to believe, those faggot cock-suckers or
13 us?" That's what you said to Sergeant Amodeo
14 when he interviewed you in the firehouse on the
15 night -- or early morning hours, I should say,
16 of April 25th, 2004, right?
17 A I plead the Fifth.
18 Q During the year 2003 you would
19 ring the doorbell at 988 Schopmann, you would
20 ring the doorbell of the home of Peter deVries
21 and Tim Carter and then you would run away,
22 true?
23 A I plead the Fifth.
24 Q And you did this on many
25 occasions, correct?
00054
1 A I plead the Fifth.
2 Q When the police investigated these
3 matters, especially the investigation of the
4 incident of April 24th, 25th, 2004, you refused
5 to cooperate with that investigation, isn't that
6 right?
7 A I plead the Fifth.
8 Q And you didn't plead the Fifth
9 when the police asked to talk to you? You
10 simply refused to cooperate, right?
11 A I plead the Fifth.
12 Q And you're aware that your son,
13 Chuck Snyder, Jr., he refused to cooperate with
14 the police also, right?
15 A I plead the Fifth.
16 Q And neither you nor Chuck Snyder,
17 Jr. were terminated from your jobs with the Town
18 of Secaucus as a result of your refusing to
19 cooperate with the police investigation; isn't
20 that true?
21 A I plead the Fifth.
22 Q You harassed and attacked my
23 clients because my clients are gay and you hate
24 gay people; isn't that true?
25 A I plead the Fifth.
00055
1 Q You don't think gay people have a
2 right to live in Secaucus, true?
3 A I plead the Fifth.
4 Q That night that you yelled out
5 yous people don't belong in Secaucus, that's
6 right, that's what you yelled out that night; is
7 that right?
8 A I plead the Fifth.
9 Q You wanted to drive them out of
10 the Town of Secaucus, right?
11 A I plead the Fifth.
12 Q And you did drive them out of the
13 Town of Secaucus, right?
14 A I plead the Fifth.
15 Q And you and various other firemen
16 threatened to resign when they closed the
17 firehouse down right after this incident of
18 April 24th and 25th, right?
19 A I plead the Fifth.
20 Q And you signed a letter with all
21 the other members of the firehouse, the North
22 End Firehouse saying if you don't reopen our
23 firehouse we're going to resign you signed that
24 letter didn't you, sir?
25 A I plead the Fifth.
00056
1 Q And then the Town caved in, the
2 upper management of the Town, the Town manager,
3 Mayor and Council caved in under that threat and
4 they reopened the firehouse, right?
5 A I plead the Fifth.
6 Q And that very first day you or
7 other firemen yelled outside my clients' house,
8 "The homos are home. The homos are home,"
9 right?
10 A I plead the Fifth.
11 Q You and your friends, the firemen
12 in the North End Firehouse, did that the very
13 day the firehouse was open, May 1st, 2004; isn't
14 that true?
15 A I plead the Fifth.
16 Q And after that you and your --
17 and -- and the other firemen at the firehouse,
18 the North End, would park their cars so the
19 headlights were aiming towards the windows of my
20 clients' house at 988 Schopmann; and you'd shine
21 the headlights into their house for hours,
22 right?
23 A I plead the Fifth.
24 Q You did this for many, many weeks,
25 didn't you?
00057
1 A I plead the Fifth.
2 Q You did that in order to terrorize
3 my clients, true?
4 A I plead the Fifth.
5 Q You did that because they were gay
6 and you wanted to drive them out of the Town,
7 right?
8 A I plead the Fifth.
9 Q And you drove around; and when you
10 saw them on the street, you screamed out the
11 windows, "You're fags" or "faggots," right?
12 A I plead the Fifth.
13 Q And you know that other
14 firefighters did the same thing to my clients in
15 the weeks and months after the April 24th
16 incident, right?
17 A I plead the Fifth.
18 Q And the Town never re-shut the
19 firehouse, even though my clients complained.
20 Are you aware of that?
21 A I plead the Fifth.
22 Q And in fact, you firefighters
23 still kept having parties and you'd be out there
24 drinking beer right outside my clients' windows,
25 isn't that true, after the incident of
00058
1 April 24th, 25th, right?
2 A I plead the Fifth.
3 Q And you and other firefighters had
4 sex in cars right near my clients' kitchen
5 window, isn't that true, with women?
6 A I plead the Fifth.
7 Q And then, when you got through
8 having sex, you'd throw your dirty condoms over
9 the fence onto my clients porch, right?
10 A I plead the Fifth.
11 Q But there was an obstruction right
12 there, where you parked the cars, so you had to
13 walk around to the end of the fence and really
14 aim those condoms and throw them, right?
15 A I plead the Fifth.
16 Q The North End Firehouse is public
17 property, right?
18 A I plead the Fifth.
19 MR. BEVERE: Judge, objection.
20 That calls for speculation on the witness' part.
21 JUDGE CURRAN: It will be noted on
22 the record.
23 MR. BEVERE: Thank you.
24 JUDGE CURRAN: The answer is on
25 the record.
00059
1 BY MR. MULLIN:
2 Q You were on-duty the night of
3 April 24th and 25th, right?
4 A I plead the Fifth.
5 Q You told Sergeant Amodeo that you
6 could not be ejected from the firehouse because
7 you were on-duty, and you picked up your phone
8 and indicated you might get a call for a fire;
9 isn't that true?
10 A I plead the Fifth.
11 Q And you witnessed Sergeant Amodeo
12 request the group of firefighters who were in
13 the firehouse on April 25th, the earlier hours
14 of April 25th, to leave; and you witnessed them
15 three times disobey the order of a uniformed
16 sergeant, right?
17 A I plead the Fifth.
18 Q And you refused to leave the
19 firehouse, right?
20 A I plead the Fifth.
21 Q And you observed firefighter
22 ex-captain Mutschler lunge at Sergeant Amodeo;
23 and you witnessed fellow firefighters hold him
24 back, right?
25 A I plead the Fifth.
00060
1 Q And Sergeant Amodeo arrested no
2 one that night, right?
3 A I plead the Fifth.
4 Q You know your son was a dispatcher
5 who was employed by and paid by the Secaucus
6 Police Department and he had that job from 1999
7 right through these incidents happened, isn't
8 that true?
9 A I plead the Fifth.
10 Q As a foreman of the Department --
11 you are a foreman at the Department of Public
12 Works, right?
13 A I plead the Fifth.
14 Q And you have been a foreman of the
15 Department of the Public Works for many years,
16 right?
17 A I plead the Fifth.
18 Q And you were a foreman in the
19 Department of Public Works in April and May and
20 June in 2004, right?
21 A I plead the Fifth.
22 Q You have been a foreman since
23 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, right?
24 A I plead the Fifth.
25 Q You were a foreman at the
00061
1 Department of Public Works in February of 2005,
2 right?
3 A I plead the Fifth.
4 Q Did you send -- and you had the --
5 a Secaucus Department of Public Works trucks
6 under your control and management, right?
7 A I plead the Fifth.
8 Q And after my clients were chased
9 out of Secaucus and moved to Jersey City did you
10 send a Secaucus Department of Public Works truck
11 to their house and have it parked in front of
12 their apartment and have someone get out of that
13 truck and go into their apartment building? Did
14 you do that, sir?
15 A I plead the Fifth.
16 Q And did you take some shaving
17 cream sometime in May or June of 2004 and spray
18 in very large letters, in huge letters the words
19 "El Homo" on a wall directly across the street
20 from your firehouse?
21 A I plead the Fifth.
22 Q Did anyone ever come and ask you
23 whether you did that?
24 A I plead the Fifth.
25 Q Did anyone from -- from the
00062
1 Secaucus Fire Department ever come into the
2 firehouse and investigate whether you had any
3 shaving cream there that matched the shaving
4 cream on that wall?
5 A I plead the Fifth.
6 Q On the night -- earlier morning
7 hours of April 25th, 2004, when you were
8 attacking my clients' residence, did you attempt
9 to climb over the fence that separates the
10 firehouse parking lot and my clients' property?
11 A I plead the Fifth.
12 Q Did you attempt to climb over that
13 fence for the purpose of doing what you
14 threatened, that is, to kill my client?
15 A I plead the Fifth.
16 Q Did you witness other firefighters
17 attempting to climb over that fence?
18 A I plead the Fifth.
19 Q During that incident did you yell
20 to my clients, to the plaintiffs, "You like that
21 cum," referring to semen, "don't you, Faggot?
22 You like to eat cum; is that what you do,
23 Faggot?" Is that what you yelled?
24 A I plead the Fifth.
25 Q And you and your son yelled that;
00063
1 is that correct?
2 A I plead the Fifth.
3 Q And you observed Mr. Mutschler
4 yell that?
5 A I plead the Fifth.
6 Q And at that time and place did you
7 state, "We're going to kill you. We're going to
8 kill you and your dogs. Come on out here, you
9 fucking faggots. Come on out here. We don't
10 want the likes of you here. You're scared now,
11 ain't you, chicken shit. We don't want village
12 faggots in our Town. We've been here longer
13 than you. Let's throw some more dirty condoms
14 on their deck. You want some more cum? You and
15 yours don't belong here. You need to get the
16 fuck out of Secaucus. This is our town." You
17 said those words, didn't you, sir?
18 A I plead the Fifth.
19 Q You were just smiling, weren't
20 you, sir?
21 A No, sir.
22 Q That night, April -- earlier hours
23 of April 25th did you run along the side of my
24 clients' residence, slamming it continuously and
25 shouting the phrase, "Homo, homo, homo" so
00064
1 loudly that it woke up a 70-year-old landlord
2 and neighbor of my clients named Mrs. Hjelm?
3 A I plead the Fifth.
4 MR. BEVERE: Objection,
5 speculation as to what woke her up.
6 JUDGE CURRAN: Again, noted on the
7 record; but the answer is on the record.
8 BY MR. MULLIN:
9 Q The Fire Department of Secaucus
10 never took any action against you because of
11 your threats, your harassment, your attacks on
12 these men or because you refused to cooperate
13 with the investigation, true? They never did
14 anything to fire you or terminate you or suspend
15 you, right?
16 A I plead the Fifth.
17 Q Still work there, right?
18 A I plead the Fifth.
19 Q You are going to get a pension
20 from your Secaucus job, right?
21 A I plead the Fifth.
22 Q You get a good salary and
23 benefits, right?
24 A I plead the Fifth.
25 MR. BEVERE: Objection,
00065
1 characterization.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: Sustained.
3 Q You never launched this kind of
4 attack that you launched on April 24th, 25th,
5 2004 against other neighbors of the firehouse
6 who were heterosexual, did you, sir?
7 A I plead the Fifth.
8 MR. MULLIN: I have no further
9 questions.
10 JUDGE CURRAN: Anything from you,
11 Mr. Nulty.
12 MR. NULTY: Judge, I apologize, I
13 didn't hear you.
14 JUDGE CURRAN: I'm sorry. Do you
15 have anything for your client?
16 MR. NULTY: Oh, no, Your Honor.
17 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
18 Mr. Bevere.
19 MR. BEVERE: Thank you, Your
20 Honor.
21 CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. BEVERE:
22 Q Mr. Snyder, you weren't working
23 that night, correct?
24 A Excuse me, I'm sorry.
25 Q You were not working that night?
00066
1 A No.
2 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, sidebar.
3 JUDGE CURRAN: Okay.
4 THE WITNESS: I don't understand.
5 Sorry, Your Honor.
6 JUDGE CURRAN: I am going to ask
7 the jury to go into the jury room, if you will.
8 It might be easier for everybody not to stay at
9 sidebar.
10 (Whereupon, the jury is excused.)
11 JUDGE CURRAN: Do you wish to talk
12 to your client?
13 MR. NULTY: Yes.
14 JUDGE CURRAN: Okay. Off the
15 record.
16 (Whereupon, a brief recess is
17 taken.)
18 COURT CLERK: On the record.
19 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
20 Mr. Mullin.
21 MR. MULLIN: Yes, Your Honor, I
22 have consulted with Mr. Nulty, who advises me
23 that Mr. Snyder simply erred when he answered
24 substantially the question Mr. Bevere asked. He
25 intended to continue taking the Fifth. So I
00067
1 would ask Your Honor to advise the jury that
2 answer should be stricken. And -- and
3 Mr. Snyder will continue to take the Fifth in
4 response to all questions.
5 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
6 Anything you wish to add,
7 Mr. Nulty?
8 MR. NULTY: That's accurate,
9 Judge. Mr. Snyder was just a little confused
10 about the process.
11 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
12 Anything to add, Mr. Bevere?
13 MR. BEVERE: Nothing, Judge.
14 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. We will
15 bring out the jury.
16 MS. HAWKS: Jurors are
17 approaching.
18 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
19 (Whereupon, the jury is brought
20 into the courtroom.)
21 JUDGE CURRAN: You may sit down.
22 Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen.
23 Please be seated, Counsel.
24 Ladies and Gentlemen, you heard a
25 question asked by Mr. Bevere; and you heard an
00068
1 answer given by Mr. Snyder. However, I am going
2 to strike that answer.
3 You may hear this again during
4 the trial. And when I ask that you strike --
5 I'm going to strike it, and what that basically
6 means is -- and we'll talk about this at the
7 end -- I can't tell you do not remember that,
8 put it out of your mind. That's like talking
9 about the pink elephant. What it means is that
10 answer cannot in any way be part of your
11 consideration or evaluation or deliberations at
12 the end. Okay. That's all that means. Thank
13 you.
14 Mr. Bevere.
15 MR. BEVERE: Thank you, Your
16 Honor.
17 BY MR. BEVERE:
18 Q Mr. Snyder, you were not working
19 that night, correct?
20 A I plead the Fifth.
21 Q You were having a party, correct?
22 A I plead the Fifth.
23 Q The Town did not pay for that
24 party, correct?
25 A I plead the Fifth.
00069
1 Q The Town did not organize that
2 party, correct?
3 A I plead the Fifth.
4 Q That party started at a restaurant
5 in Cliffside Park, didn't it?
6 A I plead the Fifth.
7 Q And you guys came back to the
8 firehouse, not for the purpose of working but to
9 have your party, correct?
10 A I plead the Fifth.
11 Q And you had to get permission from
12 the Town, written permission, to use the
13 firehouse that night for that party, correct?
14 A I plead the Fifth.
15 Q And that would have been the same
16 written permission that would have been required
17 if any private citizen in Secaucus who wanted to
18 have a party at that firehouse, correct?
19 A I plead the Fifth.
20 Q And in fact, any private citizen
21 in Secaucus can request to use the firehouse for
22 a private party, correct?
23 A I plead the Fifth.
24 Q Now, Mr. Snyder, in order to have
25 the party at the firehouse that night you had to
00070
1 agree to take yourself off call, correct?
2 A I plead the Fifth.
3 Q And to not respond to any fire
4 calls that night, correct?
5 A I plead the Fifth.
6 Q And you were drinking that night,
7 correct?
8 A I plead the Fifth.
9 Q And you couldn't have responded to
10 any fire calls because you were drinking,
11 correct?
12 A I plead the Fifth.
13 Q Now, Mr. Snyder, the police came
14 to the firehouse, correct?
15 A I plead the Fifth.
16 Q They asked you for your name and
17 address, correct?
18 A I plead the Fifth.
19 Q And you gave it to them, correct?
20 A I plead the Fifth.
21 Q They told you to leave the
22 firehouse, correct?
23 A I plead the Fifth.
24 Q And you objected to having to
25 leave because you denied having done anything
00071
1 wrong; isn't that correct?
2 A I plead the Fifth.
3 Q The police ordered you to leave,
4 anyway, didn't they?
5 A I plead the Fifth.
6 Q And you complied? You left the
7 firehouse after the officer ordered you to
8 leave, correct?
9 A I plead the Fifth.
10 Q And, in fact, the police officers
11 that responded that night shut the firehouse
12 down and made everybody leave, correct?
13 A I plead the Fifth.
14 Q And when the policeman left, he
15 actually took with him a garbage barrel held
16 full of empty alcohol bottles; isn't that true?
17 A I plead the Fifth.
18 Q Now, Mr. Snyder, you were
19 contacted by the Secaucus police on April 26th,
20 2004, the day after the party, to come down to
21 the Secaucus Police and give a statement,
22 correct?
23 A I plead the Fifth.
24 Q And you refused to come down to
25 the Secaucus Police and give a statement,
00072
1 correct?
2 A I plead the Fifth.
3 Q You chose to exercise your right
4 to counsel, correct?
5 A I plead the Fifth.
6 Q You wanted to speak to a lawyer,
7 correct?
8 A I plead the Fifth.
9 Q And you actually retained a
10 lawyer, correct?
11 A I plead the Fifth.
12 Q And you were contacted by
13 investigators from the Attorney General's
14 Office, correct?
15 A I plead the Fifth.
16 Q And you refused to speak to them,
17 as well, correct?
18 A I plead the Fifth.
19 Q And you received a deposition
20 subpoena from the plaintiffs in this case to
21 come to a deposition; is that correct?
22 A I plead the Fifth.
23 Q And that deposition took place at
24 a law office and there was a court reporter,
25 just like Tracey here, taking everything down
00073
1 stenographically?
2 A I plead the Fifth.
3 Q And you were asked questions at
4 that deposition?
5 A Plead the Fifth.
6 Q And you refused to answer
7 questions at that deposition, correct?
8 A I plead the Fifth.
9 Q And you are refusing to answer
10 questions here today; isn't that correct?
11 A I plead the Fifth.
12 Q Oh, and Mr. Snyder, the deposition
13 that you went to, was that a videotaped
14 deposition?
15 A I plead the Fifth.
16 MR. BEVERE: Judge, I have no
17 further questions.
18 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Mullin.
19 MR. MULLIN: Yes.
20 REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. MULLIN:
21 Q Mr. Snyder, I show you what we
22 marked as Plaintiff's Exhibit 117.
23 MR. BEVERE: Your Honor, if I
24 could just have permission to --
25 JUDGE CURRAN: Surely.
00074
1 MR. BEVERE: -- go to the side.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: 117, correct, Mr.
3 Mullin?
4 MR. MULLIN: Yeah, it's 117, Your
5 Honor.
6 BY MR. MULLIN:
7 Q The party that took place that
8 night, that party was a company function, right,
9 fire company function, right, true?
10 A I plead the Fifth.
11 Q It was a company night out,
12 referring to the official fire company, right?
13 A I plead the Fifth.
14 Q That party was approved by a fire
15 captain, right?
16 A I plead the Fifth.
17 Q That party was approved by a Fire
18 Chief, right?
19 A I plead the Fifth.
20 Q That needed approval by the Town's
21 insurer, right, that party?
22 A I plead the Fifth.
23 Q That party was insured by the
24 Town's insurer, not a private insurer, right?
25 A I plead the Fifth.
00075
1 MR. BEVERE: Objection, Your
2 Honor. That's speculation.
3 JUDGE CURRAN: Sustained.
4 Q Even if it wasn't a company
5 function, even if it hadn't been a company night
6 out, even if it hadn't had the chief's approval,
7 if a firefighter at that party, even if it was a
8 non-official party, as Mr. Bevere implies, if a
9 firefighter at that party threatened to attack
10 and kill neighbors of the firehouse, threatened
11 to kill, wouldn't that be conduct unbecoming a
12 fireman under the rules governing the fire --
13 firemen of Secaucus, requiring that you be
14 fired?
15 MR. BEVERE: Objection.
16 JUDGE CURRAN: Basis?
17 MR. BEVERE: It calls for a legal
18 conclusion, and it's argumentative.
19 MR. MULLIN: I am asking about the
20 firehouse rules, not the law.
21 JUDGE CURRAN: Sustained.
22 Rephrase.
23 BY MR. MULLIN:
24 Q Forget the law. Under the
25 firehouse rules, the rules of the Secaucus Fire
00076
1 Department, as you know them, as you understand
2 them, even if this hadn't been an official
3 firehouse function, if you threatened to kill
4 neighbors of the fire -- of the firehouse at the
5 North End because they were gay, wouldn't that
6 be conduct unbecoming a fireman under those
7 rules --
8 MR. BEVERE: Same --
9 Q -- requiring that you be fired?
10 MR. BEVERE: Same objection, Your
11 Honor.
12 JUDGE CURRAN: Overruled.
13 BY MR. MULLIN:
14 A I plead the Fifth.
15 Q This party was -- took place after
16 my client complained to you that your -- your
17 firemen were throwing condoms over his fence,
18 right? This took place after that, right?
19 A I plead the Fifth.
20 Q And yet the chief approved this
21 party and allowed it to go forward with you
22 knowing and the chief knowing that firemen had
23 been throwing condoms over my clients' fence
24 onto their property, right?
25 MR. BEVERE: Objection as to what
00077
1 the chief knew.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: Sustained.
3 Q What you knew.
4 A I plead --
5 Q That they had complained about
6 these condoms. Go ahead.
7 A I plead the Fifth.
8 Q And are you saying you didn't tell
9 Sergeant Amodeo to his face, "I'm on-call"?
10 Didn't you say those words to a sergeant of the
11 Secaucus Police Department that night?
12 A I plead the Fifth.
13 MR. MULLIN: I have nothing
14 further.
15 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Bevere?
16 MR. BEVERE: Nothing further, Your
17 Honor. Thank you.
18 JUDGE CURRAN: Is the witness
19 excused, Mr. Mullin?
20 MS. SMITH: Yes, Your Honor.
21 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
22 Thank you, sir. You may step
23 down.
24 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
25 MR. NULTY: Thank you.
00078
1 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you,
2 Mr. Nulty.
3 (Whereupon, the witness is
4 excused.)
5 JUDGE CURRAN: Off the record.
6 COURT CLERK: Thank you. Off the
7 record.
8 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
9 (Whereupon, a discussion is held
10 off the record.)
11 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Mullin.
12 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, I will
13 call my next witness.
14 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
15 MR. MULLIN: Mr. Timothy Carter.
16 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
17 Sir, would you please put your
18 left hand on the Bible and raise your right
19 hand.
20 T I M O T H Y C A R T E R, is duly sworn by a
21 Notary Public of the State of New Jersey and
22 testifies under oath as follows:
23 MS. HAWKS: Thank you. For the
24 record, please state your full name and spell
25 your last name, please.
00079
1 THE WITNESS: Timothy Carter,
2 C-a-r-t-e-r.
3 MS. HAWKS: Thank you.
4 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you, sir.
5 You may be seated. Thank you. Can you move a
6 little closer to that.
7 THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am.
8 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
9 THE WITNESS: Yes, Your Honor.
10 JUDGE CURRAN: And can you please
11 give us your address.
12 THE WITNESS: The address is 260
13 Harrison Avenue, number 404, Jersey City, New
14 Jersey, 07304.
15 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
16 Mr. Mullin.
17 DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. MULLIN:
18 Q Good morning, Tim.
19 A Good morning.
20 Q Do you recognize that gentleman I
21 just had on the witness stand?
22 A Well, I know his voice. I didn't look at
23 him.
24 Q Have you seen him?
25 A I -- I -- yes, I have seen him.
00080
1 Q Who do you recognize him to be?
2 A Chucky Snyder, Sr.
3 Q Let's start with you. Did you go
4 to college, Tim?
5 A I did.
6 Q Tell the jury about your
7 education.
8 If you can, you can look towards the
9 jury.
10 A Yes.
11 Q And try to speak in the microphone
12 too.
13 JUDGE CURRAN: You can move it,
14 sir. You are free to move the mike.
15 A My -- I went to Randolph-Macon College in
16 Ashland, Virginia. It was an AB degree, four
17 year. I majored in philosophy and religion.
18 Immediately afterwards, you know, that
19 summer, I went to France on scholarship to the
20 University of Nice in France. And that was in
21 preparation for mastering language. As part of
22 a requirement I would have to go for a masters
23 degree.
24 As soon as I got back I entered
25 immediately Harvard University, Cambridge,
00081
1 Massachusetts. And studied for the MTH,
2 two-year program in -- academic program in,
3 basically, theology and -- philosophy and
4 religion.
5 And that was the end of my education
6 until Peter and I moved to Minnesota and I
7 had -- I wanted to start working in the church
8 again, but I really needed to do -- I needed
9 a -- what's called a "master of divinity
10 degree." That is a degree that any priest,
11 minister, pastor, Protestant, Orthodox, even
12 also Jewish, the rabbis, get. And so I did
13 another additional year at Luther seminary in
14 St. Paul, Minnesota. So that's the best -- that
15 was the highest degree. It's a master of
16 divinity degree. I haven't studied more after
17 that.
18 Q Okay. And what were your career
19 goals with all this studying? What did you hope
20 to be? What did you hope to do?
21 A I was going to be ordained as a priest in
22 the Episcopal church, the diocese of New York,
23 archdiocese.
24 Q Did you ever start a doctorate in
25 that direction?
00082
1 A I did doctoral work in Minnesota at St.
2 Thomas University, St. Paul Seminary.
3 Q Have you ever had the opportunity
4 to preach?
5 A I have preached since I was about 11 or
6 12 years old and always preached a great deal.
7 I was what's called a "supply pulpit pastor"
8 with the -- it's basically a part of the
9 National Council of Churches. And I was in New
10 York. And so when a pastor has to go on
11 vacation, whatever, I can fill in for her. And
12 then, after a while the churches know you; and
13 it goes over well, you get a lot of invitations.
14 So I went all over the boroughs doing that for
15 the time I was in New York. So I preached a
16 lot.
17 Q Tim, do you suffer from attention
18 deficit disorder?
19 A Yes.
20 Q Can you tell the jury about that,
21 what that is and what -- how it affects you?
22 A Okay. As simply as I can, it's --
23 it's -- it's different and more serious in
24 adults, and so the name is somewhat of a
25 misnomer. However, basically the problem is
00083
1 that related to a formation in the brain, in the
2 control center of the brain. There is a CAT
3 scan that they found it now about four years
4 ago. And the vein leading up to that in the
5 frontal lobe, and it causes one to have problems
6 with like a command center in the brain, okay.
7 So you can become -- not always
8 inattentive. Sometimes it's a hyper focus
9 attention that distracts you from other things.
10 So it's hard to bring together that person
11 inside me who is like the office manager or
12 whoever in your home, you know, sort of keeps it
13 all together. That's hard for me.
14 Q Okay. And have you ever been
15 treated for that?
16 A I have been treated very seriously.
17 However, I can be -- I go to a doctor once a
18 week for it. And after they found out that what
19 was wrong with me, anyway, is -- it's
20 hereditary, they were really able to work with
21 very, very good farm -- pharmacists and doctors
22 and have -- and developed medications that --
23 that were very helpful to me.
24 Q And who -- who has been your main
25 treating physician on the matter of ADD?
00084
1 A The main treating physician on the matter
2 relating to ADD is Dr. Jack Almeleh,
3 A-l-e-m-e-l-e-h, M.D., professor of medicine at
4 Mount Sinai Hospital and director of the
5 psychiatric residents there and a clinical
6 professor at New York University.
7 Q Have you been treating with Dr.
8 Almeleh in connection with any of the symptoms
9 or issues that you suffer in connection with
10 this, the matters in this case, the attack and
11 so on?
12 A Yes. Before -- before the attack I was
13 going to see him. I had dropped down to twice a
14 month. And I was going to support groups from
15 CHADD. They are for adults with ADD. And I was
16 down to twice, sometimes even once a month. And
17 since the attack I see him every week.
18 Q Are you on any medications?
19 A Yes.
20 Q Can you tell the jury what they
21 are?
22 A I have Zoloft.
23 Q And what is that for, as you
24 understand it?
25 A That's antidepressant.
00085
1 Q Before the attack that we've been
2 talking about in this lawsuit where the firemen
3 attacked on April of 2004, have you been treated
4 for depression --
5 A Not at all.
6 Q -- before the attack? Did the
7 treatment for the depression start after that
8 attack?
9 A Yes, sir.
10 Q Are you a gay man?
11 A Yes, I am, a hundred percent.
12 Q And at some point did you meet the
13 other plaintiff in this case, Peter deVries?
14 A I met Peter in probably late 1985, early
15 1986.
16 Q And just so the record is clear,
17 is Peter deVries a gay man?
18 A He is gay.
19 Q And when did you start living
20 together?
21 A We started living together probably about
22 May of 1987 -- I mean, I'm sorry, '86.
23 Q And are you still living together?
24 A Yes.
25 Q Have you lived together
00086
1 continuously with Peter during those 22 years?
2 A Never a day apart.
3 Q You live together as spouses?
4 A Yes.
5 Q You share your lives?
6 A Yes. I mean --
7 Q Can you tell the jury about that?
8 A Just like your life. We have our meals
9 together. We go on vacations together. We have
10 a home filled with our family things of
11 families. Now we gripe at each other a lot more
12 and more. We take care of each other. I have
13 been in -- I went through his -- his aortic
14 aneurysm, his heart problems. We're -- we just
15 do everything together, our whole lives
16 together. Friends are together.
17 And most importantly, we raised four
18 dogs together, two Vizslas, two Rhodesian
19 Ridgebacks. So they are sort of like kids. Our
20 friends are together. Oh, and we also -- Peter
21 is a prolific book collector, and we read
22 together.
23 Q Do you do any volunteer work
24 together?
25 A Yes, back in -- when we got together
00087
1 through the church, Episcopal church, I started
2 working in -- for -- as a volunteer at Saint --
3 Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan, 59th Street;
4 and Peter started working too. And at that time
5 we were working with -- we were just -- our gay
6 friends, particularly Peter's -- he is a little
7 bit older -- they were -- they were dying just
8 right and left. And so we volunteered in that
9 program. I'm the one who started it, and Peter
10 ended up staying a year longer than I did. But
11 we -- we did volunteer together.
12 Q Has Peter's family welcomed the
13 two of you as a gay couple, as a gay
14 relationship?
15 A Yes, Peter's family is very welcoming. I
16 have to send the thank you cards and the
17 Christmas cards and all that, but I -- they have
18 bent over backwards to welcome us.
19 And they -- we have been to the Middle
20 East, to Jordan, where Peter's brother is an
21 archeologist; and I stayed with them. And I'm
22 invited to all family reunions.
23 Peter's mother is very proper Dutch
24 lady. Went out of her way to reach out to me.
25 And she was very -- she was -- she was -- she
00088
1 just died in December. She was 97. But that --
2 she did that. And once she talked to me about
3 life during the war because they were -- they
4 were in Holland and they were interned by the
5 Nazis. And that was a very intimate thing for
6 her to talk about. And Peter said, "She is
7 telling you stuff she never told me."
8 Q How about his nephews and nieces;
9 do you relate at all to them?
10 A I'm very close to every one of them.
11 Q What do they call you?
12 A Uncle Tim. I send out -- they get a
13 graduation present because of me.
14 Q How about your family; have they
15 been welcoming of you as a gay man and your --
16 your relationship to Peter as a gay spousal
17 relationship?
18 A No. I mean, it's impossible, no.
19 They --
20 Q You bring Peter down to visit
21 them?
22 A No.
23 Q Can you mention being gay among
24 them, among your family?
25 A No. We are on most cordial terms.
00089
1 Q At some point did you and Peter
2 move to Secaucus?
3 A Yes, we did.
4 Q Where were you living right before
5 you moved to Secaucus?
6 A We were living in St. Louis Park,
7 Minnesota. It's a suburb of Minneapolis.
8 Q Okay. And what -- what were you
9 doing there in terms of work or school, and what
10 was Peter doing as you observed it?
11 A I wanted to work in the church, and so
12 I -- I spent a year and got the other pieces
13 that I needed to have an M.D., master of
14 divinity, degree. That's what I told you.
15 Because my work at Harvard was academic and this
16 was -- had all the practical courses.
17 And so as soon as I got that, which was
18 in May 1996 -- we had gone there in
19 April 1995 -- I began work as the coordinator
20 of -- in parochial school for old testament and
21 new testament church history. It was a
22 Catholic -- it was a Catholic school, and I'm
23 not -- school system. I'm not Catholic, but I
24 had the languages they needed. And I did that,
25 which was wonderful, for five years.
00090
1 And then the last year I worked with
2 the Minnesota Council of Churches. And we --
3 I -- what I did is I worked as a liaison with --
4 with churches, individual churches to take in
5 refugees -- at that time a lot of them from
6 Bosnia and so forth, like children from the war
7 who were orphaned and so forth -- and resettled
8 them. And that was a big commitment. And they
9 have caseworkers who get the -- there is a
10 two-year commitment on the part of the churches,
11 but I -- what I did was went out and got
12 churches and got them to agree to do it.
13 Q And just very briefly, because
14 Peter will testify, but what was Peter doing in
15 Minneapolis?
16 A Peter was managing editor at McGraw-Hill
17 Publications in the Medical Division and -- for
18 those years. And he was on -- the main magazine
19 was Hospital Practice Magazine, magazine doctors
20 read. And that's it.
21 Q What is it that motivated you guys
22 to move to Secaucus?
23 A Well, the magazine that Peter was on,
24 working on was going to go out of business. It
25 was a very old magazine. And so Peter got a job
00091
1 in Secaucus at another medical publishing
2 company.
3 Q Okay. You mentioned that Peter
4 had had an aneurysm. Can you tell the jury a
5 little bit about -- without going into too much
6 medical detail, what you knew about that, how
7 you felt about that and that condition?
8 A Yeah, well, what happened was Peter
9 called me at work one day; and he said -- he
10 said, "I'm dying."
11 I'm like, "Why are you" -- what's
12 happening was he thought he was having a heart
13 attack. I said, "Why are you on the phone with
14 me?"
15 And he just said, "I'm dying."
16 I says, you know, something nice. And
17 then -- and then he hung up.
18 And so what happened was he had an --
19 an aneurysm, like a balloon on his aortic valve
20 at the top of his heart and it had split in two.
21 That's why he was in such unbearable pain. So
22 it's like this little tiny tip, like tissue
23 thing --
24 Q Around when was this?
25 A This was in 2000.
00092
1 Q Okay. And did he have some
2 medical treatment you were aware of?
3 A Yes, he was -- he was operated on in open
4 heart surgery for eight hours. And they used
5 human tissue to replace that aortic valve and
6 skin around it.
7 Q Do you remember when that
8 operation was?
9 A It was in -- I'm thinking December 17th,
10 2000.
11 Q Okay. So then when was it -- when
12 did you move to Secaucus?
13 A In 2001.
14 Q Was that October of 2001,
15 thereabouts?
16 A October 1, 2001 we moved. That was the
17 day we moved into the house in Secaucus.
18 Q Where did you move to?
19 A 988 Schopmann Drive.
20 Q Okay. And did you buy, or did you
21 rent?
22 A We rented.
23 Q Any neighbors?
24 A The next-door neighbors were -- the son
25 was the owner, and this was his house. But he
00093
1 lived with his mother and -- and all -- and
2 three brothers and sisters with his mother.
3 Q What was the name of the neighbor?
4 What was the last name of the neighbors?
5 A Okay. H-j-e-l-m, Hjelm.
6 Q Hjelm?
7 A Swedish.
8 Q And what was the mother's name?
9 A Pat, Patricia.
10 Q And about how old would you say
11 she was?
12 A She turned 70.
13 Q How old was the son, Pat?
14 A Patrick was 38, 39.
15 Q Did you say you rented your house
16 from them?
17 A Yes, yes, we did.
18 Q And was there a firehouse next to
19 your house?
20 A Yes.
21 Q Okay. I think what we're going to
22 need to do to set the groundwork, I am going to
23 show you some photographs of -- that are
24 evidentiary; and we will have you walk through
25 them a little bit, give the jury a sense of what
00094
1 this house looked like.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Mullin, I would
3 appreciate it if you'd just indicate the numbers
4 so --
5 MR. MULLIN: Sure.
6 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
7 BY MR. MULLIN:
8 Q Okay. All right. Tim, I'm going
9 to show you P-163.
10 A Okay.
11 Q Hang on a second. I want to make
12 sure that we don't have a lot out of the same
13 batch. We do.
14 MR. MULLIN: So I'm going to mark
15 this P-163A, and I'm going -- so I am going to
16 make that change, and then we will give counsel
17 and the Court changed documents --
18 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
19 MR. MULLIN: -- so that we can
20 separate these photos.
21 (Whereupon, photo board is
22 received and marked as Plaintiff's
23 Exhibit P-163A for Identification.)
24 BY MR. MULLIN:
25 Q What does P-163A depict?
00095
1 A It depicts the side of North End Fire
2 Station right here. This is the red door and
3 the -- the walk-up. This is the parking lot.
4 Q The firehouse parking lot --
5 A Yes.
6 Q -- is to the left of the photo?
7 A Yes, in this whole area is a parking lot;
8 and these lines are drawn, as you can see, up to
9 where the cars stop. And --
10 Q Then there are some bushes? There
11 a row of bushes?
12 A Yeah, there is a row of bushes.
13 Q Let me just say for the record the
14 blue house that's depicted there, is that the
15 house you rented from the Hjelms?
16 A That is the house we rented from the
17 Hjelms.
18 Q Okay. And there are windows
19 facing the parking lot, right?
20 A Right.
21 Q Did your rental include the
22 room -- all the rooms --
23 A Yes.
24 Q -- in the house?
25 A Yes.
00096
1 Q Okay. Can you tell the jury which
2 rooms correspond to which windows?
3 JUDGE CURRAN: I apologize. Miss
4 Castelli, do you have a pointer? Thank you.
5 Thank you.
6 You're not required to use it,
7 but if it's easier --
8 MR. MULLIN: That would be very
9 helpful.
10 THE WITNESS: It would be easier
11 for me.
12 MR. MULLIN: We have a laser.
13 Maybe we'll -- Judge, Judge, we have a laser
14 that projects a red dot.
15 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
16 BY MR. MULLIN:
17 Q Just push that button, Tim.
18 So, Tim, would you direct the laser
19 at -- at the windows, the first group of windows
20 along the house. That's it.
21 A Okay. This --
22 Q Tell us what room that is.
23 A This room here -- these are the windows
24 that go into the living room.
25 Q Next set of windows?
00097
1 A These -- there is a wall here, and there
2 is a very large kitchen. And at the -- at the
3 back of it is where you would have sort of a
4 breakfast table, I guess, it was built for.
5 There are two windows here.
6 Q Next window?
7 A The next window is a window that is right
8 behind the bar. And back here it -- behind it
9 would be the sink and the stove and so forth.
10 And then immediately here is a door, a double
11 door, Dutch door that leads out onto the deck.
12 Q Okay. And look at the front
13 porch. There has been some talk about Officer
14 Ulrich arriving -- and let me not put words in
15 your mouth.
16 A Okay.
17 Q When Officer Ulrich arrived on the
18 night of the incident, where did he stand
19 initially?
20 A Okay.
21 Q I don't want to go into detail.
22 A No, that's fine. Right here. You see
23 there is a small area. You know, it's a small
24 porch. I don't know how to describe it in feet.
25 And, you know, we have the two gates here. And
00098
1 on that night of -- it was actually the morning,
2 April 25th, 2004, Officer Ulrich came up. And
3 he first approached our door and then backed
4 back and was right there.
5 Q Okay.
6 A And then there was a second -- Torres is
7 it?
8 Q Moreda?
9 A Yeah, Moreda. And he came up, and he
10 stood -- at first he stood back like on the --
11 coming down the steps, like maybe in the middle.
12 Then he went, later, back up to the top with
13 Officer Ulrich.
14 Q All right. When you stand on this
15 porch --
16 A Yes.
17 Q You don't live there anymore,
18 right? Right, you don't live here anymore?
19 A No.
20 Q But when you stand on this
21 porch -- when you stood on this porch, if you
22 stand here, facing out, what kind of view of the
23 parking lot would you have?
24 A If you stood here, you would have a view
25 of the whole parking lot.
00099
1 MR. MULLIN: Okay. Let's call
2 this P-163B, which, for the record, I will
3 indicate has a Bates stamp number 0000972.
4 (Whereupon, photo board, Bates
5 stamped 0000972 is received and marked as
6 Plaintiff's Exhibit P-163B for
7 Identification.)
8 BY MR. MULLIN:
9 Q Again, although this should be
10 obvious to everybody, tell us what we're looking
11 here.
12 A Okay. What we're looking at here is a
13 side of our house. I just showed you the
14 windows. This is the side of the firehouse.
15 You are seeing a little bit more here because
16 there is also a second side door that goes in
17 there.
18 Q I will draw your attention to this
19 area between the house and the back of the
20 firehouse. And what are we seeing here?
21 A All right. It's a little hard to see;
22 but if you'll look at the lines that are going
23 up there, this was, in fact, a chain link fence.
24 And the chain link fence had green plastic on it
25 with those stripes. That's how you can tell how
00100
1 high the fence goes. Then, up here, right there
2 is our back door, which was a double Dutch door,
3 the -- like -- like -- anyway --
4 Q Two parts?
5 A Door, and then there is -- you come out
6 onto the back porch, there is an overhang for
7 roof there. And there is this fence here.
8 Q Is that a fence on your property?
9 A Oh, yeah.
10 Q And that rises above the height of
11 the fence on the firehouse side?
12 A It rises above, right.
13 Q All right. Then I see an
14 overhanging roof?
15 A Right.
16 Q You see that? And on the
17 overhanging roof is a siding; is that -- is that
18 correct?
19 A That's right.
20 Q And does that siding completely
21 block the area that looks like --
22 A Yeah, yeah.
23 Q -- sort of long triangle?
24 A It's kind of like a cap.
25 Q Okay. That's -- that's good
00101
1 enough.
2 A Well, what you can't see here, as well --
3 is a top here -- this area here -- we have it in
4 other photographs -- is that there is a long --
5 even heavier than this table. It's covered with
6 a kind of steel plates or something, table that
7 has three kegs.
8 Q Okay. Hold the phone. And I'm
9 going to get --
10 JUDGE CURRAN: I would just say to
11 especially Juror Number 1 and Juror Number 6, if
12 you can't see, you are free to stand or however
13 you're comfortable.
14 MS. SMITH: Judge, is there a way
15 for us to make it easier for you to see?
16 JUDGE CURRAN: No, no, I'm fine.
17 BY MR. MULLIN:
18 Q I have a photo here. It is not a
19 keg. It's one of those fire-free things you
20 rent. But let me show you P-163C.
21 (Whereupon, photo board Bates
22 stamped 0000969 is received and marked as
23 Plaintiff's Exhibit P-163C for
24 Identification.)
25 Q And it has Bates stamp number 969
00102
1 and I will ask you to tell the jury what you see
2 there.
3 A What they see here is a table that is
4 normally used for parties outside. They can put
5 food out there and everything. They grill out
6 sometimes, every night in the summer.
7 Q Who is they, for the record?
8 A The volunteer firemen.
9 Q Of the North End Firehouse next
10 door to you?
11 A That's right. And right -- this picture
12 happened to be taken around Christmas. And you
13 see they have got what they used to cut off the
14 bottom branches of Christmas trees. However,
15 this is really the keg table; and they have
16 three kegs they keep. They stay out all year.
17 This is very heavy table too.
18 Q And for the record, the chain link
19 fence we're seeing is the chain link fence you
20 were referring to a moment ago when I had the
21 other Exhibit 163B up, right?
22 A Right.
23 Q We are just seeing a closer look
24 at your fence, right?
25 A Right. And for the record, also what you
00103
1 are seeing here this is not wood. These -- this
2 was a metal -- heavy metal table. And then
3 there are boxes in front.
4 Q Let's see if we can begin to look
5 at the other side of that fence.
6 MR. MULLIN: This I'll mark as
7 P-163D.
8 (Whereupon, photo board, Bates
9 stamped 0000966 is received and marked as
10 Plaintiff's Exhibit P-163D for
11 Identification.)
12 MR. MULLIN: And it's Bates stamp
13 number four zeros 966.
14 BY MR. MULLIN:
15 Q Okay. What are we seeing here?
16 A What you are seeing here is the deck that
17 is coming directly off the door, the back -- the
18 door -- the back door of the kitchen. This deck
19 on the other side here would be the sink, the
20 stove and so forth. And then over to where
21 the -- the wall is, the fence, if you will, is
22 the door that opens out where one walks out onto
23 the deck. And you see over on the other side,
24 of course, is the fire station.
25 Q On other side is the firehouse?
00104
1 A Right.
2 Q And that bench you were talking
3 about, right, and that chain link fence; is that
4 right?
5 A It was a table, yeah.
6 Q And this is the overhang, right?
7 A That is the overhang.
8 Q Okay. All right. Thank you very
9 much. You can take your seat again.
10 Okay. So you are living at -- take
11 your time. Want to take a sip of water?
12 So you moved in. It's 2001. You've
13 described the house. You're living at 988
14 Schopmann. Did you on occasion see the firemen
15 of the North End Firehouse?
16 A Yes, we saw the firemen every day, every
17 single day.
18 Q Saw the faces?
19 A We saw the faces.
20 Q Did you hear them, hear their
21 voices?
22 A We could hear them, you know, through the
23 window.
24 Q They --
25 A Would be --
00105
1 Q Did they wear any sort of uniform?
2 A They wore blue T-shirts, navy blue
3 short-sleeved T-shirts that had the insignia of
4 the fire station, which was a cross here that
5 fanned out. And it's Secaucus Fire Department
6 Engine 2. And they wore matching navy blue
7 trousers.
8 Q And did you get to see -- know
9 their cars? Did you see the same cars there?
10 A Yes, because, if you recall where the
11 windows were, actually, you just look right
12 down. And then, if you saw the yellow, you
13 know, whatever you call the place where you pull
14 up against it, stopper or whatever, that pulled
15 up where -- probably within three feet of the
16 house. So it was almost to the house. And
17 then, if you look down from any of our windows
18 along the side, you -- you saw the cars.
19 Q Did you -- did their license
20 plates have any distinctive markings?
21 A Their license plates are Fire Department
22 license plates. So they are -- they're official
23 fire license plates for firemen, so they can --
24 they have more -- you know, they can park where
25 they want.
00106
1 Q I want to draw your attention to
2 around Christmastime 2001. Okay. And you were
3 still living at 988 Schopmann. And I want to
4 ask you to tell the jury of any interaction you
5 had that comes to mind during that time period
6 with the firemen.
7 A Okay. During Christmas holidays they
8 sell trees and wreaths in the parking lot to
9 raise money for the social fund. So one
10 Saturday they were all there selling this
11 Christmas trees. And so I went across, right
12 across the street. And there was a ice cream
13 shop called Mike's Ice Cream, sort of famous,
14 locally, and where they make homemade ice cream.
15 And so I paid for 5 gallons of ice cream, and I
16 asked the man to send -- to send it over to
17 him -- to them.
18 And I went back to my house, and I
19 walked by. And they had a fence up around the
20 trees, but they had an open area. And in the
21 middle, at a table, like sort of a fold-up
22 picnic table, was Charles Snyder, Sr. -- I
23 didn't know his name then -- who was captain.
24 And I said, "I'm" -- "I am sending over
25 5 gallons of ice cream to" -- "to the firemen.
00107
1 Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy" --
2 "Happy Christmas," whatever.
3 And he said, "Oh, thank you."
4 And I said, "Mike says he doesn't" --
5 "he'll make up different kinds, you know. Have
6 somebody go get" -- "if you get" -- "have
7 somebody go over to him and tell him what you
8 really want."
9 He said, "Thank you."
10 So they were cutting the bottom
11 branches off of trees like you do when you get a
12 Christmas tree, you know, so you have a place to
13 put it. And that's what that red thing on the
14 table lying to the side was; it's how they cut
15 them off. And so they had all these branches.
16 And I had seen them earlier like take -- take
17 them and throwing them into the Department of
18 Public Works truck, garbage truck.
19 So I said, "If you just throw away all
20 these branches" -- they weren't selling them or
21 anything -- I said, "I'm decorating and I'd love
22 those branches to make garlands and stuff. It
23 would be cool."
24 And he said, "Take" -- "take them." He
25 said, "It's just less we have to throw on the
00108
1 garbage truck."
2 And I said, "Well, I think you're going
3 to be closed because Peter and I are going to
4 New York to a party and we're" -- "we're not
5 going to have time to do this until later."
6 He said, "Oh, it's okay. You live next
7 door."
8 He said -- I says, "It's cool? It's
9 cool?"
10 He said, "Yeah, it's okay."
11 Q What happened next? Did you go to
12 get the branches at some point?
13 A Yeah, I went and started getting the
14 branches.
15 Q Was it dark out? Was it light
16 out?
17 A Oh, it was dark out because, you know,
18 it's -- it gets dark in like probably 5:00 or --
19 I don't know. And we were -- we were --
20 Q Who is "we"?
21 A Peter, Peter and I. Decorating the
22 Christmas tree was a big deal.
23 Q The Christmas tree where?
24 A Christmas tree in our living room.
25 Q Okay. And then?
00109
1 A We went full out because it was -- well,
2 I went full out. It was 2001, and everybody had
3 flags like crazy in Secaucus. People in
4 Secaucus killed in the 9/11, whatever. And so I
5 went out and got about 20 cans of floral spray;
6 and I sprayed one giant bush red, one white, one
7 blue. And then I had garland. It was very
8 elaborate. And so I was going in and out with
9 decorating.
10 Q In and out where? Did you go out
11 the back door, the front door?
12 A The front door. I was going out the
13 front door.
14 Q You were going out the front door
15 and going where? Tell the jury where you went.
16 A I was going out the front door and
17 hopping over the fence. Not their fence they
18 had erected. That big -- that fence that has
19 just like -- like Lincoln Logs, you know, kind
20 of mock. I was stepping over that and getting
21 branches and -- that they were throwing away,
22 that they were on the pile to throw away; and I
23 was bringing them back. And inside the house it
24 was a split level house; and they had a
25 overhanging, I don't know, fence sort of where
00110
1 you look from a level down into the living room.
2 And so I was just going -- making these
3 garlands.
4 Q What happened next? Did anything
5 happen?
6 A I -- the -- okay. I'm in there. I
7 can -- there is -- I could --
8 Q Do you want to look at the
9 picture? Do you have the laser still?
10 A Yeah.
11 Q Good. Let me show you what we
12 marked as P-163A. Okay. And would you use the
13 laser and show --
14 A Yes.
15 Q -- the judge and the jury the path
16 you took in going to get the garlands from the
17 parking lot and bringing them into your house?
18 A I was going -- coming out this door,
19 which is the door leading at the front of the
20 house into the living room. I was coming down
21 these steps. I was, I guess, going between or
22 over something, these Lincoln Log fence over
23 here. And then, right in this area was where
24 they were taking the branches after they cut
25 them off the bottom.
00111
1 Q Let's see if we can make the
2 record for the court reporter clear. You -- you
3 said you were gathering garlands from an area
4 that is in this photograph, P-163A, just to the
5 left of the yellow cement car stoppers; is that
6 right?
7 A Right.
8 Q All right. Go ahead. And -- all
9 right, you can take the stand again; and you can
10 continue with what happened.
11 A Yeah.
12 Q And it's dark out; is that right?
13 A It was dark out.
14 Q Was there anyone else in the
15 parking lot?
16 A No, not at that time.
17 Q Okay. What happened next?
18 A A car came down Plank Road. It was a
19 four-car sedan -- sedan, it's four-door sedan, a
20 dark blue car. And they had a fence around the
21 whole front to protect the trees but --
22 Q Was it a temporary or permanent
23 fence?
24 A It was a temporary fence. And then
25 the -- they had the gates opened, and you could
00112
1 drive in. And during the day that's where they
2 would have the person collecting money sitting
3 there and where I had seen Chuck Snyder, Sr.
4 And then at -- they'd leave them open. And then
5 at night they would close them.
6 Q Where the gates open at the time
7 of the incident?
8 A But the gates were open at the time of
9 the incident.
10 Q Tell the jury what happened next.
11 A Okay. I was right in that area, like put
12 on -- yeah, but back, back a little further than
13 that. Closer to me. Yeah. I was in that area
14 getting these branches and --
15 Q So you directed me to shine the
16 laser on the side of the parking lot to the left
17 of the yellow bumpers but right near the wooden
18 fence; is that right?
19 A Yes.
20 Q Okay. That's where you were. Go
21 ahead.
22 A And there was a place they kept clear to
23 be able to drive in, to get wreaths off -- off
24 the trucks or, you know, a vehicle could go in
25 and out. And so the car -- I saw a car come
00113
1 down Plank Road. And right where we lived, as
2 you can see, it's an intersection, it's a corner
3 like that. And this is Plank Road. This is
4 Schopmann. And then there is -- and then that
5 street extends across. So it's basically cross
6 road.
7 And this car came down, and it like
8 squealed the tires and made a U-turn in that
9 rather big area. And it came up and turned.
10 And I knew it wasn't a police car. And that car
11 came -- came toward me and --
12 Q What rate of speed was it going as
13 it came towards you?
14 A I don't know exactly how fast it was
15 going. It was going way too fast for knowing
16 somebody is standing there in front of you. And
17 came right up to there and then slapped on the
18 brakes. Peter heard that. He heard the brakes
19 squeal. He was looking out. And there were two
20 guys in the front seat.
21 Q Were you doing -- did you have to
22 do anything as the car squealed to a stop?
23 A Yeah, I jumped out of the way.
24 Q Okay. Now, when you jumped out of
25 the way, if you hadn't jumped out of the way,
00114
1 would the car have made contact with you?
2 A Yeah.
3 MR. PARIS: Objection, Your Honor,
4 total speculation.
5 JUDGE CURRAN: Sustained.
6 BY MR. MULLIN:
7 Q Okay.
8 A Okay.
9 Q Let's put it this way. When --
10 when the car finally came to a stop, how far was
11 the nose of the car from your body?
12 A The car was inches away from me, but I
13 had gotten on the corner of it.
14 Q Were the headlights on?
15 A Yes, the headlights were on.
16 Q What happened next?
17 A I'm not sure when they came toward me how
18 close it came. It wasn't really -- okay. I
19 don't know.
20 Q What happened next?
21 A What happened next is that the man who --
22 I -- I knew the faces, what they looked like. I
23 didn't know their names. Chucky Snyder, Jr.,
24 the eldest son of Chucky Snyder, Sr. was driving
25 the car. Big guy. And he had the windows -- he
00115
1 was rolling down the windows. He said, "Who the
2 fuck are you, and what the fuck are you doing on
3 our parking lot?"
4 And I said, "I'm Tim." I said, "I live
5 in this house here. He this is our house."
6 And then I started getting defensive,
7 saying -- you know, I asked if it was okay and
8 everything because he said, "What are you taking
9 out of here? What are you taking property of
10 the Fire Department off the parking lot?"
11 And I said, "I am" -- "I'm just" -- you
12 know, I was saying, you know, this man told me I
13 could do it and I thought it was okay and
14 whatever. I said, "The ice cream" -- and he was
15 just very, very, very belligerent. He was very
16 angry. And I -- I said, "I will go back in the
17 house." And I said, "I will put" -- "I will
18 bring it back, if you want."
19 And he didn't say anything.
20 I said, "I will take it down, you
21 know."
22 He didn't say anything. All he said
23 was -- he said, "You're not wearing any shoes."
24 And I said, "I cannot decorate wearing
25 shoes."
00116
1 And he said, "You don't" -- then he
2 said, "You don't live here."
3 And I said, "Yeah, I live here in this
4 house. I live here. I can show you. I go in
5 there."
6 He said, "No, you don't live here; you
7 rent here. You live in Secaucus; you don't rent
8 in Secaucus." That's what he said. He is
9 nasty.
10 Q Did the car back away?
11 A Yeah.
12 Q By the way, did you know his name
13 was Chuck Snyder, Jr. at that time, or was that
14 something you learned later?
15 A No, I just knew what -- I knew what he
16 looked like, big guy, short blond hair.
17 Q Drawing your attention to August
18 or September 2003, do you recall any incidents
19 in connection with the firehouse?
20 A When am I now?
21 Q August or September 2003.
22 A Yeah, okay. In August and beginning, I'd
23 say, around August in 2003 we started getting
24 somebody ringing the doorbell. And I'd go to
25 the door, and there wouldn't be anybody there.
00117
1 And -- but I kept answering it all the time. It
2 made sense because Peter collects first edition
3 books from England. So we're constantly getting
4 these UPS deliveries.
5 So I -- after a while I started to
6 notice -- because it wouldn't happen every
7 week -- that the doorbell would ring around
8 12:30, maybe as late as 12:00 on Saturdays. And
9 then you might have a weekend it didn't happen.
10 But it kept going on. This went on and on. And
11 I can't tell you how many times. I'd say like
12 at least eight episodes of it.
13 So here, again, Christmas, the doorbell
14 rang about 12 or so. I went to the door. There
15 was no one there. And when -- if you -- as you
16 can imagine, looking on that front porch you
17 saw, you can see all the way down the street to
18 the side. You can see all the way down Plank
19 Road to the front. You can see all the way that
20 way. You know, you have three views.
21 So what became weird was who is doing
22 this because that's where the people live, you
23 know, and I -- there was no reason anybody would
24 be doing it. I assumed it was just kids playing
25 pranks like anonymously. But I could never
00118
1 catch them, you know. They'd always run away
2 too fast or get away too fast.
3 And then I thought this must be coming
4 from the firehouse because that is the only
5 place they could go that I wouldn't be able
6 to -- to see. And -- and Peter didn't believe
7 that they would do that. He sort of dismissed
8 it, but he -- I thought I don't know who else.
9 And surely a kid can't run that fast, nobody.
10 So what happened is on that particular
11 Saturday in December the -- they did it twice.
12 That's where they got messed up, because I went
13 downstairs and was working at my computer. And
14 the doorbell rang. But being closer and also
15 wanting to see something for myself, instead of
16 running all the way over to the living room to
17 open that front door, I just simply ran right up
18 the steps and looked out the -- the middle
19 windows that I described as where the breakfast
20 nooch -- or niche, whatever, is.
21 And I looked out and, Ladies and
22 Gentlemen, Chuck Snyder, Jr. -- Senior, I'm
23 sorry, Senior, who was here this morning, was
24 running, sprinting as fast as he could go. And
25 I saw the blond hair. I saw him laugh, you
00119
1 know, smile, big smile. He was wearing a blue
2 T-shirt. He was wearing little shorts, blue
3 shorts. And he -- he was running.
4 And all on Saturdays they would polish
5 the fire engines and stuff. They'd hang out and
6 polish the fire engines. And the door was up;
7 the gate was up on the firehouse. And they
8 stand outside there and smoke.
9 And so there were two firemen I saw at
10 the corner like waiting for him. And then I
11 pushed up the window. And they got up here, and
12 they all started laughing. And I knew that he,
13 the captain, was the one doing -- ringing our
14 doorbell.
15 Q For the record, when you looked --
16 which window were you looking at when you
17 spotted Chuck Snyder, Sr.?
18 A That window right in the middle. You see
19 there are two windows. They should see that, I
20 guess. No, here you go.
21 Q This has the windows.
22 A All right.
23 Q I will show you.
24 A There is a better view of it.
25 Q 163A.
00120
1 A Right to the side -- see those twin air
2 conditioners? Right in the middle there.
3 Q That window?
4 A Yes.
5 Q Middle set of windows?
6 A Yes.
7 Q What area is that, again, for the
8 record?
9 A That's the area that would be sort of the
10 breakfast niche.
11 Q And when you looked out, you saw
12 Chuck Snyder, Jr. -- Senior, excuse me, running
13 in which direction?
14 A He is running toward that corner of the
15 building. I can show you right there. You
16 can't see it on here.
17 Q You think this is better?
18 A Yes, it is much better.
19 Q Hang on. I will give it -- I
20 think we're up to E.
21 (Whereupon, photo board, Bates
22 stamped 0000971 is received and marked as
23 Plaintiff's Exhibit P-163E for
24 Identification.)
25 Q I will show you P-163E, which is
00121
1 Bates stamp number 971. And first of all,
2 because this hasn't been mentioned before, tell
3 the jury, even though it's obvious, what we're
4 looking at.
5 A You're looking at Plank Road going down
6 toward the river.
7 Q That's your house over there?
8 A That is our house there.
9 Q And here is the front --
10 A There is --
11 Q -- engine door of the firehouse;
12 is that right?
13 A Yep.
14 Q So you were looking out of these
15 double windows?
16 A Yes.
17 Q And where along here was Chuck
18 Snyder, Sr.?
19 A Chuck Snyder -- keep moving it forward.
20 Little. Little. Little -- about there.
21 Chuck Snyder, I had -- I was just down
22 the steps and, you know -- half set of steps,
23 ran up, looked out the window; and I caught him
24 running from the house. He had rung the bell.
25 And he had two of his --
00122
1 Q Is this where he ran to?
2 A Yeah.
3 Q And he had run from where?
4 A He was running from the front porch,
5 around the front.
6 Q Along this route?
7 A Yes.
8 Q You said there were other firemen
9 over here?
10 A Yes, they were smoking; and they were
11 there sort of like meeting him. You know, they
12 were all laughing. And I saw it. And --
13 Q Now --
14 A And --
15 Q Go ahead.
16 A And that was the first time I come up
17 with this dilemma because we were intimidated by
18 these people and worried about them throwing
19 something over the fence to the dogs. I was
20 obsessed with it; they are like our children.
21 So I went out. I wanted to send a
22 message that I knew who they were without
23 confronting them. So I simply went out and --
24 into the yard behind that -- that Lincoln Log
25 fence and I just looked around like very
00123
1 puzzledly and then I looked at the firehouse.
2 And I knew they were watching, you know. And I
3 thought that would -- that was a way of sort of
4 letting them know I was suspicious of it or
5 something without actually saying, "You did
6 this."
7 Q You just told the jury you were
8 intimidated by these firemen. Had you or Peter
9 ever walked by the firehouse when the firemen
10 were out there?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Had you ever noticed any --
13 anything about their demeanor or anything
14 that -- that was causing you what you call this
15 "intimidation"?
16 A Okay. I think this is important because
17 when we first went there, the firemen were all
18 middle-aged men, 40s, maybe 50s, whatever. And
19 they were not friendly or warm.
20 MR. PARIS: Your Honor, I hate to
21 interrupt in the middle of an answer; but
22 this -- this is not responsive to the question.
23 The question was about walking in front of a
24 firehouse. And now we are hearing about the
25 history of the Fire Department.
00124
1 THE WITNESS: That is not the
2 history of the Fire Department.
3 JUDGE CURRAN: Hold on one second.
4 Mr. Mullin.
5 MR. MULLIN: I think, Your Honor,
6 he is trying to talk about two different ways of
7 firemen when he was living there. He is
8 answering my question, their demeanor toward
9 them as he and Peter walk by them.
10 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. I would
11 appreciate if you would rephrase or ask a more
12 specific question.
13 MR. MULLIN: I will be more
14 specific.
15 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
16 BY MR. MULLIN:
17 Q I want to focus your attention,
18 Tim, on as you and Peter walked by the firehouse
19 did you ever --
20 A Yes.
21 Q -- notice anything about the
22 firemen's demeanor that suggested anything --
23 A At this --
24 Q -- that was of concern?
25 A At this time --
00125
1 Q At which time?
2 A At the time of the bell ringing.
3 Q Which was when? Remind the jury.
4 A August of 2003 --
5 Q Okay.
6 A -- beginning. The older, the more mature
7 gentlemen were not -- didn't speak to us or say
8 anything. They weren't -- they just sort of
9 ignored us. They were not friendly, but they
10 were not overtly hostile.
11 Q How about -- did something change?
12 A Something changed.
13 Q Tell the jury.
14 A In April of 2003 they recruited a group
15 of about 15 young men, and the Town recruited
16 them. And they were -- some of them almost like
17 just out of high school, up until -- most of
18 them in their young 20s, some a little older.
19 They were overtly hostile. They were openly
20 hostile toward me. And that was the change.
21 While the older men tended just to like not look
22 at you, turn their back, whatever, but not say
23 anything, these guys were -- they would glare at
24 me. And I was starting to get nervous about it.
25 And I would ask them questions now and again to
00126
1 try to read or whatever, and then they would be
2 hostile.
3 Q Okay. Did you notice during --
4 again, any time after this young crew came in --
5 and I'm taking you right up through the fall of
6 '03 -- did you notice any unusual activity in
7 the firehouse parking lot, especially during the
8 evenings?
9 A Yes, they -- they were teaching them how
10 to break windows of a car; and so they -- they
11 spent a lot of time around there with this old
12 junked car with no tires on it on cinder blocks,
13 which they put right by our house.
14 Q Let me refocus you. Did you ever
15 see the firemen in the company of women in the
16 parking lot?
17 A I did.
18 Q Would you tell the jury about
19 that?
20 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Paris.
21 MR. PARIS: I'm sorry, I will
22 withdraw my objection.
23 BY MR. MULLIN:
24 Q Would you tell the jury about what
25 you observed?
00127
1 A Okay. They were gathering in the -- in
2 the police station, these younger firemen,
3 practically every night, every work -- every
4 week night. They would come about 1:30 in the
5 morning. And there was a group of them. One --
6 one I took the license plate number of, and it
7 checked out. And I -- they would have -- they
8 would -- they would talk, laugh, joke and stand
9 around; and they would -- they were women that
10 they had there. The first time I noticed it was
11 in November.
12 Q November of what year?
13 A 2003. And this was very, very obvious
14 because what happened was I was at that same
15 middle window when I heard -- I heard commotion.
16 And there was a -- one of the firemen in his
17 car, but he had a woman in the car with him.
18 And his girlfriend, spouse, marriage, I don't
19 know, was there with her sister. And they
20 opened the door and got the woman out. And they
21 just all got into a fight. But the two women
22 who had come together were getting the better of
23 it. And the reason I knew it was his sister was
24 because one -- she said, "She's my sister. You
25 don't" -- "you know, I don't" -- whatever, "We
00128
1 don't want you" -- "You don't belong with him"
2 or something like that. It was just -- and I
3 watched this thing happen.
4 Q Did you ever observe any of the
5 firemen having sex with any women in the cars?
6 A I did for sure once.
7 Q Okay.
8 A I -- see, we could look -- it was like
9 looking down, you know, if you wanted to. And I
10 would sometimes see -- usually you could see two
11 cigarettes in the front seat. And that's
12 when -- and so I looked and I saw the back of
13 this woman's hair. She had blond hair. And it
14 was like all teased and everything. And I could
15 look down there. I was in -- I was at the
16 window at the kitchen, the last window. And
17 I -- I looked and I thought, What is that? That
18 looks like an animal or something, like, you
19 know, a dog running around. And then I saw her
20 head going up and down.
21 Q Upward and down movement?
22 Indicating as if she was engaged in what
23 activity?
24 A Oral sex perhaps.
25 Q Okay. Drawing your attention to
00129
1 January, February 2004, did any incidents happen
2 in connection with the firehouse?
3 A Yes, we -- well, Peter wasn't well enough
4 to shovel snow; and it was a lot of snow. It
5 was a very cold winter. This is January,
6 February 2004. And I started finding condoms
7 and condom boxes. And because of the snow,
8 sometimes the boxes would come apart and I'd
9 find pieces of them.
10 They were always the same. There is
11 two different color blue Trojan boxes. It was
12 like an individual serving, but whatever,
13 individual condom like that in a box this big.
14 Like -- like that big. And the condom would be
15 inside, used sometimes. Sometimes I just found
16 the lid that was pulled off of it. Sometimes I
17 would find just the condom. And they were
18 getting separated because the snow kept falling
19 and melting and then the boxes would get wet.
20 Q Where did you find -- where did
21 you start finding these condoms? Show you
22 what's been marked as P-163D, and I will ask the
23 question again. Where did you find the condoms
24 in January, February '04 that you just mentioned
25 to the jury?
00130
1 A Two places.
2 Q First of all, for the record, what
3 are we looking at in this blown up photograph?
4 A We are looking at the back deck again.
5 Q This is your house, your back
6 deck?
7 A This is the house. If you can see in
8 that back corner, you would have the double
9 Dutch doors that come out over here.
10 Q By the way, was there a light that
11 you could turn on at night?
12 A There was a light I could turn on at
13 night.
14 Q And this is the fence that
15 separates your porch from the firehouse parking
16 lot?
17 A Yes.
18 Q And this section up here, this
19 triangular section at the top of the fence
20 that's white, that's blocked off; is that right?
21 A Yes.
22 Q Okay. Go ahead and tell the jury.
23 A There is actually space between these
24 trees go right out to the deck.
25 Q Where did you find the condoms in
00131
1 January, February 2004?
2 A Okay. I found the condoms around this
3 area on the porch. And I -- and particularly
4 like if they were intact and so forth. And I
5 found a bunch of them -- I would -- when it
6 snowed so much, I would burrow the snow over to
7 the side, just right dropped down off of here.
8 And a lot of times I was finding boxes that --
9 you know, that had been sort of like gotten wet
10 and that -- two places.
11 Q Okay. Now, you said -- you
12 identified a car. What -- in connection with
13 what?
14 A Well, it's easy to identify. It's a car
15 that looks like -- I'm not good at cars. Looks
16 like, sorry, a Stingray or something, you know,
17 real low sports car. It was black, and it was
18 stenciled all over in a design.
19 Q You identified that car as doing
20 what or being where?
21 A It was always there.
22 Q Always where?
23 A It was always outside in the same spot,
24 the parking space that was right below the
25 kitchen window.
00132
1 Q Did you ever see that car in
2 connection with any of these condoms ending up
3 on the deck?
4 A Yes.
5 Q Okay. You can take a seat again.
6 Can you tell the jury about that?
7 A Okay. Near the end of February --
8 Q 2004?
9 A 2004. This is the coldest night, very
10 cold. And I went out to take out Peter's puppy.
11 It was 5 a.m. in the morning. It's still dark.
12 And I saw that car was parked there. And I saw,
13 again, cigarettes in the front seat. That's
14 what always caught my attention to it, someone
15 was in the car. And I look over and saw there
16 were two people in this car. Man, a woman,
17 that's all I knew. I could look right down in.
18 I came out to take the puppy out. His
19 scatters, and so I cut the light on on the
20 porch. And that's important because I cut the
21 light on for that dog because he was just a
22 puppy. The other mature dog I didn't worry
23 about. I had to make sure he went all the way
24 off the deck.
25 Q Let me ask you this question.
00133
1 When you turned on the light on your porch, do
2 you know, if you were standing on the other side
3 of that fence in the firehouse parking lot,
4 could you see that the light --
5 A Yeah.
6 Q -- had come on?
7 A Of course.
8 Q Okay. Continue with what you were
9 saying.
10 A Okay. So that -- so I cut that light on.
11 And when the puppy came back, I let him back in.
12 And a couple of minutes later, of course, the
13 other dog starts whining he has to go out. He
14 was a big, big dog and older. And so I let him
15 out, but I didn't cut on the light again because
16 he knows what to do -- he knew what to do. So
17 he -- he ran down those steps to the backyard.
18 And I -- and when I walked out there
19 and he -- he ran down the steps. And I stepped
20 on something, which I had just been out there a
21 couple minutes earlier and there -- there was
22 nothing on the deck because I had the light on.
23 But I didn't have on the light.
24 So I picked this thing up, and I -- I
25 thought, What is this? And I went into the --
00134
1 to the door that leads into the kitchen, that
2 corner door; and I held it like inside the
3 kitchen to the light to see like what is this?
4 And I stepped on it. So it was a -- a Trojans
5 box. And they had pulled the side off of it.
6 And I don't know you call it the -- the top was
7 like stuffed in the box, but they had the bottom
8 of it swinging out. And it was full of semen.
9 And it was the coldest, coldest, coldest night;
10 and this thing was just like -- it was just
11 there, you know.
12 Q Was it frozen?
13 A Not at all. And so --
14 Q Now, did you ever get -- you
15 mentioned -- did you ever get the license plate
16 of that --
17 A Yes, I did.
18 Q -- car?
19 A So that time --
20 Q Did you ever give that license
21 plate to the Secaucus Police --
22 A Yes, I did.
23 Q -- to run down?
24 A I took down --
25 Q Let me show you what's been marked
00135
1 as Plaintiff's Exhibit 239. Draw your attention
2 to the last paragraph of it.
3 A Later in the evening while --
4 Q Hang on a second. Is that -- does
5 that police report accurately reflect the
6 information you gave the Secaucus Police about
7 the license plate of that car? What license
8 plate did you give them?
9 A BMW 325.
10 Q And did the -- does that police
11 report indicate whether they figured out whose
12 car that was?
13 A Yes, it belonged to Robert A. Kickey of
14 25 Arn Terrace, Secaucus, New Jersey.
15 Q Okay.
16 A Our councilman.
17 Q You said a Secaucus Town
18 Councilman?
19 A He was our -- Ward 3.
20 Q And do you know if anybody named
21 Kickey also worked as a firemen in the
22 firehouse?
23 A There is his son, Bobby, Jr.
24 MR. MULLIN: All right. Your
25 Honor, can we go sidebar for a second?
00136
1 JUDGE CURRAN: Sure.
2 (Whereupon, the following sidebar
3 discussion is held.)
4 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, I notice
5 it's almost 12. So I thought this might be a
6 good place to break for lunch. Don't want to
7 exhaust the witness. I think the jury is
8 getting a little restless.
9 JUDGE CURRAN: Sorry, Tracey, we
10 could have gone off the record.
11 Mr. Paris?
12 MR. PARIS: Can I just ask how
13 much longer direct might be? Do you have some
14 idea?
15 MR. MULLIN: Pretty quick, and
16 it's going fast.
17 MS. SMITH: Two hours?
18 MR. MULLIN: Maybe two hours,
19 hour-and-a-half?
20 MR. PARIS: Okay. Just want to
21 try to get some idea.
22 MR. BEVERE: Judge, 1:30?
23 (Whereupon, sidebar discussion is
24 concluded.)
25 JUDGE CURRAN: Ladies and
00137
1 Gentlemen, we are going to take a lunch break.
2 You've been in the jury box for a while. And I
3 know it's difficult sometimes to sit there too
4 long. So we will go off the record. You will
5 be excused for lunch. We would ask that you
6 come back at 1:30 and check in with Miss Hawks.
7 Thank you.
8 (Whereupon, the jury is excused
9 for lunch.)
10 (Whereupon, a luncheon recess is
11 taken.)
12 A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N
13 COURT CLERK: On the record.
14 MR. MULLIN: Judge, this is an in
15 limine issue we grappled with. The Court
16 noticed I have been circumspect in my opening,
17 and now it's approaching some testimony.
18 Certainly told the jury there was DPW,
19 Department of Public Works, Secaucus truck
20 parked outside and that he saw someone come out.
21 And you heard me ask Mr. Snyder about that too.
22 I stayed away from the incident
23 five days later, when he found bloody rags.
24 Plaintiffs Exhibit 61 is the Jersey City Police
25 report recording all these events, including the
00138
1 bloody tissues.
2 Then Your Honor asked me, well,
3 when was this given to the Town? I reported to
4 you yesterday my client caused it to be given to
5 Secaucus in this litigation in February of
6 '05 -- excuse me, I apologize, June, '05. And
7 my client will testify that there was never a
8 Secaucus investigation that he is aware of into
9 whether or not Mr. Snyder was engaged in this
10 because no one ever came to him. No one ever
11 asked him what he saw. No one from Secaucus
12 Fire Department ever came to him.
13 So he would have to talk about
14 finding these bloody tissues, and I didn't want
15 to do that without a very clear in limine ruling
16 from Your Honor. So that's what I'm putting on
17 the table now.
18 JUDGE CURRAN: But you are just
19 going to ask him basically the questions that
20 you outlined so far? You're not --
21 MR. MULLIN: I was going to ask
22 him, "Then what happened five days later?"
23 Say, "I opened the door and found
24 bloody tissues there."
25 I am not going to ask him to
00139
1 speculate. Saw the truck five days later.
2 Treat it as a bias crime. Got the report. Gave
3 it to Secaucus. Never heard of an
4 investigation.
5 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Paris.
6 MR. PARIS: Your Honor, the issue
7 with regard to a DPW truck was one thing; and we
8 didn't object to that at the time that that was
9 being dealt with. But now to imply that
10 somebody from Secaucus was leaving bloody
11 tissues or rags or whatever and that somehow
12 Secaucus had an obligation to investigate a
13 Jersey City incident that occurred after they
14 had left Town, it is -- is -- number one, it's
15 irrelevant. Number two, it's highly
16 speculative. Number three, Secaucus didn't have
17 a police duty to investigate an incident in
18 Jersey City.
19 And number four, it's
20 prejudicial. To say that I found bloody rags
21 and then nothing else happens again, nothing
22 else ever happens again, nobody comes to --
23 Jersey City doesn't tie it in. Apparently, they
24 did, I believe, DNA sampling or some sort of
25 sampling on the tissues or whatever; and nothing
00140
1 ever comes back to Secaucus from Jersey City.
2 I think it's just -- it's so --
3 the incident, itself, is so speculative, so
4 remote that it's really -- it would be
5 outlandish to tell a jury about it without
6 something that ties it to Secaucus.
7 MR. MULLIN: In fact -- I'm sorry.
8 JUDGE CURRAN: I'm sorry.
9 MR. PARIS: Excuse me. My
10 understanding is Mr. Carter was mugged in Jersey
11 City at some point in time. He had his car
12 broken into in Jersey City at some point in
13 time. You know, these things happen to him.
14 The bloody rags. You know, nobody wrote, "El
15 Homo" in shave cream on the door of his
16 apartment. Nobody wrote in blood on his -- on
17 the walls of his building where supposedly, you
18 know, everyone knew where he lived.
19 You know, these would be -- you
20 know, maybe there would be some consistency
21 between what happened in Secaucus, now it's
22 happening in Jersey City. But, you know,
23 even -- it's so remote and it's so speculative
24 and to imply that somehow Secaucus is
25 responsible for that.
00141
1 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, one of
2 the burdens I have in this case is to show
3 deliberate indifference. And one way an entity
4 can be deliberately indifferent is by failing to
5 investigate. And as I said before, under the
6 law in New Jersey an entity like a Town or a
7 company has a duty to investigate -- reasonably
8 investigate harassment. The failure to
9 investigate, the complete failure to investigate
10 is evidence of deliberate indifference.
11 So here we have a DPW truck that
12 has no business being in Jersey City parked in
13 front of my clients' house and someone gets out
14 and walks into the house. And then, five days
15 later, my client finds these bloody rags in
16 front, after this whole history of these violent
17 threats and intimidation.
18 And then we pass this document on
19 to Secaucus through the auspices of Mr. Bevere,
20 and there is never an investigation by the Town
21 as to whether -- and we have the added fact that
22 Mr. Snyder, Sr. is a foreman at DPW and controls
23 these trucks.
24 So I can't -- I can't prove
25 beyond a shadow of a doubt the DPW people left
00142
1 the bloody rags as a threat; but I can prove
2 that they didn't investigate in the face of
3 something that looks pretty serious, that looks
4 to be part of a continuation of the harassment
5 my client -- client experienced in Secaucus.
6 That, seems to me, is relevant to deliberate
7 indifference.
8 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Paris.
9 MR. PARIS: Just one other thing I
10 want to add and I will rest on the prior
11 argument because there is nothing that Mr.
12 Mullin said that negates it. But here they
13 provide discovery in litigation to litigation
14 counsel, and somehow that's being equated to
15 some legal duty to undertake a police
16 investigation of some bloody rags or towels that
17 were found in another municipality. To say that
18 somehow that creates an obligation to
19 investigate, it -- I don't know what the
20 authority for that is, but --
21 JUDGE CURRAN: Well, I thought
22 that part of the plaintiffs' argument was the
23 timing, as far as the Grand Jury proceedings,
24 versus when the Town was notified of this as to
25 whether or not the Town had -- because part of
00143
1 the argument yesterday was, well, during the
2 Grand Jury proceedings the Town did not have
3 jurisdiction. And that's without question. But
4 then I thought this issue was raised; and I
5 thought that part of the reason that the
6 plaintiff was seeking to have these questions
7 asked was because of the end of the Grand Jury
8 proceedings, which would then -- you can argue
9 whether it did or didn't -- create a
10 responsibility to argue. I think there is some
11 strong argument, honestly, that it was certainly
12 more than allowable. There was nothing that
13 would prevent an investigation, if the Town
14 wanted to do it.
15 MR. PARIS: But Your Honor, this
16 occurred -- this -- this is provided to us in
17 the context of litigation. Jersey City is in
18 the middle of a criminal investigation on the
19 matter. No one, apparently, is -- is determined
20 to have done that. Mr. Carter and
21 Mr. deVries -- I don't have the Jersey City
22 report in front of me, so I am a little
23 reluctant --
24 MR. MULLIN: It's right here.
25 MR. PARIS: -- to say anything --
00144
1 MR. MULLIN: We have it in your
2 books.
3 MR. PARIS: Okay. But I have got
4 to believe they told the Jersey City authorities
5 that there was -- that they thought there was a
6 connection to Secaucus.
7 JUDGE CURRAN: No, I don't think
8 there is any question about that, that that was
9 all put on the record yesterday.
10 MR. PARIS: But to now say because
11 they found bloody rags in the hallway of an
12 apartment building in Jersey City months later,
13 I -- I just -- it's so remote and it's so
14 prejudicial to imply that somehow that the Town
15 was responsible for that, responsible for the
16 people who did it, responsible to investigate
17 this incident after they had moved out of Town
18 and -- and that was -- and it was being handled
19 by another municipality. I just think that
20 the -- the prejudice that that delivers, you
21 know, and puts upon the Town seriously outweighs
22 the speculative nature of the incident, itself.
23 MR. MULLIN: Judge, I wasn't
24 allowed to talk directly to the Town of Secaucus
25 when I got this. There is only one way I can
00145
1 talk to the Town of Secaucus, and that's by
2 talking to these lawyers. I gave it to these
3 lawyers, and I put the Town of Secaucus on
4 notice when I went further and amended the
5 complaint to state this allegation as -- as
6 against the Town. That's all I can do to put
7 them on notice. I can't pick up the phone and
8 call Mr. Leanza; not allowed under the rules.
9 Should they have investigated?
10 Of course they should have investigated. They
11 come in and say they had some reason for not
12 investigating? Sure, they can come in and say
13 they had some reason for not investigating. And
14 I'll cross-examine that. They could have,
15 should have investigated.
16 This is pretty serious stuff.
17 What is a Secaucus truck doing at my clients'
18 house? Not enough they drove them out of the
19 Town; now they are following them out of
20 Secaucus to Jersey City. And five days after
21 this incident we have bloody rags -- bloody
22 tissues, rather, left at the door. I think
23 there was -- there is -- there is a reason that
24 it should be -- there is a reason it should have
25 been investigated. This is in our complaint.
00146
1 We have incorporated the allegations about
2 Jersey City in our complaint. The State
3 Constitutional claims incorporate all the
4 factual allegations in the complaint. This
5 hasn't been dismissed from our case.
6 So, yeah, they should have
7 investigated. This is pretty serious stuff.
8 And it's consistent with a gang threatening to
9 kill my clients. And now -- you know, if the
10 Jersey City -- if -- I would say this. If a
11 Secaucus truck had never been there and the man
12 got out of the truck and went into my clients'
13 vestibule, I'd say I don't have much to work
14 with. I think that's a shocking fact. That's
15 an extraordinary fact. He had no business being
16 in Jersey City, much less being at my clients'
17 apartment building and going inside. That's --
18 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Mullin, my
19 concern is you can't say any of that. You can't
20 say they had no business being there. You can't
21 say --
22 MR. MULLIN: No, I'm not saying
23 that. I'm not saying the opening; I'm not
24 saying the closing. I am just laying out some
25 very simple facts, and the fact they didn't
00147
1 have -- I'm not going to say, my clients, had no
2 business being there. He will say he observed
3 the truck. He was frightened. He observed the
4 truck. He watched it. Five days later he finds
5 these bloody tissues and called the Jersey City
6 Police. He got a police report on it, and he
7 sent it to these lawyers. He sent it to
8 Secaucus. And he did that in June '08. And
9 that's it.
10 Even in the closing I'm not going
11 to go beyond those simple facts but except to
12 argue this shows deliberate indifference.
13 Should they have investigated this? Of course
14 they should have investigated this.
15 JUDGE CURRAN: Well, basically, my
16 finding is this part of a pattern. If this were
17 an isolated incident or if this was one of maybe
18 four incidents totally, I think that would be
19 different because maybe two incidents took place
20 in Secaucus and these two did not.
21 I find, certainly, that it is
22 prejudicial. That's the nature of evidence.
23 But it's not unduly prejudicial to ask the basic
24 questions that were asked here. This is in the
25 amended complaint, therefore, certainly the Town
00148
1 was on notice.
2 What I am going to ask, Mr.
3 Mullin, is because I find that -- and I've seen
4 both in papers and heard both here, bloody rags,
5 bloody tissues. Whatever we're calling them, I
6 am going to ask that you ask your question --
7 your client a yes or no question. And use
8 whatever word you're comfortable with, something
9 like debris, litter. Don't say, "bloody," if
10 you will, please because that is certainly very
11 prejudicial.
12 MR. MULLIN: Well --
13 JUDGE CURRAN: And I think it
14 would be too speculative for the jury to have to
15 make an evaluation of that. So you can use
16 whatever term.
17 MR. MULLIN: So I can't use the
18 fact that the tissues were bloody? You want me
19 to just characterize it as some garbage left in
20 front?
21 JUDGE CURRAN: However you want to
22 characterize it, as long as you don't use the
23 word "bloody." I don't care if you use "rags."
24 I don't care if you use "tissue," "debris,"
25 whatever.
00149
1 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, I'll -- I
2 hope I can take an exception to that.
3 JUDGE CURRAN: You absolutely --
4 it's noted on the record.
5 MR. MULLIN: I will instruct my
6 client that I will use the term that you found
7 garbage, refuse left in front of the door.
8 Okay?
9 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
10 Bring out the jury, please.
11 And the objection of the Town,
12 obviously, is preserved on the record.
13 MR. BEVERE: Thank you, Your
14 Honor.
15 MR. PARIS: Thank you, Your Honor.
16 MS. HAWKS: Jurors are
17 approaching.
18 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
19 (Whereupon, the jury is brought
20 into the courtroom.)
21 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you, Ladies
22 and Gentlemen. We appreciate your being back on
23 time.
24 Will the witness please resume
25 the witness stand.
00150
1 Sir, I am required to remind you
2 that you are still under oath.
3 THE WITNESS: Okay.
4 JUDGE CURRAN: Okay. Thank you,
5 sir.
6 Mr. Mullin.
7 MR. MULLIN: Thank you, Your
8 Honor.
9 BY MR. MULLIN:
10 Q Tim, we left off we were talking
11 about the condoms you found on the back porch.
12 Now I am going to ask you did you complain about
13 finding these condoms to the Town of Secaucus?
14 A Yes, I did.
15 Q All right. Would you turn to the
16 jury and explain what you did in that regard?
17 A Well, we were trying to avoid, you know,
18 any kind of direct confrontation. I called the
19 municipal building, the Township municipal
20 building on Plank Road of Secaucus. And I asked
21 to get in touch with the Chief of the Fire
22 Department.
23 MR. BEVERE: Your Honor, if you
24 don't mind, I'm having a tough time hearing
25 Mr. Carter. If I could stand by the end of
00151
1 the --
2 JUDGE CURRAN: Sure, absolutely.
3 MS. SMITH: You can hold the
4 microphone closer.
5 BY MR. MULLIN:
6 Q Is there an amplifying mike there?
7 A I don't think --
8 JUDGE CURRAN: That's supposed to
9 amplify. It doesn't amplify very well.
10 Miss Castelli, do you have any --
11 THE WITNESS: Do you want me to
12 lift my voice?
13 JUDGE CURRAN: Sure, if you can
14 raise your voice.
15 THE WITNESS: Okay.
16 BY MR. MULLIN:
17 Q Try to keep your voice up, Tim.
18 A All right. I -- I -- I contacted the
19 municipal building.
20 Q How did you contact them; by
21 phone?
22 A By phone. I looked up on the internet,
23 and I called a number that was listed for the
24 Fire Chief in the municipal building. I called
25 that number; and it was answered, I gather, by
00152
1 one of the general receptionists for the Town.
2 Q Okay. Keep going.
3 A I told her that I needed to speak to the
4 Fire Chief. And she said, "Can you tell me what
5 this is about?"
6 And I said, "Well, it's a sensitive
7 matter. And I" -- "I wish I could keep it
8 privileged."
9 And she said, "Well, if you can just
10 give me a hint."
11 And, indeed, I -- I -- I wanted to
12 speak directly with the Chief because I was
13 hoping that they could be spoken to; but it
14 would avoid direct confrontation with them by
15 going another way.
16 And so she said, "Wait a minute." She
17 says, "I" -- "I have to talk to somebody."
18 So I heard her having a conversation
19 with another woman. And she came back on the
20 phone and she says, "I'm going to transfer this
21 call to someone who can help you." She said,
22 "She can get you to the right people."
23 And so the -- the phone was
24 transferred. And it was answered, "Department
25 of Public Works."
00153
1 And I said, "I'm sorry, I don't want
2 the Department of Public Works." I said, "I" --
3 "I need to speak to the Fire Chief."
4 And she said, "Well, the Fire Chief is
5 in and out a lot; and you know, he is hard to
6 get" and so forth.
7 And so I said -- and -- and I said,
8 "Well, does he have a secretary or someone?"
9 She said, "He doesn't have an office."
10 So I said, "Well, does he have a voice
11 mail?"
12 And she said, "No, he doesn't have a
13 voice mail."
14 And I said, "Well, the number that I
15 called was" -- "was the number that's on the" --
16 "the Town web."
17 And she said, "Well, he doesn't have a
18 voice mail. Maybe he did and he doesn't
19 anymore. But we can help you. We are the
20 people who can help you." She said, "The man
21 who is in charge of that happens to work in this
22 department."
23 And I said, "Is this a Fire Chief?"
24 She said, "No, but he can help you."
25 And I -- you know, I said, "I
00154
1 really" -- I kept saying that.
2 And she said, "Believe me" -- she was
3 very reassuring -- "he can help you."
4 Because at that point they had kept
5 asking me what it was about, so I gave them a
6 general idea. She said, "I heard about that. I
7 think that is so disgusting."
8 MR. PARIS: Objection, Your Honor.
9 JUDGE CURRAN: It will be on the
10 record.
11 THE WITNESS: What happened?
12 JUDGE CURRAN: That's okay.
13 BY MR. MULLIN:
14 Q Keep going.
15 A And she was very, very nice. So I
16 thought, okay, whatever. And so they switched
17 me to someone -- a man who answers the phone.
18 And this was Charles Snyder, Sr.
19 Q How do you know he is Charles
20 Snyder, Sr.? Did he say that?
21 A He identified himself. And so it -- I
22 think that maybe she had told me it was him too.
23 And so I started talking to him, and I told him
24 what was happening.
25 Q What did you tell him in that
00155
1 regard?
2 A I just told him what I told them. I told
3 him that -- that this had been going on, we were
4 finding these condoms and condom boxes on our
5 property and -- and that there were -- and
6 that -- that very detailed account of having
7 gone out and -- on the deck at 5 in the morning
8 for a second time and having stepped upon a
9 fresh box with a condom in it. I step --
10 Q Did you indicate to him you
11 thought firemen were throwing these condoms?
12 A I told him the firemen were doing it. He
13 never even questioned it. I told him because --
14 I said they did it because I told him what the
15 car looked like. I had the license plate
16 number. It was a decal, black Stingray. And I
17 said -- and I explained the circumstances.
18 I said, "You know, where else did it
19 come from, you know, five minutes, three
20 minutes, whatever, apart?" And I said, "They do
21 it, and they're out there having sex in the
22 cars." Peter had seen it once. I had seen it.
23 And -- and we'd seen that fight. And he -- I
24 just said, "This is what's going on."
25 And so he said -- he said -- when I
00156
1 brought up the part about the dogs, letting the
2 dogs out, he said, "Yes, I know that you have
3 dogs." And he said, "When we're having cookouts
4 in the summer," he said, "your dogs, I can" --
5 "they get smelly, and we can smell them."
6 That's what he told me.
7 I said, "This is the first I've ever
8 heard of it." And I said, you know, "Why are
9 you telling me this now?"
10 And he said, "Well, we do."
11 And so I said, "Well, then you can make
12 a complaint about the dogs being smelly. I'm
13 making a complaint to you about these condoms."
14 And I said, "Are you telling me that you have
15 the hutzpa to complain about dogs suddenly being
16 smelly in the summer when you're having your
17 barbecues and I am getting your firemen out in
18 the parking lot having sex with women in the
19 parking lot and then, in this particular case,
20 tossing that onto my deck? And I stepped on
21 this warm, wet condom filled with semen that's
22 been in somebody else is so disgusting and" --
23 and I said, "I" -- "you know what, are you the
24 Fire Chief? Is that your title?"
25 He said, "I am the captain, and I am
00157
1 over that house."
2 And I said, "You're not the Fire
3 Chief?"
4 And he said, "I am the captain. This
5 is my responsibility. The buck stops with me."
6 So I said, "Well, I'm not happy with
7 the way you're receiving this information." And
8 I said, "I want to talk to the Fire Chief." And
9 I -- I said, "I'm just going to ring off," you
10 know. And I hung up. And that's basically what
11 happened.
12 Q Okay. Thank you. So you told him
13 you wanted to talk to the Fire Chief. Did the
14 Fire Chief ever call you --
15 A No.
16 Q -- after that phone call? Mr.
17 Bevere in his opening to this jury referred to
18 some investigation he says was done by Deputy
19 Chief Ciecuch. Now, did Deputy Chief Ciecuch
20 ever call you, come to your house and ask you
21 what's going on and take down some information
22 from you?
23 A No, he did not.
24 Q Fire Chief Walters claims that
25 there was an investigation where they tried to
00158
1 see if condoms couldn't be thrown from the
2 second floor of the firehouse building and could
3 make it through, with the wind at 5 miles an
4 hour, to your porch. Did you ever make an
5 allegation that condoms were being thrown out of
6 the second floor window of the firehouse and
7 being blown onto your porch?
8 A They were throwing them for an experiment
9 you mean?
10 Q I'm asking you did you ever
11 claim --
12 A No.
13 Q -- that the firemen --
14 A No.
15 Q -- were throwing them --
16 A No.
17 Q -- from the second floor building?
18 A No, I knew what they did.
19 Q So the Fire Chief, he never
20 contacted you about this?
21 A No.
22 Q The deputy chief never contacted
23 you about this?
24 A No.
25 Q Did the Town Administrator, in
00159
1 charge of equal employment compliance, Mr.
2 Iacono, ever contact you about this?
3 A No.
4 Q In that conversation, when did you
5 say it was? Like late February '04, was that
6 your testimony?
7 A I think that -- I think when it happened
8 it was very late February. But I know it was a
9 bad snow and then it was -- I waited a week
10 before I -- trying to think out how to handle
11 this before I called Snyder. And it was by then
12 the first days of February -- March.
13 Q March '04?
14 A 2004.
15 Q Mr. Carter, I'm going to draw your
16 attention to the late night of April 24th, 2004
17 and the early hours of April 25th, 2004. And I
18 want you to try to tell us what happened with
19 regard to the firemen and the firehouse. Let me
20 start by asking you -- first of all, let's start
21 at 11 p.m. or thereabouts on April 24th, 2004.
22 Where were you at that time?
23 A At that time I was at Kohl's Department
24 Store.
25 Q What were you doing at Kohl's
00160
1 Department Store?
2 A I worked on the weekends.
3 Q How many hours did you work?
4 A Some -- as little as four. Sometimes a
5 busy weekend I worked -- I guess the most I ever
6 worked I would work like 14 hours like two days
7 or something.
8 Q Sometime on the night of
9 April 24th, 2004 did you leave work?
10 A Yes. We had to clock out. We had to
11 clock out at exactly 11:30.
12 Q When did you clock out from Kohl's
13 on that night?
14 A 11:30. And then --
15 Q Were you driving home?
16 A I was driving home. And it's right up
17 the hill, so you know --
18 Q So you drove -- you drove home?
19 A I drove home.
20 Q Okay. Tell us what you observed
21 as you got near your house.
22 A Okay. You know, it's like just a
23 couple-minute drive away. I drove up. I was
24 coming down Plank Road. As I'm coming down
25 Plank Road I saw a big bus pulled in front of
00161
1 the fire station. And getting in -- the bus was
2 loaded. So I don't know how many people these
3 buses holds; but there was a lot of people,
4 maybe 60 people, I don't know. And they are
5 getting down -- climbing down the steps. And
6 these -- the women were very -- were nicely
7 dressed, you know, like for -- short dresses but
8 for party. And the men had on ties and sports
9 jackets or, you know, maybe -- maybe suits, I
10 don't know. And they were getting out.
11 Q About how many people did you
12 observe, firemen and the women?
13 A I'm -- well, I guess the bus was full. I
14 think those buses must hold like 55 people or
15 so. And there were already people in the -- at
16 tables set up in the firehouse, fire station. I
17 don't know, maybe there were 25 more of those.
18 And then --
19 Q How could you see tables in the
20 fire station?
21 A Because they had the --
22 Q Big door up?
23 A Yeah.
24 Q Are you saying they had tables set
25 up where the engine usually parks?
00162
1 A Yes. And I don't know if the doors were
2 all the way up, but they were up to a point that
3 you could look in there.
4 Q Did you see any of these firemen
5 in the parking lot as you drove by?
6 A Yes, I did.
7 Q Approximately how many?
8 A That I would say maybe 35 people or so.
9 And the younger people were -- had gravitated
10 out into the parking lot. They were smoking.
11 There were young women, whole group of them,
12 gathered around that first red door by the
13 firehouse in that area. And then there were men
14 spread throughout. And they were drinking.
15 They had silver bullets.
16 Q What do you mean by "silver
17 bullet"? What is a silver bullet?
18 A It's like a tall boy beer.
19 Q Okay.
20 A And I -- they drink that all the time.
21 So they are drinking that. And I saw these big
22 distinctive cans.
23 Q Big distinctive what?
24 A Cans. You know, it's a very tall can,
25 like silver.
00163
1 Q So you are in your car?
2 A Silver. It looks like a bullet. And I'm
3 in the car.
4 Q What happens next?
5 A And I pull up into my front yard.
6 Q Do you have a little spot to park
7 there?
8 A Yeah, we have a little driveway.
9 Q Next what happens?
10 A We -- as I walked into the house, I was
11 looking over there. I'd never seen them have a
12 party like that before, so something special
13 going on because they're all dressed up. And I
14 saw that the young people, as I said, were --
15 seemed to have spilled out and were hanging
16 outside and that the men and the women were
17 separated. They weren't, you know --
18 Q Did you recognize the men to be
19 firemen --
20 A Absolutely.
21 Q -- you had seen all the years you
22 lived there?
23 A Absolutely. I saw these people every day
24 over and over and over. And they have got a bus
25 stopped in the parking lot. And in front of
00164
1 that, like halfway between there and a pay
2 phone, it's well lighted. And halfway between
3 there and our house were a group of five. And
4 they were -- they were -- they were very -- they
5 appeared to me to be very intoxicated.
6 Q Where were you standing when you
7 observed them?
8 A I was on my porch the last time I looked
9 at them from that angle. And they were sort of
10 like -- you know, they weren't sure on their
11 feet. They were sort of like leaning into
12 people and stuff.
13 Q Okay. Then did you go into your
14 house?
15 A Then I went into the house and cut on the
16 lights.
17 Q When you say the phrase "cut on
18 the lights," do you mean turned on the lights?
19 A Yeah.
20 Q You turned on the lights?
21 A I turned on the lights.
22 Q Now, when you turned on the
23 lights, the way your house is structured, would
24 the fact that the lights went on be visible in
25 the parking lot?
00165
1 A Yes, very, because the house has a
2 cathedral ceiling and the lights that we had are
3 very similar to like this kind of light. It's
4 not -- it's not like turn on a table light or
5 even an overhead light. It's a -- they're
6 panels.
7 Q It's a big light, overhead light?
8 A They're fluorescent panels.
9 Q What happens next?
10 A I went upstairs, say -- and spoke to
11 Peter. Peter was reading.
12 Q Where was Peter reading?
13 A Peter was in bed reading. And he said --
14 he said -- he said he was going to read a little
15 while and go to sleep.
16 Q Okay. Now, you mentioned before
17 Peter had had certain cardiac-related
18 procedures; is that right? I can't hear you.
19 A Yes, yes, sir.
20 Q When was the last time -- as of
21 this moment, April 24, 2004, when was the time
22 most recently that he had a procedure?
23 A He had had -- well, a major one he had
24 had the year before in late spring.
25 Q Late spring of what year?
00166
1 A 2003.
2 Q Okay. And then had he had another
3 one?
4 A Yes.
5 Q When was that?
6 A He had been in intensive care --
7 Q Okay. We don't need a lot of
8 details.
9 A -- for ten days.
10 Q Ten days in intensive care. And
11 when was that?
12 A That was probably also in the spring of
13 2003.
14 Q Okay. As of April 24th, 2004 and
15 the months leading up to it had he continued
16 under the care of a cardiologist?
17 A Oh, yes, he was going in for, I think,
18 every other week or something like that. But he
19 was -- he had more than one helping him.
20 Q So Peter is up, stays in bed
21 reading, right?
22 A Yeah.
23 Q What happens next?
24 A The -- I went in, and I cut on the light.
25 The first light you cut on would be the one --
00167
1 that middle window that you saw. And then I
2 went back and I cut on another light in the
3 kitchen; and that was at the other end, in front
4 of the other window.
5 Q So you turned on -- you turned on
6 the light. What is that; the living room, the
7 middle window?
8 A No, that's that breakfast nook.
9 Q That's the breakfast area. Then
10 you also turned on the light towards the back
11 porch?
12 A Yes.
13 Q And what area is that again?
14 A That's the -- I would call it the
15 kitchen. It's where you actually have the sink
16 and the stove and so forth.
17 Q Just ask the obvious because the
18 jury has seen the picture. But now all three
19 lights, all three --
20 A Right.
21 Q -- sets of windows were lit up
22 now?
23 A Right. It was almost like a gas station.
24 Q All visibly lit from the parking
25 lot?
00168
1 A Yes.
2 Q Okay. What happens next?
3 A So -- so I went downstairs. And at that
4 point we were finishing up a program, the Add Up
5 Program. It was a not-for-profit organization.
6 I was working on this on the computer.
7 And I was at the computer, I'm
8 thinking, maybe quarter after 12 or 20 after 12.
9 And the guys who were in the line of five of
10 them, they were -- who were very drunk, started
11 yelling.
12 Q How did you know -- how did you
13 know it was those guys yelling?
14 A I didn't. I went up there and looked out
15 the window.
16 Q Which window did you look out?
17 A I looked out the window -- I looked out
18 window right in the middle, by the breakfast
19 nook window, I think.
20 Q How far away from the side of your
21 house were these men who -- who were yelling?
22 A Maybe five feet.
23 Q Maybe five feet. Okay. What were
24 they yelling?
25 A They were yelling, "ooh." And I don't
00169
1 mean to sound stupid, but that's what it was
2 like. "Ooh. Ooh." And then one would yell,
3 another one yell; and they were going down the
4 line. And I sat there and watched. Then it
5 started over. And it was, "Ooh. Ooh" but very
6 loud. They had their -- you know, sort of
7 howling this thing.
8 Q What did you do next?
9 A Well, I shut the shutters and -- because
10 they can look right into my house too. And I
11 went downstairs, and I started working on the
12 computer again.
13 Q Did you happen to notice what time
14 it was?
15 A Probably about 12:25 or something. And
16 as I was working on the computer, this kept
17 going on, kept going on. And I was very worried
18 and still am very worried about Peter deVries
19 because he is very frail. And he has
20 transplanted material in his heart and he needs
21 his sleep. He had lost so much weight. And
22 I -- I didn't like this "Ooh" thing because it
23 was just so loud and repetitive, it would wake
24 people up. And he had all these soothers and
25 stuff in his room, but I just didn't like it.
00170
1 So they kept going, and they kept
2 going. So finally I looked at the clock on the
3 computer again, and I didn't want -- I didn't
4 want a confrontation over this, but it was -- it
5 was just louder than most things happened, more
6 distinctive, I guess. So -- and I was tired,
7 you know. And I said -- I thought, I will wait
8 until 1 a.m. in the morning. And then I will
9 say something, if they're still doing it.
10 Because, I thought, it's Saturday night, they
11 had a party, you have to give them until 1, you
12 know. And so finally -- I kept working. And I
13 went back up there to see like what are they
14 doing, this "Ooh" thing. It went on and on and
15 on.
16 Q How long did the "Ooh" thing go
17 on?
18 A They would stop and start it up again.
19 Stop and start it up again. But I would say it
20 had gone on from like, I don't know, maybe 12:10
21 or something, till -- it was still going on at
22 ten minutes till 1, when I went out there. They
23 didn't -- they would stop, and then they'd start
24 it over. And it was sort of a -- I think -- I
25 think it was sort of like making a sexual sound,
00171
1 you know. And so I -- I -- can I get some
2 water?
3 Q Water? Sure. Hold on. Hold on.
4 Let me help you. I got it. Would this be
5 better?
6 A Yeah.
7 Q Take your time.
8 A Thank you. All right. So --
9 Q Did you just start sweating?
10 A Just now?
11 Q Do you sweat when you think of
12 this? Does that happen?
13 A I just sweat. I guess.
14 Q Go ahead. What happened?
15 A So I went up there, and I took one last
16 little sort of peak this time out there. And I
17 saw these -- they were still standing there in
18 line. The girls over in the corner where the --
19 in the keg area. And I saw whom I knew very
20 well as -- by sight, the -- the same guy who
21 came and pulled that car toward me that night.
22 And it -- in December 2001. It was Chucky
23 Snyder, Jr.
24 Q Now, for the jury, let's clear
25 this up. You had now gone out the back; is that
00172
1 what you are saying? Where are you doing this
2 from?
3 A I think I looked out the -- I think I
4 looked out the middle window first and then went
5 to the -- the back window.
6 Q All right. So --
7 A But I may have -- I don't know if I went
8 out and looked -- okay. I went -- I looked out
9 the window, but at some point -- I can't
10 remember the order. I went out and just looked
11 around the gate.
12 Q You looked around --
13 A I mean the fence.
14 Q -- the fence?
15 A Yeah.
16 Q Let's get a picture of that fence
17 up there, so we all know what we're talking
18 about. Let's try to work with this. I'm going
19 to put up P-163D. Can you see it from there,
20 Mr. Carter?
21 A Yeah, I can. If you can give me a little
22 light --
23 Q I am going to give you the little
24 lighter. I think it will reach.
25 All right. Some point you go out on
00173
1 the porch; is that what you are telling the
2 jury?
3 A Yes.
4 Q And let me just slow you down for
5 a minute. Before you go out on the porch do you
6 turn the porch light on or not?
7 MR. PARIS: Objection, Your Honor.
8 JUDGE CURRAN: Basis?
9 MR. PARIS: Leading.
10 MR. MULLIN: It's not leading.
11 It's asking on or not?
12 JUDGE CURRAN: I think --
13 MR. PARIS: The question was what
14 did you do, not did you --
15 JUDGE CURRAN: I'm getting
16 addicted to this. I am not sure whether I'm
17 hearing until I see it on the screen. I'll
18 overrule it at this point.
19 BY MR. MULLIN:
20 Q Okay. Before going out on the
21 porch, right before going out on the porch what
22 did you do?
23 A I cut the light on.
24 Q Does that mean turn the light on?
25 A Yes.
00174
1 Q The porch light?
2 A Is "cut" not the right word?
3 Q I don't know. I grew up in the
4 Bronx.
5 JUDGE CURRAN: It's a Midwestern
6 phrase.
7 THE WITNESS: I'm not Midwestern.
8 I'm Southern.
9 JUDGE CURRAN: Even Southern.
10 THE WITNESS: Okay.
11 BY MR. MULLIN:
12 Q Might just be me.
13 A I switched the light on.
14 Q You switched the light on?
15 A Or I switched on the light.
16 Q What happened next?
17 A I went out and walked around because of
18 this "Ooh" thing, which was new. I went out and
19 peeped around the side of the --
20 Q That's what I want. When you
21 peeped around the side, can you point to it with
22 that laser?
23 A No, not really. I don't think it will
24 work.
25 Q Then I'm going to point to it. I
00175
1 don't want you to have to get out of your seat
2 again. This is the back of your house, right?
3 A That's right.
4 Q Here is your porch. This is the
5 fence, right?
6 A Yeah.
7 Q When you say you peeked, is there
8 someplace around this edge of the fence where
9 you can peak around?
10 A You can peak around either side. You can
11 peak --
12 Q I'm asking you where you peeked
13 around that night.
14 A I think I went down on the patio and
15 peeked around it.
16 Q What does "down on the patio"
17 mean? Down here?
18 A Yeah.
19 Q And then over here somewhere?
20 A No, over toward the house and peeked --
21 and peek -- see, then the fence goes down like
22 real low.
23 Q So there is something we can't
24 see?
25 A Something you can't see.
00176
1 Q And it's -- it's back here where
2 the house is, and you peeked around the fence
3 there?
4 A Yeah.
5 MR. PARIS: Your Honor, again, you
6 know --
7 JUDGE CURRAN: Sustained in this
8 regard, not only leading but --
9 MR. MULLIN: Okay.
10 BY MR. MULLIN:
11 A If I can --
12 Q So you peeked around, and what did
13 you see?
14 A See, the fence, if you go down, it's just
15 like this high.
16 Q Okay. We're past the fence.
17 A It's not like the other one.
18 Q What did you see when you peeked
19 out?
20 A I saw the five men in a row. I saw the
21 women all gathered around the beer kegs. These
22 were 20s women. And I saw Chucky Snyder, Jr.
23 there, and he was in the area. I could show you
24 in the parking lot where -- where he was placed.
25 And then I saw Chucky Snyder, Sr.; and he was
00177
1 wearing a navy blue blazer, a white shirt and a
2 tie.
3 Q Okay. I will put up the parking
4 lot, since you just mentioned it, P-163A. And
5 where --
6 A If you look at that, you can also see
7 where I was looking over.
8 Q Is that --
9 A Around there. No, further over. Okay.
10 In the back there. You're right where the --
11 Q Where was Chucky Snyder, Sr. when
12 you peeked out?
13 A It's not in this picture -- well, yeah,
14 it would have been approximately to the furthest
15 point you can see of the fire station.
16 Q Is that --
17 A I don't know what he was wearing.
18 Q Is that --
19 A Yep. And he was standing there.
20 Q So that's to the very far left of
21 P-163A, where Chuck Snyder, Sr. was standing?
22 A Right between the two doors.
23 Q Where was Chuck Snyder, Jr.
24 standing?
25 A He was standing near the house, like over
00178
1 there, maybe the first parking lot behind the
2 fence that -- that's between the deck and the
3 parking lot.
4 Q All right. Let's use these yellow
5 parking stops. Which parking stop was -- was he
6 standing near, Chuck Snyder, Jr., the one
7 closest to the fence or --
8 A No.
9 Q -- second one?
10 A No, not three, not four, not five. The
11 last one. He would have been in that area.
12 Q So he was rather close to --
13 A Yes, because at the time he was talking
14 to these girls, these women.
15 Q He was talking. So he was near
16 the firehouse, the back of the firehouse; is
17 that right?
18 A Right. He was talking to these women.
19 And Charles Snyder, Sr. was talking to some
20 adults. And they were on -- at the very side.
21 Q Okay. And what did you do next?
22 A I went in, and I looked at the clock.
23 Q Went back into your house?
24 A Yep, and I looked at the clock over the
25 kitchen sink. It's a round clock. There is no
00179
1 doubt about this. It was ten minutes to 1.
2 Because I thought, They're not going to stop
3 yelling, you know, because it strikes 1. It's
4 close enough. You know, I made my own little
5 rule -- break my own little rule, I guess. It's
6 close enough. And I just -- they weren't going
7 to stop. It was ridiculous. It was so -- it
8 was so unneighborly rude to do -- to be -- to be
9 howling like that, this "Ooh" thing.
10 And so I thought exactly what I was
11 going to say. And I tried to convey -- it was a
12 combination of being pretty firm about it, I
13 thought, but also trying to appeal to their
14 sense of decency. And so I went out and I went,
15 "Hello."
16 Q Where were you standing when you
17 started yelling this?
18 A Right next to the fence. I mean, I got
19 as close as I could get.
20 Q Were you on the porch?
21 A Yeah.
22 Q You were on your back porch?
23 A Yeah, I was yelling through the fence.
24 Q Okay. Keep going.
25 A I said, "Hello." And actually, you know,
00180
1 it was kind of hard for me to like -- you know,
2 with the fence between you, you know, can they
3 hear me? And then I went, "Hello." And then I
4 went, "Hello."
5 Q Go ahead.
6 A And I went, "Hello." And I went,
7 "Hello." And when I said that, I heard the
8 trail off just of women's voices and them all
9 going silent. And I think that the women were
10 saying, "Some" -- "Somebody is yelling at us."
11 MR. PARIS: Objection, Your Honor.
12 JUDGE CURRAN: Sustained.
13 BY MR. MULLIN:
14 Q Don't tell us what the women were
15 saying.
16 A The women, I -- you know, they were
17 saying, "Someone is yelling at us" or, you know,
18 something like that. I remember the trail off.
19 Q Okay.
20 A And then -- do I keep going?
21 Q Keep going. Tell us what
22 happened.
23 A All right. I have to get some water.
24 I'm getting --
25 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, can I be
00181
1 heard sidebar on that objection?
2 JUDGE CURRAN: Sure.
3 MR. MULLIN: Thank you.
4 (Whereupon, the following sidebar
5 discussion is held.)
6 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, I was
7 surprised at the hearsay objection. None of the
8 statements my client is now reporting, whether
9 it be what the women said or men said, are being
10 offered for the truth of the matter asserted,
11 none of them. So they're not hearsay at all.
12 Everything that was said that night, it seems to
13 me, is relevant. The obscenities that was
14 heard, what he heard, the res gestae, what was
15 going on. I thought that was the objection.
16 MR. PARIS: I didn't state the
17 nature of the objection. The objection is
18 Mr. Carter is interjecting what he thought
19 people were thinking.
20 MR. MULLIN: Oh, well, okay,
21 that's a fair objection. I must have missed
22 that.
23 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. That
24 was my belief too.
25 MR. MULLIN: Okay. No, no.
00182
1 JUDGE CURRAN: Hold on. One quick
2 question.
3 MR. MULLIN: I'm sorry.
4 JUDGE CURRAN: I think the record
5 will show that Mr. Paris really has not been
6 objecting when he theoretically might have, if
7 he was arguing that something was being offered
8 for the truth.
9 MR. MULLIN: Sure.
10 JUDGE CURRAN: He really didn't
11 object to --
12 MR. MULLIN: Thank you.
13 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you very
14 much.
15 (Whereupon, sidebar discussion is
16 concluded.)
17 MR. MULLIN: I have to clarify one
18 more thing, Your Honor.
19 (Whereupon, the following sidebar
20 discussion is held.)
21 MR. MULLIN: Judge, what I said
22 before, that nothing I am offering is offered
23 for the truth of the matter asserted, to the
24 extent these firemen identify themselves as, "We
25 threw these condoms on your" -- "on your porch,"
00183
1 that's offered for the truth of the matter
2 asserted; and that's what they said. They said,
3 "You want us to throw some more of our condoms
4 onto your porch?" So --
5 MR. PARIS: This was exactly the
6 argument we had. And my recollection -- and
7 it's only -- it's my recollection. We can go
8 back to the record, if the Court feels it's
9 necessary. Mr. Mullin specifically said, "I'm
10 not offering the statements to prove that they
11 were the ones who threw the condoms."
12 MR. MULLIN: I know what you are
13 talking about, but I can clear the record up. I
14 hadn't checked the -- Tim Carter's police
15 statements yet at that point; we were just
16 arguing on our feet. And what you were saying
17 is just references to semen and so on, that
18 doesn't justify me drawing the inference.
19 But then, when I checked what
20 Mr. Carter actually said in his police
21 statement, he said -- and so did Mr. deVries --
22 that they were yelling that they threw the
23 condoms. "You want some more of the condoms we
24 threw?" Well, clearly, if they said that, those
25 are -- they can be offered for the truth of the
00184
1 matter asserted.
2 So -- so, of course, they are
3 being offered for the truth the matter asserted.
4 I overlooked that. I was agreeing just bear
5 references to condoms and semen were not enough,
6 but when they -- when they're admitting it --
7 MR. PARIS: And again I go back to
8 it. It's -- it -- it's hearsay. Okay. And
9 it's clearly being offered to prove that they
10 did it. And that was the difficulty we had. We
11 got over that only because it was being offered
12 as a statement that was being made but not as --
13 not as a statement that would -- that was
14 serving to prove the truth of what was being
15 asserted in those statements.
16 JUDGE CURRAN: Hold on. I don't
17 want to --
18 MR. PARIS: Certainly not.
19 JUDGE CURRAN: I don't want to
20 cause a problem, but is there a problem -- I
21 don't want to turn and look at the witness, but
22 is there a problem with the witness?
23 MR. BEVERE: I think he just got
24 him some more water.
25 MR. PARIS: No, I think
00185
1 Mr. deVries kicked something on his way.
2 MR. BEVERE: I think he went to
3 get water.
4 MR. MULLIN: Nan can report back
5 to us.
6 Is there some problem?
7 MS. SMITH: No, they just needed
8 water.
9 MR. PARIS: It's dry in here.
10 MR. BEVERE: My instincts were
11 correct.
12 MR. PARIS: And again, if the
13 witness says one was said, that's one thing.
14 And perhaps this can wait later argument.
15 MR. MULLIN: All right. Sure. I
16 am just going to have what the witness said --
17 we can wait until later on.
18 MR. BEVERE: Judge, I'm sorry,
19 just one more thing. Can we take a -- 3:00 can
20 we take just a five-minute break?
21 JUDGE CURRAN: Sure.
22 MR. MULLIN: 3:00?
23 MR. BEVERE: 3:00.
24 (Whereupon, sidebar discussion is
25 concluded.)
00186
1 BY MR. MULLIN:
2 Q Are you okay, Tim?
3 JUDGE CURRAN: I can't see. Do
4 you need another cup?
5 THE WITNESS: There is nothing
6 wrong with the cup. I just took it and flipped
7 the whole thing upside down on my lap again.
8 JUDGE CURRAN: So you have water,
9 and you have a cup?
10 THE WITNESS: Yes, yes, Judge.
11 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you. Thank
12 you very much, Miss Hawks.
13 MS. HAWKS: You're welcome.
14 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
15 BY MR. MULLIN:
16 Q All right. Tim, as far as we got
17 was you yelling, "Hello. Hello. Hello." I
18 hope I can just capture that. And then -- and
19 you were out on the porch, right?
20 A Right.
21 Q And -- and just keep going. Tell
22 the jury --
23 A I don't know if I asked the judge, but
24 I -- at one point I thought you said I could
25 have that -- my -- what I read to the --
00187
1 Q If you need something to refresh
2 your recollection, I have your police report.
3 Do you need that to refresh your recollection?
4 A Yeah.
5 Q Absolutely.
6 MR. PARIS: Your Honor, I really
7 would appreciate setting appropriate foundation
8 for the use of the report.
9 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
10 BY MR. MULLIN:
11 Q All right. So what we'll do, Tim,
12 go as far as you can. Use your --
13 A I can do it.
14 Q Use your memory as best you can.
15 And when you need to refresh your recollection,
16 I'll give this to you. Okay?
17 A Okay. That's fine. I remember. So the
18 fifth time I yell, "Hello"; and they started to
19 get quiet. And the last voices I heard were
20 those women and saying, "I guess he is mad" or,
21 "What" -- "What's he doing?"
22 Q Don't tell me what you think
23 people are saying.
24 A Okay.
25 Q Just tell us what you heard and
00188
1 what was said.
2 A Okay. So everything got silent, like
3 dead silence. And I thought that, oh, this is
4 because I finally got -- somebody talked to them
5 about the condom thing. They're going to do it.
6 And I thought they're going to do it, they'll be
7 quiet.
8 And then this booming voice, Chucky
9 Snyder, Jr., said, "You want us" -- oh, oh, I
10 said -- when they got quiet, I said, "Hey, Guys,
11 it's 1:00 in the morning. Could you please shut
12 the hell up already?"
13 And there was silence again. And then
14 I heard Chucky Snyder, Jr. He said, "You want
15 us to shut the hell up? You want us to shut the
16 hell up?" And then, that's when the language
17 becomes the -- the problem, the bad language.
18 So it's -- you know, it's offensive. It's
19 offensive, but this is what they say. He says,
20 "Why don't yous shut the hell up, you mother
21 fucking faggot." And he said, "F you. F you."
22 Q Don't say, "F you." Say what they
23 said.
24 A He said, "Fuck you. Fuck you." And he
25 said, "You fucking faggots. You want some more
00189
1 of our cum? You like those cum" -- "You like
2 those cum rubbers, don't you?" And he said,
3 "Were they good?" And then they all started --
4 "That's what you faggots do, isn't it? You lick
5 cum. You eat cum. Come on out here, you mother
6 fucking queer. Come on out here."
7 And then they were all saying -- they
8 were all talking about cum, which is like the --
9 probably -- that's the worst part language-wise.
10 And then -- and then I heard like
11 something went off. I don't know what it was.
12 At the time I said consistently, "I don't know
13 what it is" because I was scrupulous and I heard
14 just like an explosion, like -- like it jarred
15 me like that. Like I don't know what happened.
16 Like something was hit. I couldn't think of --
17 bang, I don't know.
18 But what happened is that I had the
19 door cracked; and Peter's little puppy at the
20 time, Sergai, goes -- he is a bird dog. He is a
21 real scatter brain, skittish. And he went
22 flying out when he heard that noise too. It was
23 like something blowing up or something
24 because -- and I wasn't sure.
25 So he -- I saw him go flying off; and I
00190
1 thought, My God. In that -- in that state of
2 mind I'm thinking, My God, they'll get my dog.
3 They'll get my dog. And I ran after -- he goes
4 all the way down the yard. I grab him. I run
5 up. And by that time it was just -- I got back
6 on the porch.
7 There was just mayhem. And they were
8 screaming, "Village faggots. Village faggots."
9 And I have lived in Chelsea and New York, and I
10 have friends over there. And they have a huge
11 problem with younger guys, 20s, whatever, going
12 over there and -- and I thought, Are they the
13 ones who go over there and beat up gay people?
14 They put them in the hospital. And -- on
15 Saturday night for fun they just walk around, if
16 they're coming out of a gay bar.
17 So they kept saying, "Village faggots.
18 Village faggots. You want some cum? You like
19 those rubbers we sent you?" And then I know
20 that they definitely did it, although Chucky
21 Snyder never denied it when I told him that
22 time. And he said, "Fuck you. Fuck you."
23 Then they started taunting me to -- to
24 come out. "Come out, you pussy. Come out, you
25 pussy." And even -- I'm sorry about that. Even
00191
1 worse words like that.
2 Q Use the words -- all the words you
3 recall.
4 A "Come out, pussy boy. Come out, cunt
5 boy." They were saying these things. And just
6 really bad language. And so I came up on the
7 porch with that dog, and I looked up. And there
8 were the fingers of those guys all the way
9 across that deck. And the -- there is a fence
10 underneath it. Plus, they got that table; they
11 can climb up on it. But there is a fence
12 underneath it that's green with -- with white --
13 white with green stripes. Plastic, but it's
14 chain link.
15 And -- and they could -- they were
16 standing on top of that fence that meets my --
17 the deck, like almost as high as this is from
18 the ground. And then I see at the top -- I look
19 up, and there are the fingers. They were like
20 holding onto that thing. And they were, you
21 know, had it, like pulling it, pulling the
22 fence.
23 I ran in the house. And I know all
24 the -- every thought that went through my head.
25 At first -- the first thing that went through my
00192
1 head was, Please, God, let some of these -- the
2 more mature firemen in the station come out and
3 like stop this. Because the intensity of it was
4 so bad we couldn't -- we had to go, you know.
5 And there is no doubt about it. It is hard to
6 explain to you what this is like. I swear to
7 God it is like a war. I would be surprised if
8 anybody had ever seen anything like this because
9 I haven't. It's like a war.
10 And I took the dog, and I ran inside.
11 And I closed that stupid Dutch door, and I
12 locked the bottom. The front door was bolted.
13 And that's a very heavy door; I had just done
14 it. So I didn't have to worry about that. But
15 I was thinking about the -- the doors downstairs
16 are glass and they could break it or something.
17 And -- but this was my primary concern.
18 So the first thing I'm doing is I'm
19 thinking, Let somebody come out and -- and --
20 and put a stop to this because by this time
21 there was one voice -- I don't know how many
22 there were. I'll never know. But it was an
23 aluminum side house; and they were running, I
24 know, all along the sides, back around the
25 corner and then going around and -- and on the
00193
1 front two they were hit -- slamming the sides of
2 this aluminum house.
3 And they were yelling,
4 "Homo, homo, homo." But there was a whole
5 chorus of things like this, you know, anything
6 they could think of. And, "Homo, homo, homo."
7 I went, "Oh, my God." It's like
8 watching a TV movie, like "Howard's Beach" or
9 something. And they're just descending.
10 And then the second thing I thought is
11 I thought they're going to get in here because
12 they had this gate -- they had that deck to the
13 point that it was like -- that's like five big
14 guys. And they were going to pull down that
15 thing and jump and come -- all come on the deck,
16 you know. They're drunk. Who knows?
17 And they -- I just kept thinking, I
18 cannot leave the front of this door because that
19 was the most vulnerable place these people were
20 going to come in. And they were nuts. I cannot
21 over -- I cannot overstate that enough. I mean,
22 they were nuts.
23 And I was thinking of Peter. And I had
24 shut the -- I had the shutters closed. I did
25 not want them to know where I was in the house.
00194
1 But then the next thing I thought of is I don't
2 even want them to know where he is in the house
3 because Peter is very, very sick. And he was
4 frail. The poor man was weak. He was down to
5 like 142 pounds. And I thought if they come in
6 here and manhandle him, they'll kill him. I
7 mean it. And -- and -- and I stood right by
8 that door and I would do it again today because
9 I thought, by God, they are going to have to
10 kill me to get past me.
11 Q Did you hear them yelling any
12 threats to kill or harm you?
13 A Yes, sir.
14 Q What --
15 A They said, "We will kill you and your
16 faggot dogs." That was one of the first things
17 they said. "We will kill you and your faggot
18 dogs."
19 Q Keep going.
20 A They -- I was thinking of Peter. So
21 pitiful, so pathetic because I thought he
22 couldn't fight them.
23 And then the second thing I worried
24 about, when we came back in, I don't know where
25 that puppy went. I still don't know where he
00195
1 went. He was hiding somewhere. But I had my
2 dog Elli. Elli is a Rhodesian Ridgeback. He
3 was beautiful. He weighed 134 pounds. And I
4 thought if they come in the door -- and
5 remember, you're not -- you're thinking just --
6 you know, it's like you're not really -- you're
7 thinking -- on one hand you are thinking very,
8 very clearly and carefully; and another hand,
9 you know, I thought if they come in that door --
10 I was obsessed with the thought they are going
11 to get at Peter because he would come out and
12 they would shoot my dog. I thought because the
13 dog weighs 134 pounds and if they come in the
14 door, he'll run and they'll shoot him. He would
15 not have run at them, you know; he would like --
16 he would hide. He would run away, but they'll
17 shoot him.
18 And I was terrified. I was absolutely
19 terrified. It was just like a brunt -- a bunch
20 of brown shirts going after the Jews. That's
21 what they're like, Nazis.
22 MR. PARIS: Judge.
23 JUDGE CURRAN: Hold.
24 MR. PARIS: Objection, Your Honor.
25 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Paris.
00196
1 MR. PARIS: The question was asked
2 is what happened and what you heard and what you
3 saw and what you were thinking to relate what
4 happened. Now we are getting these
5 characterizations.
6 THE WITNESS: That's what
7 happened.
8 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, I think
9 he is part -- it's related also to psychological
10 damage. Instead of having to repeat the whole
11 story in a later phase of the trial, he is
12 talking about what he is feeling, as well, when
13 he is telling the story. I think it's fair.
14 JUDGE CURRAN: On that basis I
15 will allow it, but the objection is on the
16 record.
17 MR. PARIS: Thank you.
18 BY MR. MULLIN:
19 Q Keep telling us what happened.
20 Move through this. Did you go upstairs to wake
21 up Peter?
22 A I don't understand it. I said, "I
23 couldn't believe it." I was in disbelief. And
24 I knew last night all the things -- the six
25 things I thought. And I can't -- then I thought
00197
1 about Peter. I thought about that dog. I
2 thought they'd break in the door. I was
3 listening. I gave up on the thought that this
4 is not -- maybe they can contain this. I -- I
5 was listening very carefully to hear what they
6 were saying and so I could try to figure out
7 what they could do.
8 Q In your recollection, as you're
9 now describing it to us, where -- you're inside
10 the house, right? You've locked the Dutch
11 doors, right? Are you still hearing the
12 yelling?
13 A Yes.
14 Q Where are you standing at this
15 point?
16 A I was standing -- we had a -- a deck in
17 the kitchen that -- that came out. And I was
18 standing behind there because I thought I got to
19 stand in front of this door.
20 Q You're near the back door that
21 goes to the porch; is that correct?
22 A Yes.
23 Q And you're still hearing the
24 yelling?
25 A Yes. And I thought --
00198
1 Q Are you still hearing the pounding
2 around the house?
3 A Oh, yeah, it never -- it was like being
4 in a tin can. Like I said, it was just,
5 "Homo, homo, homo, homo, homo," which woke up --
6 this woke up the lady next door.
7 Q Don't talk about who woke up.
8 A Okay.
9 Q What happened next since you moved
10 from that spot?
11 A I don't move from that spot. I stay at
12 that spot because then they began a dialogue.
13 And it's Chucky Snyder, Sr., because I knew his
14 voice and I knew I had seen him out there. And
15 he was yelling, "Yous" -- I knew it was him too;
16 I just knew the way he talks. "We don't want
17 the likes of yous around here. You don't belong
18 in Secaucus." He says, "We don't want you
19 village faggots here. We don't want your kind
20 here." Those are his exact words, "We don't
21 want your kind here." And he said, "Get out of
22 this Town. You don't belong here. You been
23 here long enough." I remember that, "You been
24 here long enough."
25 And then -- and then the younger one,
00199
1 he sort of took over as leader. And the -- and
2 the younger ones, whereas Chucky, Jr. started it
3 and then the younger ones would like echo things
4 he was saying; or at one point they were even
5 feeding him lines. And they said, "Get out of
6 this Town. We don't want the likes of you here
7 now."
8 And I -- they were -- it seemed like it
9 almost separated because I could hear his voice
10 coming from like -- like over toward the
11 firehouse side, more near the firehouse; but
12 then there is this whole other group. All these
13 people were in on this. I didn't hear any
14 women. It was all men.
15 And the banging is going on the whole
16 time, "Homo, homo, homo." They were just
17 like -- it was almost like a war beat, you know.
18 And they are running around the front, around
19 the sides, "Homo, homo." They were going bang,
20 bang, bang on the sides of the house with their
21 fists. And they kept doing it all summer too.
22 And he -- and so I'm -- I was thinking,
23 What am I going to do? Okay. I was scared at
24 that moment to call the police. And the reason
25 I was scared of it is I knew they'd get
00200
1 arrested. And I was that afraid of these
2 people. It's like now I know I got to get out
3 of here because I always thought all they had to
4 do is pitch something over the -- in the yard
5 and they can kill my dogs. They have rat
6 poison. All the men who -- all the guys who
7 work there for -- worked for the Department of
8 Public -- Public Works Department, they're
9 all -- work with their -- get the -- get the
10 garbage. And so I thought, They've got
11 everything, you know, to kill the dogs. And --
12 and we can't be here anymore.
13 And so it -- and then finally it became
14 to the point -- I'm thinking maybe the first six
15 minutes or something I stayed there. I was so
16 afraid because I could hear that. They never
17 got it down, but I could hear the fence going --
18 they were like up on top of that thing, rocking
19 it back and forth and having fun, I guess.
20 And so I went upstairs, and I opened
21 the door. And Peter was coming awake. And I
22 said, "Peter, come. Peter, come out here."
23 And he said, "What's wrong?"
24 I said, "It's an emergency." That's
25 what I said to him.
00201
1 He comes out there. And that was on
2 that landing that looked over into the living
3 room.
4 And I said, "Peter, they're after us.
5 They're after us."
6 And Peter was like -- he actually got
7 kind of mad at me; and he said, "They are not."
8 He said, "Somebody is in a fight. It's a
9 fight." And then Peter said, "There are no
10 gangs around here."
11 Q Had Peter been sleeping when you
12 went to the bedroom?
13 A Peter was sort of like coming out of it,
14 you know, like waking up.
15 Q Go ahead.
16 A He was sitting up. So he said -- and he
17 said -- he said, "They're not yelling at us.
18 It's" -- "it's got to be some sort of a group, a
19 gang or something. They're in a fight. They're
20 yelling at each other."
21 And I said, "No, Peter, they're after
22 us."
23 And about that time something hit
24 again, another -- that loud noise. And he just
25 looked at me; and he said, "What the hell?" And
00202
1 he came down the steps -- he ran down the steps;
2 and he said, "Did you call the police?"
3 I said, "No."
4 And he went, "Why," like he was mad at
5 me. And -- and he said, "Where is" -- "Where is
6 the" -- "Where is the cell phone?"
7 And I said, "I left it down by the
8 computer."
9 So he runs down the steps. And he
10 said, "Get down on the floor. They're coming
11 through the windows."
12 And the whole time I kept thinking
13 fire, they would do something with fire, which
14 they probably -- I don't know -- that's what I
15 was thinking.
16 So he went and he gets the telephone
17 and he comes back upstairs. And he said, of
18 course, "Where are the dogs?"
19 And I had Elli, and I still didn't know
20 where Sergai was. And he said the whole time
21 this is going on -- he is hearing all of it now.
22 Peter is hearing all of it now. Bam, bam, bam.
23 "Homos, homos, homos, homos." You would not
24 believe something like this would happen in the
25 United States. That is how it was -- it was
00203
1 surreal. And that's what -- boy, did I learn a
2 lesson.
3 And I'm thinking -- the whole time I
4 kept thinking I'm never thinking about worrying
5 about, you know, like identifying people because
6 I was worried about if the police come, they're
7 going to arrest them all, you know. And so
8 it -- it never occurred to me.
9 This thing was incredible. It was like
10 a riot. The only thing I could think of that --
11 one thing it reminds me of is when they attacked
12 Rodney King. That's -- it was kind of like
13 that.
14 And so Peter gets -- goes -- he said,
15 "Let's go in the living room."
16 And so we went in the living room
17 because you can go back. You can't do that; the
18 kitchen is very narrow. We went back in the
19 living room. We went back on the steps. And
20 Peter called 911. But Peter was very weak and
21 fragile at that point. And -- and he was
22 shaking so hard, he dropped the phone. So
23 the -- I think maybe there were a few words of
24 his on -- on the -- on the 911.
25 And so I said, "Peter, Peter," you
00204
1 know, because I'm less practical; I'm more
2 like -- and I said, "Peter, Peter." And -- and
3 then it's sad, and I got -- but they never
4 stopped. I got the phone, and I called up.
5 Well, somewhere along the line we had
6 training, as gay people, some organization
7 meeting or I don't know, about bias crimes. We
8 sort of kept up with that kind of thing, hate
9 crimes. And I was conscious at that point,
10 perhaps also because I had been a teacher, you
11 know, that you have to document things.
12 I call up the 911 dispatcher, who I
13 think was a fireman, anyway, one of their three
14 jobs. And -- and called him up and I said, you
15 know, "We need help" and, "We got" -- "we got a
16 mob out there." I said, "They're like animals.
17 You wouldn't believe this." But I kept saying,
18 "Let me hold up the phone. I want you to hear
19 this because I need" -- "I want a record of
20 this." I knew this is like -- this is almost
21 historic in a way, in a sad way, about this
22 country. I never saw anything like it. I can't
23 believe anybody has.
24 And -- and I said, "Let me hold it up."
25 And he kept trying to like get rid of me. And I
00205
1 thought, Why are you trying to get rid of me?
2 Man, we're in an emergency. These people are
3 saying, "We are going to kill you."
4 And he would not -- he wouldn't -- he
5 was just like, "We're sending help," whatever.
6 So I -- I -- I -- he -- he -- he rang off.
7 And this whole thing has never stopped,
8 still going on. Still this, "Homo, homo, homo,
9 homo" and every kind of filthy thing you can --
10 you can think.
11 And afterwards Peter said, "You know,
12 they were -- "they were screaming,
13 'sword-swallowers.' Did you hear that?"
14 And I said, "I never even heard that
15 one before." And I thought, How sad. How sad.
16 There is a whole new word out there because
17 there is a new generation of people to hate us.
18 They will kill us. They will kill us. These
19 people will kill us. And if you were bloody
20 there that night, anybody would be scared
21 forever. I'm still scared of them.
22 And I wouldn't be surprised what they
23 do. And they're drunk and out of their minds
24 and all this testosterone going and showing up
25 in a way, I think, like this is their Town, "Get
00206
1 the fuck out. We better see a truck pulling out
2 of there" and so forth.
3 And Peter was -- and so Peter said,
4 "Sword-swallower."
5 And I said -- while we're waiting for
6 the cops, it's still going on. It never stops.
7 It never stops. And so I said, "It's a whole
8 new generation."
9 And Peter says -- I mean, at that point
10 it was weird because like even though they are
11 out there and that's all going on, we are
12 waiting for the cops, you know. It's like we
13 haven't -- this is normal or something.
14 And Peter said, "We have to get their
15 identification. We have to see them."
16 And I said, "I'm not looking out that
17 window." I didn't look out that window that
18 night, and I wouldn't look out it tonight
19 either. I wasn't going to let them see where I
20 was. I thought they were going to throw stuff
21 through the window. I didn't know what they
22 would do. They were out of their mind. I
23 cannot emphasize it enough. They were just like
24 animals. And the filth coming out of it was
25 unbelievable.
00207
1 Q Tim, at some point did the police
2 arrive?
3 A The police arrived and Peter --
4 Q Hang on a second. How did you
5 know the police arrived?
6 A I heard the distant wail of the sirens,
7 and I knew they were coming.
8 Q At some point did they knock on
9 your door, the police?
10 A They knocked on the door.
11 Q From the time this incident began
12 until that moment, approximately how many
13 minutes was it?
14 A I clocked it like 12 minutes.
15 MR. MULLIN: Okay. Your Honor,
16 did you want to take the afternoon break at this
17 point?
18 JUDGE CURRAN: I would appreciate
19 it.
20 MR. MULLIN: That would be fine.
21 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you very
22 much. We will go off the record.
23 (Whereupon, the jury is excused.)
24 JUDGE CURRAN: Sir, you may step
25 down.
00208
1 (Whereupon, a brief recess is
2 taken.)
3 MS. HAWKS: Jurors are
4 approaching.
5 (Whereupon, the jury is brought
6 into the courtroom.)
7 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you, Ladies
8 and Gentlemen. We're back on the record.
9 COURT CLERK: On the record.
10 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Mullin.
11 MR. MULLIN: Thank you, Your
12 Honor. Excuse me one second, Judge.
13 COURT CLERK: Off the record.
14 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
15 (Whereupon, a discussion is held
16 off the record.)
17 MR. MULLIN: All right. Back on
18 the record, Your Honor?
19 JUDGE CURRAN: Back on the record.
20 COURT CLERK: On the record.
21 BY MR. MULLIN:
22 Q Mr. Carter, I'm going to play a
23 tape; and I'm going to ask you, first of all, if
24 you can identify what it is, if you recognize
25 what it is.
00209
1 A All right.
2 Q I will ask Tony to help.
3 MR. PARIS: Excuse me, can I just
4 talk to Counsel for one second?
5 JUDGE CURRAN: Sure. We will go
6 off the record.
7 COURT CLERK: Off the record.
8 (Whereupon, a discussion is held
9 off the record.)
10 JUDGE CURRAN: Back on the record.
11 (Whereupon, an audiotape is
12 played.)
13 BY MR. MULLIN:
14 Q All right. We will go back to the
15 beginning. First of all, for the record,
16 Mr. Carter, can you tell us what that -- first
17 of all, do you recognize the voices on that?
18 A Yes, I do.
19 Q Whose voices are there?
20 A That is my voice and the voice of the
21 Secaucus --
22 Q Dispatcher?
23 A -- town dispatcher.
24 Q And that's a recording of which
25 telephone conversation?
00210
1 A The second telephone conversation.
2 Q The first one being what?
3 A Peter spoke --
4 Q We won't talk about Peter.
5 A -- and then dropped it.
6 Q So Peter spoke and dropped the
7 phone?
8 A Right.
9 Q Then you called 911. And again,
10 just so the record is clear, because we're
11 making a record here, is that the 9 -- is that a
12 recording of the 911 call that you made in the
13 middle of the incident you've just been
14 describing to the jury?
15 A Yes.
16 Q Now let's see if you can help the
17 jury. Perhaps they can hear it, but I want you
18 to help the jury hear it. So what I will have
19 Tony do, if we can, is start it and stop it. I
20 am going to have you play a fragment of it. And
21 I want you to, Tim, listen to it and then tell
22 the jury what words you are saying. Can you do
23 that?
24 (Whereupon, a portion of the
25 audiotape is played.)
00211
1 Q Can you hear what it's saying?
2 Come on over here. Can you hear it?
3 A Yeah, I said -- it won't help to come
4 over there, I don't think. I said, "We have
5 firemen out here" -- oh, I will come over; it
6 will be better.
7 Q All right. Let's try that again,
8 Tony.
9 MR. SUSCO: You want me to start
10 at the beginning?
11 MR. MULLIN: Start at the
12 beginning.
13 (Whereupon, a portion of the
14 audiotape is played.)
15 BY MR. MULLIN:
16 Q Did you hear what you said there?
17 A I said, "We have got some kind of men out
18 there, big and strong." I may --
19 Q Let's go on to the next fragment.
20 A Okay.
21 (Whereupon, a portion of the
22 audiotape is played.)
23 Q What is that?
24 A "They're calling us faggot. Get the fuck
25 out of here, you village faggot."
00212
1 Q Okay. Go ahead, next.
2 (Whereupon, a portion of the
3 audiotape is played.)
4 A "You dick-sucking faggot, we're going to
5 draw" -- "drop condoms on" -- something.
6 Q Okay.
7 (Whereupon, a portion of the
8 audiotape is played.)
9 A "They did that to us before. They're
10 animals, real animals."
11 Q Keep going.
12 (Whereupon, a portion of the
13 audiotape is played.)
14 Q Stop right there. What was that
15 last --
16 A "You want to hear what they're saying?"
17 Because I was trying to get a record made.
18 Q Are you aware it was being
19 tape-recorded, that 911 --
20 A Yes, that's why I was both telling him
21 the dialogue and trying to get him to record it.
22 All I had to do was hold up the phone.
23 Q What kind of phone did you have in
24 your hand?
25 A I had a portable phone.
00213
1 Q Portable phone, okay.
2 A And I could -- I wanted him to hear it
3 because, you know, we knew you have to document
4 things.
5 Q When you said, "You want to hear
6 what they're saying," let's hear what the
7 officer responded.
8 (Whereupon, a portion of the
9 audiotape is played.)
10 A Okay. I hear myself. I say, again,
11 while he is talking -- he was just trying to get
12 me off, and I kept going on. He was just trying
13 to get me off, and I kept trying to tell him
14 what was going on. And I kept trying to get it
15 recorded and get him to listen to it, so he
16 could hear it himself. And I kept repeating the
17 words I was hearing as they were coming, so that
18 it would be documented. And he should have
19 stayed there on the phone, for one thing,
20 because it's an emergency.
21 MR. PARIS: Objection, Your Honor.
22 Q Okay. Have a seat. We'll move
23 on.
24 THE WITNESS: It's true.
25 JUDGE CURRAN: sir, do me a
00214
1 favor. Don't answer anybody. Don't make any
2 comments. Mr. Mullin will ask you questions.
3 If the other lawyers ask you later, you can
4 answer.
5 THE WITNESS: I'll cooperate, I'm
6 sorry.
7 JUDGE CURRAN: You don't have to
8 be sorry. Thank you.
9 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, that was
10 Plaintiff's 390.
11 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you very
12 much.
13 MR. MULLIN: The disk is called
14 Plaintiff's 390.
15 BY MR. MULLIN:
16 Q So you -- you hear the doorbell
17 ring. You hear sirens. You heard the doorbell
18 ring. Please tell the jury what happens next.
19 A Peter said -- first he turned to me; and
20 he said, "We have to press charges."
21 And I said, "You don't have to worry
22 about it" because he -- anyway --
23 Q I want to really focus on --
24 A Then he --
25 Q -- what you heard and --
00215
1 A Okay.
2 Q -- as opposed to what Peter said.
3 A All the time none of it is stopping. We
4 heard the wail of the sirens somewhere probably
5 at the park. That's like a little bit beyond
6 the fire -- you know, we start to hear that.
7 And I said, "How long has this been going on,
8 you know?" And -- and it seemed longer.
9 Q Did you answer the door, Tim?
10 When you heard the doorbell, did you answer the
11 door?
12 A I got behind Peter. Peter answered the
13 door. And as he opened the door, he turned
14 around and he said --
15 Q I don't want to hear what Peter
16 said. What -- Peter will testify.
17 A Okay.
18 Q I want to focus on what you said
19 and observed because you're testifying now. So
20 let me do that. Did you go out? Did you open
21 the door?
22 A We both went to the door.
23 Q Okay. What did you observe, and
24 what -- what happened next?
25 A We opened the big door. Peter was
00216
1 slightly in front of me on the stoop. And we
2 first saw a big, tall officer, you know, like
3 one of these really big guys, maybe six two,
4 broad-shouldered. And he was with -- with him
5 was another officer who was smaller. And he was
6 standing on the steps. This officer, the big
7 one, Ulrich --
8 Q Is that Officer Ulrich?
9 A Yeah, Ulrich came right up to the front.
10 He was right at the front door.
11 Q Let me just hold the phone for a
12 minute. You open the door and these two
13 officers are there, right?
14 A Right.
15 Q Are you out on the porch at this
16 point?
17 A We're like on the threshold.
18 Q On the threshold of the door? The
19 door is opened?
20 A Right.
21 Q Is the firemen's obscene and
22 threatening yelling and shouting still going on
23 at this point?
24 A It has never stopped.
25 Q Is it going on while the officers
00217
1 are there?
2 A Yes, but it had -- there were maybe five
3 people who were still going who were every bit
4 as vehement. There weren't as many involved.
5 Q How about the banging; did that
6 stop at that point?
7 A The banging went on right up until the
8 time we actually opened the door and -- and the
9 officers, two are standing there. And then they
10 started saying, "Hey, chicken shit. You lying
11 chicken shit." And it was all -- it was mainly,
12 "chicken shit."
13 Q The voices you heard shouting
14 those kinds of things from the parking lot while
15 Ulrich and the other officer were there?
16 A Yes.
17 Q Were those the same voices you
18 heard leading the mob and the yelling?
19 A One of them was Chucky Snyder, Jr. He
20 yelled. And one of the younger guys --
21 Q Without trying to identify them by
22 name yet, were those the voices you heard during
23 the attack that had --
24 A Yeah.
25 Q -- been going on?
00218
1 A Yeah. I mean, the, "Homo, homo, homo"
2 every time -- it was over and over and over.
3 It's like listening to a singer say,
4 "Homo, homo, homo."
5 Q Now, tell us what transpired on
6 the porch between you and the officers.
7 A Peter opened the door. He said, "We've
8 got to identify them."
9 Q Try to focus. Again, because
10 Peter is going to testify. Try to testify on
11 what you said, if you can.
12 A We opened the door; and the man said,
13 "I'm" -- "I am Officer so-and-so. What seems to
14 be the problem here?"
15 And I said, "What seems to be the
16 problem? They're yelling, 'faggot, chicken
17 shit' and stuff right behind" -- "within feet of
18 us."
19 And the other thing I remember, thing
20 that really stuck with me was opening that door
21 and being at -- in that doorway. There is a
22 difference between being behind a door and
23 somebody you're scared of after you and having
24 the door open, even though policeman is there
25 and having them there. It's just that physical
00219
1 presence. Your senses are very enlightened, you
2 know.
3 And so I started telling him what they
4 were saying. And I said, "You have to write
5 this down." Because he doesn't have a -- he is
6 not writing anything down. And I -- I said,
7 "You have to write this down." And I said,
8 "They're" -- "they were saying, you know, 'You
9 dick-licking and sword swallowers.'"
10 Peter says, "Cum, condoms, they told us
11 about throwing more condoms, did we like the
12 ones they gave us before" and all this kind of
13 stuff.
14 He is not writing it down. And he says
15 like this, "Whoa, I don't need to hear that kind
16 of language."
17 And I said, "It" -- "this is" -- "it
18 has to be documented."
19 And he goes, "I don't need to hear
20 that. Okay. I've heard enough." And then he
21 got more into the, "What's" -- "What's" --
22 "What's the problem here?"
23 And when we -- he started talking to
24 us, then they got more and more into that, "Cut
25 the crap, chicken shit, faggot." And so --
00220
1 Q Who was yelling that? Where was
2 that coming from?
3 A It was coming from right behind the
4 officer standing on the ground by the porch.
5 Q Did you see them?
6 A Yeah, I saw one shorter one with dark
7 hair.
8 Q Okay. Okay.
9 A And -- but you know, you couldn't like --
10 what happened is --
11 Q Did Officer Ulrich take you down
12 to identify these perpetrators?
13 A No, what happened was --
14 Q Did Officer Ulrich help you see
15 the perpetrators?
16 A No. What happened was we were there, and
17 we were both trying to like look at them then
18 because at least we had the officers with us.
19 And he wouldn't let us see them.
20 Q Who wouldn't let you see them?
21 A Ulrich.
22 Q How did he not let you see them?
23 A He --
24 Q By "them" you mean the
25 perpetrators?
00221
1 A No -- right. He is on the porch. If
2 this is -- if this is us at the door, he is
3 here, this big guy. It's a little bitty porch.
4 And he was like motioning like this with his
5 hands, like, hey, hey, you know, quiet down.
6 And he -- and he kept moving back and forth like
7 that.
8 Q While he was --
9 A As if he were trying -- as if he were
10 trying to break up a fight between two people
11 and not letting them get near each other.
12 Q All right. Let's --
13 A And then the other --
14 Q Stop for a second.
15 A -- officer came up on the --
16 Q Let's get a picture of the porch
17 so we can --
18 A Okay.
19 Q This is P-163A. And maybe you
20 should come down here. Okay. I'll let you use
21 this. And we are now looking at P-163A. And
22 for the record -- of course, the jury sees what
23 it is; but for the court reporter, for the
24 record, tell us what we're looking at in this
25 picture.
00222
1 A Well, we're looking at the -- the front
2 porch of the house. That's the front door Peter
3 and I opened. The officer, Ulrich --
4 Q Ulrich?
5 A Ulrich had come to the door, knocked on
6 the door. He is standing in front of the door.
7 The door opens. The -- there was a second
8 officer, and he was standing down maybe about
9 right here on the steps. And when he came out,
10 I -- we were trying to identify them. And this
11 was still going on. So I like, you know,
12 started walking over there and then --
13 Q What was your purpose in walking
14 over there, to make it really clear?
15 A To see them clearer because, as I told
16 you, I could almost see them, you know.
17 Q What happened then?
18 A They were moving. They were like moving
19 around, doing this.
20 Q What happened when you tried to
21 see the perpetrators?
22 A Two things happened. Ulrich, whatever
23 his name is --
24 Q Ulrich.
25 A -- comes here, big tall guy.
00223
1 Q So he came and he stood by the
2 railing of the -- of the front porch?
3 A Yes, yes, sir. He blocked up --
4 Q Was his back to it, his front to
5 it or what?
6 A His back was to it.
7 Q Okay.
8 A And he's -- and he was motioning his
9 hands. And at one point he turned around and
10 said, "Hey, calm down" because they were
11 yelling, "chicken shit, faggot. Chicken shit,
12 faggot."
13 Q And when you tried to see the
14 perpetrators, what did he do, Ulrich?
15 A The other -- the other officer came up
16 here and stood beside him. And all -- at that
17 point he took up this space. And all Ulrich had
18 to do was just like move.
19 Q When he moved like that, what did
20 that do to your view?
21 A We couldn't see. It was like trying to
22 keep apart two people fighting.
23 Q Go ahead. Did Ulrich have a
24 notebook in his hands?
25 A No.
00224
1 Q What happened next? Where did
2 Ulrich and the other officer go?
3 A They stood there the whole time this went
4 on.
5 Q And by "this," the whole time this
6 went on, what's going on? What do you mean?
7 Yelling?
8 A The beginning of the interview of the two
9 of us and the yelling.
10 Q What happened next?
11 A What happened next is that the Sergeant
12 Am --
13 Q Amodeo?
14 A -- Amodeo comes in his car. He pulled
15 right up to our front step -- to the -- to the
16 sidewalk. And he came walking up. And he --
17 Q Where were you at this time?
18 A We were both at the doorway. And he
19 said --
20 Q Where had Ulrich and/or the other
21 officer -- Moreda, I believe, is the other
22 officer's name. Where did they go?
23 A When he came up he identified himself as
24 Sergeant Amodeo. And he said, "I am in charge
25 of the department tonight." He was the highest
00225
1 ranking officer. He said, "I'm in command."
2 So he told -- he told these two other
3 officers, "I want you to go over there, and I
4 don't want anybody leaving this parking lot or
5 that firehouse until" -- "until you have the
6 names of every single one of them."
7 Q That's what you heard?
8 A That's what I heard.
9 Q Okay. What's the next thing that
10 happened that you personally witnessed or heard?
11 A The next thing I personally witnessed and
12 heard is that Peter broke down. He started to
13 cry.
14 Q Okay. I didn't want you to tell
15 us what Peter said at this point, but just what
16 happened next?
17 A The -- they sent him inside; and they
18 said, "Let's talk to you."
19 Q Okay.
20 A And so I was talking to him, and I -- I
21 just thought -- it didn't seem to me they were
22 taking it as -- forget it, they were not taking
23 it as -- as an emergency.
24 Q Well, don't speculate. I just
25 really want you to focus --
00226
1 A I'll get -- okay. I'll get to the thing
2 that happened.
3 Q I want to know what happened and
4 what was said.
5 A At one point I said to him, "Sir, I am
6 not asking you; I am telling you this is a hate
7 crime. This is a bias crime."
8 And when I said that, Amodeo, I never
9 saw him respond this way before, but he said,
10 "Don't tell me how to do my job." But when he
11 said, "don't" like that, I just went --
12 Q This is not -- let's put some --
13 A So --
14 Q Hold it. Let's get some of what
15 you did on the record. What you did is --
16 you're saying he pointed his finger at you?
17 A He pointed his finger at me. He had a
18 flash of anger --
19 Q And you sort of jumped back,
20 recoiled back?
21 A Yeah.
22 Q What happened next?
23 A -- in the circumstances. And so given
24 the context, I said, "Don't point your finger at
25 me." I never talked to an officer that way.
00227
1 But he didn't. And I said, "This is a hate
2 crime. It's a bias crime."
3 And -- and he turned around and said
4 something to those officers. And they -- it
5 seemed to me like they were stopping the --
6 Q Don't guess at anything. Just he
7 said something you didn't hear; is that what you
8 are telling us?
9 A Yes.
10 Q Did those officers depart at that
11 point?
12 A They did.
13 Q What happened next between you and
14 Sergeant Amodeo?
15 A Sergeant Amodeo had told Peter to go
16 inside because Peter was very upset. I said,
17 "He's sick."
18 He said, "Peter, you go up" -- "you can
19 go inside." And when Peter left, he said,
20 "Would you mind if I come inside your home and
21 sit down?"
22 And I said, "No."
23 So he came inside. And this is why I
24 can recall of what happened. I guess he asked
25 me a couple things, I don't know. And then he
00228
1 said to me as if, you know -- like an uncle
2 talking to you or something. He said, "Tim,
3 everything in this Town is hand to hand."
4 Q You are making a hand gesture; is
5 that --
6 A He meant hand to hand.
7 Q Is that the hand gesture Sergeant
8 Amodeo made?
9 A Yes.
10 Q Describe the gesture.
11 A Yes, it was.
12 Q Describe the hand gesture, so the
13 court reporter can take it down.
14 A He said, "Tim, I'm trying to tell you
15 everything in this Town is hand to hand. See
16 what I mean?"
17 Q Sliding one hand over the other?
18 A Yeah, and then again.
19 Q Okay.
20 A And I thought, No, I don't really.
21 And he said, "I have worked for the
22 Police Department for 21 years." Now, where
23 would I know that? Twenty-one years. And he
24 said, "When you" --
25 Q Okay. Police officer just --
00229
1 court officer just appeared.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: He is normally
3 here. He checks on us.
4 Q He is the court --
5 JUDGE CURRAN: He is the sheriff's
6 officer.
7 THE WITNESS: Oh.
8 BY MR. MULLIN:
9 A When you -- when you go out and try to
10 ask people -- because I kept telling him that's
11 like 70, a hundred people, who knows? And all
12 these neighbors around and everything.
13 He said, "Tim, when you go out and try
14 to ask people what happened, I'm telling you,
15 speaking like a friend, nobody heard anything,
16 nobody saw anything, nobody knows anything."
17 And he said, "You know that the" -- "that
18 your" -- "you got a combined group here." These
19 people grew up together. They grew up beside
20 each other, you know, I don't know, whatever,
21 went to school. He said, "It's a small Town.
22 The policemen know the firemen, and the firemen
23 know the policemen." And then he said -- my
24 hands again. Then he said, "Secaucus is very,
25 very corrupt." These are his words. And I have
00230
1 never quite known what to make of it because
2 that's what he said.
3 Q Don't -- don't editorialize.
4 A I know. I know.
5 Q Just tell us what was said.
6 A All right.
7 Q Do you remember anything further
8 of that conversation?
9 A He said -- no, he just said --
10 Q Is that the end of the
11 conversation?
12 A Yeah, except I said -- I said, "We're
13 scared. We're scared."
14 So he said, "Okay. I'll tell you what
15 I'm going to do. I'm going to post a officer
16 right outside your door."
17 I said, "Right outside the door?"
18 "Right outside the door."
19 And he said -- I said, "How long is he
20 going to be there?"
21 He said, "Until 7 the next morning or
22 before he has to go back to the station to go
23 off-duty."
24 So I said, "That's not going to help."
25 I said, "These people, you know, they're all
00231
1 connected and everything. They're going to have
2 family mad, you know, that's taking up for each
3 other. They'll come after us next week. They
4 will come after us somewhere else, you know.
5 That's not going to help."
6 And he says, "Right now that's what I
7 can do." And then he left. And I --
8 Q All right. Let me ask you a
9 question. In his opening Mr. Bevere said that
10 Amodeo gave you his cell phone number.
11 A He did not.
12 Q Did Amodeo ever give you his cell
13 phone number?
14 A No.
15 Q You ever call Amodeo on his cell
16 phone number?
17 A No, there was no point --
18 Q I am not asking about any comment.
19 Just did he or didn't he?
20 A No.
21 Q Okay. Now, did they -- did the
22 Secaucus Police Department ever install a
23 surveillance camera near your house or on your
24 house?
25 A No.
00232
1 MR. PARIS: Objection, Your Honor.
2 Objection, Your Honor. Can we be heard at
3 sidebar?
4 JUDGE CURRAN: Sure.
5 (Whereupon, the following sidebar
6 discussion is held.)
7 MR. PARIS: Your Honor, my concern
8 here is Mr. Mullin can suggest a hundred
9 things -- Mr. Mullin can suggest a hundred
10 things that the Police Department did or did not
11 do, including, you know, put an armed guard at
12 the door for the remainder of the time they
13 stayed in Secaucus, putting surveillance cameras
14 inside their house, getting a canine unit.
15 I mean, he could go through a
16 hundred things; but without any foundation as to
17 whether the lack of that was violation of the
18 Constitutional rights, number one, number two,
19 whether they would have done that for somebody
20 who was not homosexual, number three, an expert
21 indicating that that was an appropriate police
22 practice under these circumstances, this line of
23 questioning should stop right here.
24 JUDGE CURRAN: Mr. Mullin.
25 MR. MULLIN: How do you prove
00233
1 deliberate indifference without talking about
2 what a Town didn't do? Now, I'm not going to go
3 into anything obscure.
4 JUDGE CURRAN: It would be
5 different if you had an expert.
6 MR. MULLIN: Yeah.
7 JUDGE CURRAN: But in fairness --
8 MR. MULLIN: I have the --
9 JUDGE CURRAN: -- the question
10 about Mr. Bevere's comment and the cell phone,
11 fair question.
12 MR. MULLIN: Right.
13 JUDGE CURRAN: But if now we are
14 going to go through --
15 MR. MULLIN: I am not going to go
16 through other things, but let me point this out.
17 A document I will submit into Evidence, which is
18 the -- the Secaucus Police Department's Bias
19 Crime Guidelines, calls for surveillance as one
20 of the options to undertake.
21 JUDGE CURRAN: Does it talk about
22 a surveillance camera?
23 MR. MULLIN: Not surveillance
24 camera. It talks about surveillance. First of
25 all, I don't think you need to be a rocket
00234
1 scientist to know if you put up a surveillance
2 camera what happens is that --
3 JUDGE CURRAN: No, but I don't
4 think you need to be a rocket scientist to know
5 there is another meaning to surveillance outside
6 of a surveillance camera. There are other ways
7 to do surveillance. So I don't think -- if you
8 want to ask him do they do surveillance -- and
9 if that's in there, if you are going to present
10 the document, you can ask him that. You can ask
11 him anything that's at least in the document.
12 And then the objections will be preserved at
13 this point.
14 MR. PARIS: We're going to object
15 to the use of that document without expert
16 testimony --
17 JUDGE CURRAN: I understand.
18 MR. PARIS: -- its applicability
19 under any given circumstance.
20 MR. MULLIN: We'll cross that
21 bridge at a later time, I suppose. I'm not
22 going further on this.
23 JUDGE CURRAN: No, no, no, I know.
24 But that document is a document that is given to
25 the employees of Secaucus, and it's a document
00235
1 that everyone is aware of --
2 MR. MULLIN: Yes.
3 JUDGE CURRAN: -- or supposed to
4 be, according to what Mr. Mullin said yesterday,
5 correct?
6 MR. MULLIN: Absolutely.
7 JUDGE CURRAN: Okay.
8 MR. MULLIN: It's the official
9 bias crime policy of the Secaucus Police
10 Department implementing AG guidelines.
11 JUDGE CURRAN: Right.
12 MR. MULLIN: Almost verbatim as
13 the AG guidelines.
14 MR. PARIS: Again, we would like
15 to be heard on that later.
16 JUDGE CURRAN: Sure.
17 (Whereupon, sidebar discussion is
18 concluded.)
19 BY MR. MULLIN:
20 Q Did you see the -- the police
21 officer that Amodeo promised posted outside your
22 door for a while?
23 A I didn't open the door.
24 Q So you don't know whether he was
25 out there or not?
00236
1 A I -- I -- yes, he was, because what I did
2 was I went upstairs and peeped out the bedroom
3 window there; and I saw the police car. I
4 didn't see the officer himself.
5 Q Okay. Now, you said that he
6 posted a guard until 7 a.m. After 7 -- that
7 would be 7 a.m. on April 25th?
8 A Yes.
9 Q After 7 a.m. on April 25th did you
10 ever again see a Secaucus Police officer posted
11 on your property?
12 A No.
13 Q What time approximately did
14 Sergeant Amodeo leave your residence?
15 A I'm thinking maybe it was -- I'm thinking
16 maybe it was 10 till 2 or something, yeah.
17 Q Did you have any further contact
18 with Am -- Sergeant Amodeo that -- in the wee
19 hours of April 25th?
20 A I did, indeed.
21 Q Tell the jury what -- how that
22 happened and what he said and what you said.
23 A Well, after he left first I called The
24 Antiviolence Project. And after that I thought,
25 Who do I call?
00237
1 And then I started panicking because
2 the whole time I was just thinking about the
3 actual people who did it coming back. And they
4 would have a harder time because they were
5 spotted, people would know who they were. And
6 then I thought, Well, it could be their cousins
7 or brothers. But then, when I really panicked
8 was I thought there are places around here, bars
9 and stuff, where you can go and pay somebody,
10 you know, to -- to do anything.
11 Q What do you mean by "do anything"?
12 A Shoot at you, set something on fire, you
13 know, kill your dogs, whatever. And -- and you
14 name it. Or scare you or something. And I
15 really started to freak. So I called the Police
16 Department.
17 Q You didn't call him on his cell
18 phone?
19 A No, didn't call him on the cell phone.
20 He actually was going back to his office; he
21 didn't need a cell phone.
22 Q You called him at the Police
23 Department?
24 A Asked for him.
25 Q Tell us what -- did you reach him?
00238
1 A I reached him.
2 Q What did you say and what did he
3 say, as you recall?
4 A I told him that I was worried, and I told
5 him this -- they can hire people around here.
6 And he said, "Well, you know, maybe
7 just don't go there with that. Just try to keep
8 that out of your mind."
9 And then he said, just like this, "Do
10 you know what those firemen did? Do you know
11 how arrogant they are? I sent two of my police
12 officers over there" -- this is exactly what he
13 said -- "and he said they told him to get the
14 fuck out of the fire" -- "out of their
15 firehouse." It really insulted him.
16 And so he said, "They came over and
17 said, 'We can't get them to leave.'" And he
18 said, "So I went over; and I said, 'I am in
19 charge of the Police Department and police
20 security tonight. I am as if the Chief of
21 Police until 7:00 tomorrow morning.'" And he
22 said, "'And I am telling you to'" -- "'to'"--
23 "'ordering you to get out.' And the firemen
24 told me, 'We're going to the Mayor. You can't
25 do this. You have to wait and see what the
00239
1 Mayor said.'" And he said, "I told them, 'I
2 don't care what the Mayor said. The Police
3 Department is in charge of security, not the
4 Mayor.'"
5 And he said, "I couldn't get them to
6 leave. Can you believe that?" And then he just
7 went like -- he -- he was incredulous over it.
8 That's the end of what I recall.
9 Q Okay. Did you sleep that night?
10 A No, no.
11 Q How about the next night?
12 A No.
13 Q Did you sleep the next night?
14 A No.
15 Q How long did you go without
16 sleeping?
17 A I went until what typically happens. I
18 went until Friday night before I slept. And I
19 could -- I do these five-day things. I freak
20 out; I don't -- I don't mean I slept one minute.
21 I didn't sleep zero. And I can function.
22 Q Now, I'm still -- I'm going to go
23 back now the day of the incident, April 25th.
24 Mr. Bevere mentioned a visit from some Town
25 officials. Would you tell us -- on daytime
00240
1 April 25th. Can you tell us what you recall of
2 that?
3 A Okay. At -- I know that it was about
4 11:30 because I saw my neighbors were -- one of
5 my neighbors came over. He was just coming home
6 from mass. After -- that was Patrick. After
7 he -- it let out 11:30.
8 After he left my -- there was a knock
9 at the door. And I went, and I opened the door.
10 And there stood Mayor Dennis Elwell, whom I did
11 not know but had, you know -- I knew him from
12 posters and stuff. And he had two men with him.
13 Q Did you recognize the two men who
14 were with him?
15 A Not at all.
16 Q Did you have any thoughts about
17 who they might be?
18 A I thought they were both from the Fire
19 Department.
20 Q Okay. Now, before they came to
21 your house had any -- had any of them called --
22 A No.
23 Q -- to say they were coming?
24 A No, sir.
25 Q Okay. What transpired next?
00241
1 A Dennis Elwell, he had like a bright smile
2 on his face. And he said, "I have brought the
3 Fire Department Chief here personally." And he
4 Didn't really bother to introduce the other guy.
5 So because of that I assumed they were both from
6 the Fire Department. One of them happened to be
7 the Police Chief, but I didn't know.
8 "I had brought the Fire Chief here
9 personally to see if we can't get our head
10 around this one." And I was -- I was not going
11 to talk to him because I had been pleading, I
12 knew other people have been pleading for years
13 about that fire station.
14 MR. PARIS: Objection, Your Honor.
15 MR. MULLIN: I just want to --
16 JUDGE CURRAN: Okay. Excuse me,
17 one second. Just put a quick basis on the
18 record. It saves us --
19 MR. PARIS: Hearsay.
20 JUDGE CURRAN: Sustained.
21 BY MR. MULLIN:
22 Q I simply want to know very
23 narrowly --
24 A Okay.
25 Q -- what did you say and what did
00242
1 they say and how did the conversation go?
2 A I said, "Sir, I have nothing to say."
3 And he said, "Okay."
4 And I politely shut the door.
5 Q And without going into a lot of
6 what other people said or thought, can you just
7 very briefly tell me why you said that, if you
8 recall?
9 A I said that because I had asked them to
10 help me to solve this problem, to contain the
11 problem. I didn't go to the City Council or
12 anything, complain about dirty condoms. I went
13 in a way that I thought they would be able to
14 internally work out the problem and a way that
15 would save us from becoming, you know, targets
16 of attack and would save the firemen from being
17 embarrassed or angry or something.
18 And I was -- and now this had happened.
19 And what in the heck are we going to do? Peter
20 does not have the physical strength to move, but
21 we have to move. What are we going to do? What
22 are we going to do about money? What are we
23 going to do about the dogs? You know, where are
24 we going to rent with these big dogs? We're
25 going to have to buy. That's what I thought.
00243
1 Too late.
2 Q Too late?
3 A Yeah, where were you -- you know, and I
4 had sent an e-mail on Thursday about -- to tell
5 him -- ask him if he could patronize this little
6 local North End Deli on Thursday right before
7 then. I sent an e-mail. If you dropped in
8 there. You were the Mayor, because unlike these
9 young people that started this --
10 Q Let me keep the focus on what's
11 happening.
12 A All right.
13 Q Did you see -- so now we are into
14 daytime after the attack of the wee hours of
15 April 25th, 2004. During the daytime that day
16 or next day did you see any firemen coming or
17 going from the firehouse?
18 A Yes, they were coming and going from the
19 firehouse. And Chucky Snyder, Sr. was there
20 practically all the time.
21 Q Did you feel anything about that?
22 A Well, yeah.
23 Q Did you take any action?
24 A We stayed inside with the -- with the
25 shades drawn, you know. It was like a funeral
00244
1 or something.
2 Q Did you do anything else?
3 A I -- well, they -- I know that we also --
4 there was a note that -- I guess they put in
5 people -- I don't know what they did, but there
6 was a note that was put there saying that the
7 firehouse was closed for permanent -- was closed
8 for social functions and club functions but not
9 for emergencies. Trying to reassure people
10 about the fire.
11 Q Did you do anything in connection
12 with the windows of your house?
13 A Yep. Here is what I did. After that
14 I -- I covered all the windows. We had a lot of
15 windows downstairs. I got the packing paper,
16 newsprint that we had saved from the move. And
17 I covered all our windows in newsprint so that
18 they couldn't see in any of the windows.
19 And then I went and I got -- to the 99
20 cents store and I got boxes of baking soda. And
21 I would -- I kept pouring it all around the
22 sidewalks and the front porch and everywhere
23 because I thought that, at least if somebody
24 came for us, they might -- maybe they'd leave
25 footprints.
00245
1 And then I got -- you know, I was
2 putting things like Christmas decorations,
3 putting bells on doors and windows and stuff.
4 And then I -- I was -- I feel so
5 foolish telling this; but I got a piece of
6 board, wooden board, plywood board. And I cut
7 it to the shape of that window, the smaller one
8 right beside the entrance, side entrance to the
9 fire station. All right. You're going to think
10 I'm crazy, but I drilled a little tiny hole in
11 the middle of it. Then I got one of Peter's
12 giant flashlights. And I got this cutoff piece
13 of this green cellophane stuff that was over on
14 the windows to block too much light from coming
15 in. And I put that in front of the -- the
16 flashlight. And then I put up a stack of books
17 and put that green light on there to make it
18 look like it was a light shining through the
19 window. I had never even told Peter this until
20 he saw it. And I don't know, I just put
21 Reynolds wrap all around it and everything. It
22 was a diversion, if nothing else. And I put
23 wires coming down. Because I was scared and I
24 thought if they think there is a camera pointed
25 toward --
00246
1 Q During that week, the week after
2 April 25th, did you receive any further contact
3 from any Town officials? Anyone from the Town
4 Council or --
5 A Okay. On -- no.
6 Q No?
7 A We never heard anymore from the Mayor,
8 although I did try to contact him again.
9 Q All right. Now, you mentioned
10 that you got some sort of notice indicating that
11 the social wing in the firehouse had been shut
12 down?
13 A I can't remember if we got a notice or if
14 it was posted. I can't remember.
15 Q You don't recall how you learned
16 that? During that following week was the --
17 were the firemen present or was it quiet or
18 what?
19 A They were there, but they were very --
20 there was -- there were no parties. And they
21 were not coming in as big a numbers, but they
22 were definitely meeting in that house.
23 Q Okay.
24 A And it was just all kept more discreetly.
25 Q Now, at some point were you called
00247
1 down to the police station for further --
2 A I was.
3 Q -- communication? Do you remember
4 when that was?
5 A That was on Thursday night.
6 Q All right. So Sunday is
7 April 25th, when the incident happened; is that
8 right?
9 A Yes.
10 Q This was the Thursday of that
11 week?
12 A Yes.
13 Q Okay. And what happened down
14 there? Tell the jury just what transpired down
15 there? Who did you meet with down there?
16 A On Tuesday the Mayor -- the City -- the
17 Town attorney called.
18 Q Why don't you tell us about that?
19 That is earlier in the time?
20 A Right. Tuesday afternoon the Town
21 attorney called. His name was Frank Leanza. He
22 was -- he was very nice to me and said -- he
23 gave me his cell phone number, although, when I
24 started trying to get in touch with him, he
25 wouldn't answer it. But he gave me his cell
00248
1 phone number. And he said, "I don't live in
2 Secaucus." As I recall, he lived in Hoboken,
3 Frank Leanza.
4 And he said that they were -- they were
5 going through the process of trying to determine
6 if this were, indeed, a biased crime.
7 I said, "Are you kidding me? I mean
8 are you serious?"
9 And -- and he said, "Well, there is" --
10 you know, I just couldn't understand it.
11 Then -- then he said, "I don't live in this
12 Town. I live in Hoboken," I think. And he
13 said, "But I understand where you're coming
14 from." He said, "If I were you, I would get out
15 of this Town too."
16 Isn't that something? If -- I thought
17 if the Town attorney told -- tells me that.
18 And that's about all I remember of
19 that.
20 Q Now we are up to Thursday of that
21 week. And you went down to the police station?
22 A We did.
23 Q Do you remember who you spoke to?
24 How did it come that you went down to the police
25 station? Did somebody call you?
00249
1 A Yes, we got a call. I think it was
2 Dominic DeGennaro.
3 Q Did you understand he was an
4 officer or detective or something?
5 A A detective.
6 Q Okay. You went down there?
7 A Yes, I went down there on Thursday night.
8 Q What transpired down there? How
9 long did you talk to Detective DeGennaro?
10 A What happened is I went in and it was --
11 was it Reinke and --
12 Q There is another officer named
13 Reinke?
14 A Yeah, there was two. Reinke typed the
15 statement too. And they were very nice. And
16 there was a table over on the side of the room.
17 And I was there a long time, like maybe an
18 hour-and-a-half. But a lot of the time they
19 were -- they were nice people, and they were
20 just telling me about stories and all kinds of
21 things. And then -- but, of course, we did --
22 they did interview me.
23 And during the course of this Reinke --
24 Dominic was the nicer one, kind of more
25 friendly; but Reinke said to me, "Did you see
00250
1 any faces? Did you see the faces? If we have a
2 lineup here, can you pick out the guys?"
3 And I said, "No." I -- I was just
4 being very, very scrupulous, right.
5 Q Did Reinke or DeGennaro ever ask
6 you whether you could recognize anyone by voice?
7 A No.
8 Q That topic ever come up?
9 A No, it didn't even come up about
10 identity. It just came up about, "Can you
11 recognize the faces? Did you see their faces?"
12 Q Okay. Let me show you Plaintiff's
13 Exhibit 284. And first of all, let me just ask
14 you if you recognize that document.
15 A Yes.
16 Q Who -- who typed that document?
17 A Officer Reinke.
18 Q Okay. And tell us -- tell the
19 jury the circumstances under which that was
20 typed. What was going on? How did this
21 document get put together?
22 A It was very late. The interview had --
23 they didn't get me down there until -- I don't
24 know, it was just late. I guess it's got a time
25 on here. And so, yeah, it's 2115. So that's at
00251
1 9:15.
2 Q 9:15?
3 A Yeah.
4 Q P.m.?
5 A P.m. And they were --
6 Q This was on Thursday?
7 A Yeah. And they were tired. I was
8 exhausted. And so he typed this up very, very
9 quickly. And I read it. I made some comments
10 on it in my hand. I added things and initialed
11 them. And it was, they said, a summary.
12 Q Did the officers advise you
13 whether Ulrich or any of the other officers who
14 were on the scene that day had made any progress
15 in identifying the persons in the parking lot
16 who were shouting?
17 A No.
18 Q Did they show you any of the
19 reports?
20 A No.
21 Q Okay.
22 A They told us -- they told me, because I
23 was mainly the one nagging them. They said --
24 they said, "It's all in limbo" over this whole
25 issue of is this a bias crime or isn't it? And
00252
1 every time they said it, I would go, you know,
2 "How can you" -- "What" -- "What do you need for
3 it to be a bias crime?"
4 Q Now, this -- this is in question
5 and answer format. Did they -- did they tape
6 record your interview?
7 A No.
8 Q Okay. How long were you talking
9 to --
10 A No.
11 Q How long were you talking to these
12 two detectives?
13 A About an hour-and-a-half.
14 Q About an hour-and-a-half. And
15 this -- this is what came out of it; is that
16 right?
17 A They said it was a summary.
18 Q This document that I put in front
19 of you? Now, there is -- there is a long
20 paragraph. It has some of your markings on it.
21 I am not going to go through that in detail now,
22 but there are some questions after it. One of
23 the questions is, "Are you able to identify
24 anyone in the incident?" And you answer it,
25 "No." What did you mean by that answer?
00253
1 A Okay. This is what you got to remember.
2 What I actually did was sign this statement.
3 I -- they asked me, "Did you see the faces? Did
4 you look through the window? Did you" -- you
5 know, "Did you see the faces?"
6 And I said, "No."
7 I couldn't see the faces. I was not
8 going to put my head out the window. They
9 were -- they were taunting me to come out and
10 fight, "chicken shit," the whole time. And I
11 thought, If they're trying to get me to come
12 out, they must be ready to come in, if I don't
13 come out. It's my logic. So I was hiding, you
14 know.
15 So they said faces, "Did you recognize
16 the faces?" I said -- "did you see any faces?"
17 It was more like very direct, "Did you see any
18 faces?"
19 I said, "No." So --
20 Q Okay. And it says right under
21 that, "Do you wish to pursue criminal charges
22 against anyone involved in this incident?" And
23 you answered, "Yes," right?
24 A Yes. But above that -- I'm not finished
25 because it says, "Are you able to identify
00254
1 anyone involved in this incident?" What I was
2 told was that this was a summary. But I didn't
3 realize it at the time; but the "able to
4 identify" part was not -- these were not the
5 words I was asked. But they translated in my
6 thinking to, okay, if you can't say, "Yes, I saw
7 the face," you -- you are not able to identify
8 them. And that's what I signed.
9 Q You know today whether or not
10 Ulrich actually was able to identify some of the
11 people in the parking lot?
12 A They were all -- you know, they were all
13 able to identify. And when we were -- we were
14 still of the frame of mind --
15 MR. PARIS: Objection.
16 MR. MULLIN: All right.
17 JUDGE CURRAN: Basis?
18 MR. PARIS: I don't know who the
19 we were of a state of mind.
20 JUDGE CURRAN: Sustained.
21 THE WITNESS: It means Peter and
22 me.
23 JUDGE CURRAN: Let Mr. Mullin ask.
24 MR. MULLIN: I will reframe. I
25 will move on to another question.
00255
1 BY MR. MULLIN:
2 Q Okay. At some point did you learn
3 whether or not the -- at some point did you make
4 any observations about activity at the firehouse
5 that you wanted to bring to the jury's
6 attention? Again, I'm going along in this week
7 right after April 25th.
8 A There was -- there was sort of the inner
9 circle, I guess, of officers; the Snyders, their
10 younger son, Chris, Bobby Kickey, most
11 definitely.
12 Q Are these people you observed
13 going in an out of the firehouse?
14 A Yeah, but they were being quieter. They
15 were not -- there was no music.
16 Q No parties?
17 A No.
18 Q At some point did you see any
19 change in the activity level at the firehouse?
20 A To my surprise, I did.
21 Q Okay. Do you remember when the
22 activity level changed?
23 A The activity level changed when I looked
24 out the window on May 1, 2004. This was exactly
25 one week -- well, no, it was Saturday, so it was
00256
1 from Sunday of the attack until Saturday. And I
2 was scheduled to work. I was -- worked on the
3 weekend. I was only going to be working for
4 like few hours. And when I left, I saw that
5 they had opened -- reopened the firehouse.
6 And --
7 Q How did you notice that?
8 A Because all of -- they were all back.
9 They had the gate up in the front like they did
10 on Saturdays, like when they were doing ring and
11 run. And they -- they had -- they were coming
12 and going in a very light-hearted manner. And
13 the thing was up for business again.
14 And we had been assured on Thursday
15 night by Dominic DeGennaro, the detective, that
16 that firehouse was closed, period, except to be
17 used as a firehouse when they needed it, not for
18 parties, not for socializing, clubhouse.
19 Q Had anyone from the Town
20 government called you before that point to tell
21 you, "We're going to reopen the firehouse" --
22 A No.
23 Q -- "for social function"? Did you
24 call anyone in Town government upon observing
25 that the firehouse was once again opened for all
00257
1 aspects of business?
2 A Yes, I did.
3 Q Who did you call?
4 A I called Frank Leanza.
5 Q Okay.
6 A He was the Town attorney who had told me,
7 "If you have any problems, call me. I will give
8 you my personal cell phone number."
9 Q What happened?
10 A I called him and called him and kept
11 leaving messages. And he did not -- he did not
12 reply. I was at work, I was on a break, I could
13 call him. And so --
14 Q Did he ever call you back?
15 A Never called me back.
16 Q Okay.
17 A Then I called his law firm. I called
18 anywhere I could think. I got his answering
19 service. He never called back.
20 Q Did you call anybody else in Town
21 government about the reopening of the firehouse
22 for social purposes?
23 A Yes.
24 Q Who did you call?
25 A When I got home, it was like -- when I
00258
1 got home from work, I -- this is just like a
2 short shift. I came back. And when I came
3 back, Patrick was out cutting the grass. He
4 owned the house.
5 Q Patrick who?
6 A Patrick Hjelm.
7 Q Okay.
8 A H-j-e-l-m. And he said the -- he said,
9 "Tim, I just called the police." He said that
10 these two firemen had come by. And he said one
11 of them got out of the car -- got out of his
12 truck -- it's like a pickup truck, I think --
13 and the other one jumped out and started
14 yelling, "The homos are home. The homos are
15 home."
16 And I said, "Who was it?"
17 And he said Bobby Kickey, Jr. was one
18 of them. And then the car -- this -- this truck
19 went up the street, like just right up the
20 street and parked; and the guy got out.
21 Q Did you witness this?
22 A Yeah.
23 Q Okay.
24 A The guy got out and went in --
25 MR. PARIS: Your Honor, can we
00259
1 have a foundation? Where is this information
2 coming from?
3 JUDGE CURRAN: If you will just
4 back it up.
5 BY MR. MULLIN:
6 Q Let's slow it down a little bit.
7 You are now describing seeing a car drive up the
8 street and someone come out?
9 A It was -- it was -- Patrick said, "That's
10 the truck."
11 Q I'm not asking what Patrick said.
12 I'm asking did you observe it?
13 A Yes.
14 Q Were you with Patrick when this
15 car drove by?
16 A Yes.
17 Q Okay. So where were you standing?
18 A No, no, no, I wasn't with him. I arrived
19 afterwards.
20 Q All right. What day are we at?
21 A What?
22 Q What day of the week are we at?
23 A Saturday.
24 Q Saturday, May 1st?
25 A Yes.
00260
1 Q Okay. And Patrick has told you
2 about what these firemen said, right?
3 A Yes.
4 Q You have just arrived home from
5 work; is that right?
6 A Yes, but it was almost happening -- he
7 was just like -- he had just like gotten off his
8 cell phone.
9 Q So you pull your car in? Did you
10 pull your car in?
11 A I pulled my car in.
12 Q Now tell us what happened next.
13 A I got out. And Patrick said, "Tim, I
14 just had to call the police."
15 Q All right. And you have told
16 the -- you told us about that. Now you're
17 telling us about some observation you made right
18 after he told you that?
19 A Right.
20 Q Tell us about that observation.
21 A He said, "The guy drove up the street."
22 MR. PARIS: Objection, Your Honor.
23 Question was about his observations.
24 JUDGE CURRAN: I got it.
25 Sir, you have already told us
00261
1 about what Mr. Hjelm told you, so now Mr. Mullin
2 is asking you what happened next. What were
3 your observations after you had that
4 conversation with Mr. Hjelm?
5 THE WITNESS: Yeah, okay.
6 BY MR. MULLIN:
7 Q So what did you see next?
8 A What I saw was -- Patrick said going into
9 Danny's -- I saw a man going into Danny's Bar.
10 Q Okay. Where is Danny's Bar?
11 A Danny's Bar is within sight of our house.
12 It's opposite what's called North End Deli --
13 Q Okay.
14 A -- on the corner.
15 Q What street is it on?
16 A It's on Plank Road.
17 Q How far away from the firehouse is
18 it?
19 A I'm not good at how far away from.
20 Q Okay. So you observed this man?
21 A Right.
22 Q You observed this man get out of a
23 vehicle or walk down the street? What did you
24 observe?
25 A What I observed was him coming around the
00262
1 corner. And I know it's confusing; but Patrick
2 said, "That's the other guy" because, see, he
3 had parked that truck.
4 Q Okay.
5 A At that point two officers arrived. One
6 of them, his name starts with a B, very young
7 guy, 19 years old. And he was taking the
8 statement. He was with another officer.
9 And I said, "That's the guy right
10 there, right, Patrick, who was driving the
11 car" -- "the truck?" He had parked it in the --
12 in the -- behind the -- in the -- in the lot and
13 then cut -- came -- he is going -- he is by that
14 bar. And then he kept walking. And I kept
15 saying, "That's the guy. That's the guy." And
16 I could see him myself. He was a big guy. And
17 he had like reddish hair; and it was like, you
18 know, real -- cut real short.
19 Q And did the police officer then go
20 and --
21 A No.
22 Q -- go and attempt to interview
23 that individual?
24 A No.
25 Q Did they leave --
00263
1 A No.
2 Q -- your area?
3 A No, because the -- this -- I could
4 remember his name, but his father is a police
5 officer too. But he is 19 years old. I kept
6 telling him this. And they seemed to be totally
7 disoriented, like, "Why do you need us to find
8 out who this person is" and so forth?
9 And I said to them, "I thought that
10 they were having" -- "The detectives said they
11 were having reports at every shift change of" --
12 "to the officers to like keep them abreast of
13 this information, all the police officers are
14 up-to-date."
15 And the reason he wasn't responding is
16 he said, you know, "I don't" -- "I'm sorry, sir,
17 I don't know anything about this." And --
18 Q Did you tell either of these
19 officers about what these gentlemen had done,
20 yelling, "The homos are home," et cetera? Did
21 someone convey that to these officers?
22 A I probably tried, but it's like trying to
23 convey everything I want to to anybody. You
24 know, they want to get you -- they -- they had
25 their agenda, which was, you know --
00264
1 MR. PARIS: Objection, Your Honor.
2 JUDGE CURRAN: Noted on the
3 record.
4 BY MR. MULLIN:
5 Q As of this point in time, May 1,
6 had you seen police officers riding past your
7 house regularly to protect you?
8 A No.
9 Q Okay. So now, after you call
10 the -- tried to reach the Town Counsel, Leanza,
11 and he didn't call you back did you call any
12 other Town official about the firehouse suddenly
13 being reopened?
14 A Yes, I did.
15 Q Who did you call?
16 A I called Dominic DeGennaro. Dominic
17 DeGennaro.
18 Q Leave aside the police for a
19 moment, did you call any other Town officials,
20 like the Mayor or the Town Council, anybody like
21 that?
22 A Oh, yes, I called the Mayor.
23 Q Would you tell us about that call?
24 A I called the Mayor; and I said, "They've
25 reopened the station. We were promised that you
00265
1 were not going to do this." And I said, "We are
2 scared. We are scared, sir. If you" -- "If
3 this were your family, you would understand."
4 And I pretty much pleaded. And I called his
5 home phone.
6 Q Is this a message you left, or did
7 you actually reach him?
8 A I left a message.
9 Q And do you know whether or not we
10 have an audiotape of that --
11 A I understand --
12 Q -- of that message?
13 A -- that you do.
14 Q We'll get to that, I suppose, when
15 we next convene. But let me ask you this: Did
16 the Mayor ever call you back?
17 A Never.
18 MR. MULLIN: Can we have a sidebar
19 at this point?
20 JUDGE CURRAN: Surely.
21 (Whereupon, the following sidebar
22 discussion is held.)
23 MR. MULLIN: Your Honor, as you
24 know, my witness is on medication; and he
25 appears to be exhausted. And I think --
00266
1 JUDGE CURRAN: I think it's fair.
2 I think jury are in the same shape, whether
3 they're on medication or not.
4 MR. MULLIN: Yeah.
5 JUDGE CURRAN: 9:00 on Monday, is
6 that okay?
7 MR. MULLIN: That's fine.
8 MR. BEVERE: Judge, what about the
9 lawyers? Nobody cares about us?
10 MR. MULLIN: He looks like he is
11 ready to go another 15 rounds.
12 JUDGE CURRAN: Thank you.
13 (Whereupon, sidebar discussion is
14 concluded.)
15 JUDGE CURRAN: Ladies and
16 Gentlemen, we are going to excuse you for today.
17 Don't run out. I can see. But it's been a long
18 day for you, and I do appreciate how attentive
19 you have been today. It's clear you have been
20 listening carefully to the testimony.
21 You will be excused. I will be
22 here tomorrow, if anybody is longing for the
23 court. But there are other matters scheduled
24 here tomorrow, so we will ask that you return on
25 Monday morning at 9:00.
00267
1 Again I will remind you, please
2 do not discuss the case among yourselves.
3 Please don't discuss it with anyone else.
4 Are there any questions? Thank
5 you very much. Off the record.
6 (Whereupon, the jury is excused.)
7 (Whereupon, a discussion is held
8 off the record.)
9 JUDGE CURRAN: I would just alert
10 counsel that I have a question I would like you
11 to think about over the weekend. If I could see
12 you, it can be off the record. If I can just
13 see you at sidebar.
14 Sir, you are free to step down.
15 Thank you.
16 (Whereupon, the witness is
17 excused.)
18 (Whereupon, the witness is
19 excused.)
20 (Whereupon, the proceeding is
21 adjourned at 4:25 p.m.)
22
23
24
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00268
1 C E R T I F I C A T E
2
3 I, TRACEY R. SZCZUBELEK, a Certified Court
4 Reporter and Notary Public of the State of New
5 Jersey, do hereby certify that the foregoing is
6 a true and accurate transcript of the
7 stenographic notes as taken by and before me, on
8 the date and place hereinbefore set forth.
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18 ________________________________
19 TRACEY R. SZCZUBELEK, C.C.R.
20 LICENSE NO. XIO1983
21
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