Ewing Complex

Times photo of the Ewing Municipal Complex.

(Martin Griff/The Times)

EWING – Ewing officials have agreed to pay $155,000 to a resident who alleged in a lawsuit that police beat her so badly during a March 2010 arrest that she spent four days in an infirmary.

In the settlement agreement, reached nearly four years later with Portia Freeman, officials acknowledged no wrongdoing. A copy of the settlement was provided by John Paff, a blogger who publishes details of settlements reached in civil cases with municipalities. He obtained the copy through an open public records request from the township.

According to court documents, the suit, which was filed in the United States District Court, District of New Jersey in March 2012, was dismissed after a settlement was reached in December 2013.

In the suit, Freeman claimed township officers used excessive force during an arrest that occurred after town officials received an anonymous tip that her sister, whom they believed to be a mentally handicapped juvenile, was being left alone without a functioning heater.

The sister, according to the suit, was socially different but not mentally handicapped.

Freeman alleged in the suit that as she was readying to open the front door for police, she asked Officer Jeffrey Caldwell to partially close the outer screen door behind her so her dog wouldn’t run out of the house.

Caldwell denied the request and as she began to ask again he grabbed her and, along with four other officers, dragged her down the steps of her porch, causing her to strike her head three times on the concrete steps, the suit alleged.

The suit, which states Freeman was already disabled at the time of the arrest, further alleged Officers Christopher Boller, Jeffrey Galant and Sgt. Karl Bartowski dragged her onto the front lawn where she was punched, kicked and maced.

The suit, which also lists Officers Morris and Tettemer (though it does not include their first names), the Ewing Police Department, Ewing Township and then-Ewing Mayor Jack Ball as defendants, further alleged Freeman had to be taken to a hospital emergency room for treatment of her injuries before being taken to the Mercer County Correction Center, where she spent four out of five days in the facility’s infirmary.

The department and township were named as defendants in the suit due to their alleged failure to train the specific officers in the “proper use of force and the law of arrest, search and seizure.”

The suit, in which Freeman sought $1 million in punitive damages, referred to Freeman having previous issues with the township, but did not go into details.

Calls to the attorney for the defendants Lori A. Dvorak, Ewing Township attorney Maeve Cannon and Ewing Township Business Manager James McManimon, were not immediately returned.

Freeman’s attorney, Thomas J. Mallon, of Freehold said because of the settlement agreement, he is not at liberty to discuss the case.

Contact James McEvoy at jmcevoy@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5680.

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