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Three lawsuits accuse N.J. State Police Lt. Col. Raymond Guidetti (left), a close ally of Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes (right), of manipulating promotions in order to punish those who spoke out against him or his supporters. (Courtesy of njsp.org/file photo)

TRENTON — Three veteran State Police sergeants now claim in separate lawsuits they were blocked from promotion this year when a high-ranking member of Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes' command staff violated procedures and altered promotional lists.

And in a fourth lawsuit, another veteran sergeant claims he was passed over for promotion four dozen times and targeted with an internal investigation for speaking up about a colleague who had claimed to be at work when in fact he was at home with his girlfriend.

The lawsuits are the latest to allege the State Police promotional system, one of the most subjective in the country, can be manipulated to reward friends of supervisors and punish those who fall out of favor or speak out against wrongdoing.

Three of the lawsuits, filed in May, August and November in state Superior Court in Mercer County, all accuse Lt. Col. Raymond Guidetti of altering rankings in order to punish those who had spoken up against him or one of his allies, Capt. Ronald Hampton.

In the most recent lawsuit, Detective Sgt. 1st Class Robert Tobey, a 20-year member of the force, said Guidetti this year “violated the promotional standards within the State Police” and “promoted personal favorites as opposed to qualified candidates.”

According to the lawsuit, Tobey objected to Guidetti’s decisions and, as a result, was passed over for promotion to lieutenant. Instead, Guidetti manipulated promotion listings in favor of less experienced troopers ranked below Tobey, the lawsuit said.

In the second recent lawsuit, Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Vieldhouse, a nearly 22-year trooper, said that in February he submitted a special report challenging the ranking system used by Guidetti and alleged it was a violation of State Police procedures.

Vieldhouse said in the lawsuit Guidetti, in retaliation, altered lists in order to pass him over for lieutenant and promote less experienced, but more favored, troopers.

And in May, Detective Sgt. 1st Class John Pizzuro, a 19-year veteran, sued alleging that in March, he was ranked first on the promotional list for lieutenant but was moved lower by Guidetti and Hampton in retaliation for refusing to sign nominating petitions circulated by Hampton in 2009 supporting Chris Christie's first campaign for governor.

Pizzuro’s lawsuit and the one filed by Tobey also accuse Hampton of influencing and changing promotional rankings. All three lawsuits seek damages under the state law intended to protect whistleblowers.

An attorney for the three troopers, George Daggett, said he was incensed that in the face of the lawsuits, Guidetti, a close ally of Fuentes, has been promoted from major to lieutenant colonel, the second-highest rank and one that reports directly to the colonel.

“It's difficult to figure out the colonel's thinking,” Daggett said. “Maj. Guidetti violated every (standing operating procedure) in connection with promotions. Ironically, he gets promoted and those clients of mine who do nothing but advance the principles of the State Police, they languish without promotion until they file a lawsuit.”

Since the filing of their lawsuits, Pizzuro and Vieldhouse have been promoted, Daggett said.

A spokesman for State Police, Capt. Stephen Jones, declined comment on the lawsuits but said Guidetti’s “qualifications for his promotion for lieutenant colonel were thoroughly vetted and approved by State Police and Attorney General’s Office.”

The Attorney General’s Office did not return a request for comment. Troopers are prohibited under state regulation from commenting.

Guidetti, now deputy superintendent of investigations, has a long history with Fuentes. The two were co-authors of a controversial paper written in 2000 and that surfaced three years later, when former Gov. James E. McGreevey nominated Fuentes to be superintendent.

In the paper, Fuentes and Guidetti argued blacks and Hispanics dominated the cocaine market and drug interdiction efforts should take race and ethnicity into account. The paper, and a 1997 memo in which Fuentes lamented the end of a drug interdiction program that was dismantled when State Police came under fire for racial profiling, raised concern among some about whether Fuentes would be able to lead the organization out of scandal.

Similar statements made by State Police Superintendent Col. Carl Williams led to his firing by former Gov. Christie Todd Whitman in 1999, the height of the racial profiling scandal.

In a fourth, unrelated case filed in November, another veteran State Police sergeant claims he was passed over for promotion 48 times after he reported that one of his colleagues had lied about being at work when in fact he was at home with his girlfriend.

According to the lawsuit, Sgt. Roger Malone, a 20-year member of the force, spoke out after a young trooper, who was not identified, was accused of performing an illegal search. The trooper’s supervisor, Sgt. Michael Ferroni, said he was present for the search and the trooper did not follow his direction, according to the lawsuit. But in an interview, the trooper said Ferroni was not present, the lawsuit states.

As a result, Malone said in the lawsuit Maj. Robert Catullo, an ally of Ferroni, threatened the trooper with an investigation into the candor of his statements. Malone objected and stated that he, too, knew Ferroni was not at the station, according to the lawsuit.

Several weeks later, while on vacation, Malone said his state-issued gun was stolen from his secured locker at the Somerville barracks in order to make him the target of an internal investigation and block his rise in the ranks, according to the lawsuit. The locker was accessible to only troopers, and, according to the lawsuit, the gun was never recovered.

A month later, Malone was transferred, the lawsuits states. Since then, he claims he has been passed over four dozen times for promotion, the most recent for a sergeant who was suspended 18 months for candor violations, the lawsuit states. Malone, who is represented by Daggett, is also seeking damages under the whistleblower law.

As it stands now, State Police supervisors at several levels meet and rank troopers eligible for promotion on a scale of 1 to 100, taking into consideration education, years of service, experience, performance and employee evaluations. Those selected for promotion are determined by the colonel and reviewed by the attorney general, who can reject people.

But there are no interviews or objective scoring, which leaves the state vulnerable to sometimes costly lawsuits by troopers claiming they were wrongly passed over, especially when those troopers have otherwise excellent evaluations from their supervisors.

A Star-Ledger survey in 2012 found the State Police system to be one of the most subjective in the country. Nearly every other state used structured interviews, written exams, verbal exams, called oral "boards," or some combination of the three to assess rank-and-file candidates seeking supervisory jobs.

In response to the findings, the state Attorney General's Office formed a panel to review the promotional process, but no changes have been announced.

Christopher Baxter may be reached at cbaxter@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @cbaxter1. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.