Charles “Ken” Zisa, the former Hackensack police chief, has filed a nearly $30 million federal lawsuit claiming that members of top law enforcement agencies in Bergen County violated his civil rights by conspiring to destroy his life and reputation by allowing false testimony and manipulating evidence to ensure a conviction in his 2012 official misconduct trial.

Zisa was convicted on five counts, but those were overturned on appeal in 2016. He was then awarded $2.8 million from the city for back pay and legal costs.

The lawsuit names the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, members of the Bergen County Sheriff's Office and members of the Hackensack police department.

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“Zisa then was falsely accused, arrested, maliciously prosecuted, denied a fair trial, wrongfully convicted, and confined to home for 34 months,” Patricia Prezioso, Zisa's attorney, wrote in the complaint. "Those defendants, who were and are members of the BCPO, suborned perjury by soliciting and protecting witnesses who were lying about material facts, destroyed exculpatory evidence, and manufactured false evidence to secure an unjust conviction."

The complaint alleges that members of the Hackensack Police Department and the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office further bolstered the false evidence by being witnesses against Zisa.

“Police departments and prosecutors’ offices are supposed to operate lawfully and ethically,” Prezioso said. “What this lawsuit really addresses is the misconduct of the people from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office involved as well as the Hackensack Police Department and one Sheriff’s officer and the City of Hackensack. It’s alleging that Ken’s civil rights were violated.”

Along with the city and the Hackensack Police Department, members of the Prosecutor’s Office, Sheriff’s Office and the Hackensack Police Department are named as defendants.

Prosecutor Gurbir Grewal said that the prosecutor’s office does not comment on any pending litigation. Nor does the Sheriff's office, said William Schievella, a sheriff's spokesman.

Zisa is claiming mental anguish, emotional distress and damage to his reputation, according to the complaint.

In an intention to sue filed in October 2015, Zisa asked for damages totaling $29.8 million. The final amount of damages, however, will be up to the jury if Zisa wins at trial, Prezioso said.

“There is apparently no end to the pain the Zisa family is willing to inflict on Hackensack,” said Mayor John Labrosse in a prepared statement. “This lawsuit has no merit and the city will vigorously defend taxpayers from this money grab. Earlier this year, Ken Zisa said he had no intention of suing the city, but now we know what the truth is."

Zisa's lawsuit alleges a top-to-bottom conspiracy — starting with the Prosecutor’s Office and the leadership of Hackensack and its police department down to individual police officers — to ensure a conviction against Zisa and to ruin his reputation.

Political grip on the city

For decades, Zisa’s family held control over Hackensack and was at the center of accusations of corruption and nepotism.

From 1989 to 2005, Jack Zisa, Ken’s older brother, was the mayor of Hackensack. In that time, Ken became the police chief. Ken Zisa was also elected to the General Assembly representing a district that includes Hackensack. Their brother Frank Zisa Jr. became the deputy chief. Years later, their cousin, Joseph Zisa, became the city attorney.

But the family's political grip on the city's politics broke apart when Zisa was convicted in 2012 on five counts — including official misconduct and insurance fraud — of a nine-count indictment that stemmed from a 2008 accident involving his former girlfriend, Kathleen Tiernan.

Authorities had said that they suspected that Tiernan was drunk at the accident scene. Zisa was accused of using his position and his influence to remove Tiernan from the scene before a sobriety test could be given.

Zisa and Tiernan were charged with insurance fraud for allegedly filing an insurance claim that contained false statements, relating to the accident.

In 2010, after Zisa was charged, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office took control of the Hackensack Police Department.

Hackensack Capt. Tomas Padilla, who is named as a defendant in the complaint, was appointed as the Officer-in-Charge of the city police. The day-to-day monitor was Lt. Timothy Condon, head of the special investigations section in the Prosecutor’s Office. Condon is also named as a defendant.

Padilla and Condon did not return phone messages seeking comment.

Last year, the last of Zisa’s five criminal charges was overturned on appeal. In October, the city began paying Zisa the court-ordered $2.8 million — $1.7 million in salary and benefits and $1.1 million in legal fees. Shortly after the city began paying Zisa, Labrosse called on Zisa to drop the threat of a lawsuit in a press release.

Two key events

At the center of the conspiracy alleged in the lawsuit are two events in which Zisa was accused of using his power and influence to interfere with police investigations: the 2008 car accident and a 2004 fight involving the unnamed son of Zisa’s former girlfriend. In both cases, Zisa claims that officers fabricated evidence and testimony.

The lawsuit alleges that attempts were made to compel Zisa to drop administrative charges against three Hackensack Police officers, Joseph Al-Ayoubi, John Herrmann and Anthony Ferraioli.

An attorney for Ferraioli, named "Attorney T" in the lawsuit, advised that there were officers who were ready to testify that Zisa had made them falsify a report regarding the 2008 car accident, court papers allege. If the charges against Al-Ayoubi, Herrmann and Ferraioli were dropped, the false allegations against Zisa would not be brought to light, according to the complaint.

“Not a single contemporaneous document or police record suggests that KT appeared to be under the influence of alcohol,” Prezioso wrote in the complaint, a reference to Kathleen Tiernan. “It also was falsely alleged by both Al-Ayoubi and Herrmann that both Al-Ayoubi and Herrmann were present at the accident scene when Zisa arrived. Al-Ayoubi was present. Herrmann was not.”

Al-Ayoubi and Herrmann could not immediately be reached for comment. Ferraioli declined to comment, saying that he has not yet been served with the lawsuit.

Zisa pursued administrative charges against Herrmann for causing damage to a police vehicle; against Al-Ayoubi for using illegal drugs; and against Ferraioli for impersonating a superior officer and lying during an administrative investigation, according to the suit.

Zisa did not dismiss the charges, according to the suit, and Herrmann and Al-Ayoubi testified against Zisa.

The other event is a 2004 fight involving the son of Zisa’s former girlfriend.

In 2012, Officer Laura Campos testified that she was forced to revise the report of the assault several times to leave out the name of the teenager, according to the complaint. Campos’ testimony was heard in Superior Court when Zisa was on trial for official misconduct, insurance fraud and witness tampering.

The lawsuit alleges that John "Jay" Haviland, the then-lead detective for the Prosecutor's Office, and Daniel Keitel, the assistant prosecutor for the Prosecutor's Office, knew that Campos was lying in her testimony.

"It doesn't matter, the Boss [former Prosecutor John Molinelli], wants him [Zisa] charged," an unnamed Prosecutor's Office detective is quoted as saying in the lawsuit.

Molinelli is not named as a defendant in the complaint.

"I haven’t seen it, nor am I likely to see it," said Molinelli, in a phone interview. "I really can't comment on it. All I heard was that it was really, really long and I’m not a named defendant."

A history of lawsuits

Zisa's federal lawsuit is the latest in a long list of litigation and discord between Zisa, the police department he once led and the city's leaders. In June 2009, the first two officers of what would be at least 21, filed lawsuits against Zisa and the city. The city has paid more than $8 million to settle these suits.

In August 2012, the city paid $2.48 million to a department dispatcher and former girlfriend of Zisa’s brother, Frank Zisa, who was Hackensack’s deputy police chief. The former girlfriend, Alessandra Viola, alleged that she faced disciplinary charges after she resisted sexual advances by both Ken and Frank Zisa. She also claimed that the charges were retribution for protecting officers from Zisa’s attempts to intimidate them into voting for certain candidates in a 2008 union election.

Zisa endured debilitating emotional distress, according to the complaint, and his reputation has been ruined. As recently as May, Labrosse referred to Zisa as a criminal and the disgraced former police chief, according to the complaint.

Zisa has been used by the Labrosse administration, which wrested control of the city government from Zisa-backed candidates, as a rallying cry to fight corruption in Hackensack. In the May City Council election, a large part of Labrosse’s campaign rhetoric characterized the Hackensack United For Progress slate as the “Zisa Slate” because of the many connections to the Zisa family the five candidates on the ticket and their campaign workers shared.

“He’s unemployable,” said Prezioso. “If you Google his name or look at commentary about him, you see things that talk about him being a criminal. His reputation was devastated.”

Email: torrejon@northjersey.com