TRENTON — A retired Army Reserve colonel claims in a new lawsuit that a State Police trooper held him and his teenage daughter at gunpoint in 2010 at a rest area along the Garden State Parkway after mistaking their vehicle for another troopers were trying to find.

In the lawsuit, filed in November in federal court, Col. R. Timothy Leever claims Trooper Rodrigo Coelho mistook his Volkswagon Beetle for a Jetta at the Colonia rest area in Middlesex County, pointed a gun at his daughter and then pointed it at his head and threatened to shoot him.

The trooper, in court papers, denies the charges.

The lawsuit claims Coelho did not try to identify Leever before frisking him against the car, handcuffing him and placing him in the back of a patrol car. Coelho allegedly refused to tell Leever’s wife, Glenda, why he was detained and held him about 30 minutes before letting him go.

None of the Leevers were armed, presented a threat or were charged, the lawsuit said.

An attorney for the Leevers, Thomas Cunniff of the law firm Fox Rothschild, said the family "obviously found it traumatic to have the weapon pointed at them."

"The proper procedure wasn’t followed, and that’s why they’re bringing the suit," Cunniff said, adding that Leever, a military chaplain, was "troubled" by his encounter with State Police.

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The lawsuit, which is pending in U.S. District Court in Newark, claims Coelho, a six-year trooper, violated the family’s constitutional rights and used excessive force. It alleges Leever suffered physical injuries, and he and his family suffered psychological trauma.

The Leevers are seeking an unspecified amount of damages from the troopers involved.

An attorney for Coelho, Christopher Paldino of the law firm Wolff & Samson, did not return a call for comment but denied the allegations in a court filing last month. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which oversees troopers working on the Parkway, declined comment.

The state attorney general’s use-of-force guidelines state a law enforcement officer may unholster or show a firearm "when circumstances create a reasonable belief" it may need to be used or as an element of "constructive authority" to control a potentially dangerous situation.

On Nov. 26, 2010, Leever, his wife and two daughters, Destiny and Elizabeth, were traveling from New York to North Carolina to move one of the daughters back home, the lawsuit said. At the time, Leever was serving as an Army Reserve chaplain in North Carolina.

The lawsuit said Leever and his daughter, Elizabeth, who was 14, were driving in a black Volkswagon Beetle and his wife and other daughter were in another car. About 8 p.m., the family stopped at the Colonia South Service Center on the southbound side of the Parkway.

The suit claims Coelho "failed to properly identify Colonel Leever’s VW Beetle, misidentifying it as a black VW Jetta, for which he was apparently searching."

Coelho saw the family and "without making any attempt to speak to or identify the Leevers … immediately unholstered his service revolver and pointed it at Elizabeth," according to the suit. He then pointed his gun at Leever’s head and threatened to shoot, the lawsuit said.

Leever complied with the trooper’s request to get out of the car and was then allegedly pushed against the side of the car, frisked, physically assaulted, "roughed" up and arrested.

Coelho yelled at Leever’s wife to stop taking photographs of the encounter, the lawsuit said, when another trooper, who was not identified in court documents, told his colleague to "calm down." The troopers allegedly refused to tell Leever or his wife why he was being detained.

The family’s attorney, Cunniff, declined to release the photographs that were taken.

The incident was similar to one in April 2010, when a Waretown man was allegedly searched, handcuffed, held in the back of a patrol car and charged with disorderly conduct for giving the middle finger to State Police Detective Sgt. Jon Paul Bentivegna at a service area in Galloway.

In a lawsuit filed in state Superior Court in 2011, Nash Williams said he pulled into the rest area but an unmarked patrol car was blocking the parking lot. His fiancée honked the horn, the lawsuit said, prompting Bentivegna, who was not in uniform, to come over and yell at them. The couple parked elsewhere, but when they got out of their car, they saw the trooper watching them so Williams gave him the middle finger, the lawsuit said. Bentivegna then arrested him.

Williams was later found not guilty at the request of the municipal prosecutor, who cited a state Apellate Court decision that said citizens could not be charged for exercising their right to free speech and being rude without otherwise breaking the law, according to the lawsuit.

The Turnpike Authority settled the case for $18,000.

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