Steve Janoski

Staff Writer, @SteveJanoski

HACKENSACK — Two city Department of Public Works employees are claiming that department heads violated their civil rights — as well as state and federal racketeering laws — by forcing them to do free labor on and off city time and threatening to fire them if they didn’t cooperate.

The lawsuit, filed Dec. 16 in U.S. District Court in Newark, accuses Hackensack DPW Superintendent Jesse D’Amore and Assistant Superintendent Anthony Seidita of breaking the law a number of times over two years, starting in 2014. The offenses include making and selling homemade bullets on city property during working hours, making DPW workers remove furniture from the Hackensack municipal judge’s home and dump it in the city recycling center, and siphoning heating oil from a Paterson school to resell it privately, the suit said.

“D’Amore and Seidita were engaged in a pattern and practice of using the Department of Public Works for their own personal gain,” said Mark B. Frost, the Philadelphia attorney representing the plaintiffs, Mario Candela and Richard Terranova. “And they were doing that by intimidating my clients under threat of retaliation, firing, or discharge.”

D’Amore did not return calls to his office; Seidita could not be reached.

The suit says the plaintiffs were often forced to assist their bosses on and off the clock. And if Candela or Terranova objected to the orders, they claim, they were told they would be either fired or lose advancement opportunities.

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Frost said he does not think Candela or Terranova went to authorities before filing the suit, which also names the city of Hackensack. The attorney is invoking both the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and the state’s civil version of the law. Candela and Terranova say in the suit that D’Amore and Seidita used extortion to illegally obtain money and services.

City spokesman Philip Swibinski said in an email on Wednesday that City Manager Ted M. Ehrenburg has requested that the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office investigate the complaint. D’Amore and Seidita — as well as DPW Supervisor Mitchell Horne, who was also named in the suit — will stay on the job while the investigation is underway, Swibinski said.

Hackensack Mayor John Labrosse on Thursday declined to comment on the details of the DPW litigation, saying only that the “facts are yet to be found."

He added: “We have to go through the legal process and see what happened here.”

The Prosecutor’s Office refused to confirm or deny that there is an investigation, as per its policy.

Candela and Terranova are seeking an unspecified amount in compensatory and punitive damages. The suit also seeks treble damages, a mandatory provision in RICO cases that would triple the amount of money awarded to the plaintiffs should a judge agree with their suit.

The list of transgressions outlined by Candela, a city maintenance repairman since 1994, and Terranova, a city plumber who started in 2000, is lengthy.

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The suit alleges Seidita routinely carried bullets in his city-owned van and would bring his own lead to the Hackensack recycling center on Green Street. There, in a locked facility only Seidita and D'Amore could access, they would use the lead, gunpowder and empty shells, to make their own cartridges, the suit said. Sometimes this happened on city time.

Another time, in 2014, Seidita ordered Candela and two other DPW employees used a city truck to move furniture from the home of Hackensack Municipal Court Judge Louis Dinice during the workday, according to the suit. When Candela protested, the suit says, Seidita told him: “Shut your mouth, and do what you’re told. I could teach a monkey to do what you do.”

The furniture was then dumped at the city recycling center.

Dinice did not return phone calls or emails sent to the Hackensack Municipal or Bergen Central Municipal Courts, where he is a senior judge.

The suit further claims that in 2015, Seidita forced Terranova to go with him while he siphoned heating oil from a Paterson school into a 1,000-gallon tank on his personal truck. The siphoning occurred over three days, and Terranova claims he later saw Seidita privately sell the oil.

Christopher Irving, the Paterson school board president, said he was unaware of either the lawsuit or the alleged oil theft when contacted by The Record on Thursday afternoon.

Irving said the location of school oil tanks varies from building to building. And only some employees, like janitors, have access to them. The district keeps updated records of oil deliveries and associated expenses, and an internal investigation will begin if Candela and Terranova’s complaint has merit, he said.

In June 2016, when Terranova was elected shop steward for the local public service employees union, the suit claims, D’Amore told him he should resign. That statement, according to the suit, implied that retaliation for Terranova’s union activity was imminent.

Frost, the plaintiffs' lawyer, is no stranger in Hackensack: He represented 17 city police officers in complaints against former Chief Charles "Ken" Zisa. Frost secured a $2 million settlement for the some of the first officers who came forward.