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Newark Deputy Police Chief Joseph Tutela, seen here at the State of the City address earlier this year, is now the target of a prosecutor's office investigation and the subject of allegations he made racist remarks towards Portuguese police officers. Tutela, 57, was chosen to run the city's Internal Affairs unit on three separate occasions.

(John O'Boyle/The Star-Ledger)

NEWARK — The man who ran the Newark Police Department's Internal Affairs Unit on three separate occasions is now the target of a prosecutor's office investigation and has been accused of making racially charged remarks to minority officers, according to law enforcement sources and documents obtained by The Star-Ledger.

The allegations against Deputy Chief Joseph Tutela, who ran Internal Affairs during a stretch of time when the American Civil Liberties Union documented massive shortcomings in Internal Affairs, do not mark the first time he has been accused of misconduct.

Tutela, 57, was arrested and charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer in 1988 and was the subject of domestic violence allegations twice in 2010, according to police reports.

While he has never been convicted of a crime, some believe the decision to place him in charge of Internal Affairs highlights a culture of dysfunction in Newark’s police.

"It’s possible that a strong leader of Internal Affairs wouldn’t have been able to right the ship, but it is certainly true that if you have a leader who himself is flouting the rules, then he is unable to enforce them for his fellow officers," said Alexander Shalom, policy counsel for the ACLU.

Tutela’s attorney, Robert DeGroot, said the allegations amount to a column of smoke with no fire.

"They have inquired about the chief, and he still is the deputy chief," he said. "There has been nothing brought charging him with any violations of police rules and regulations or any criminal conduct. Some people unfortunately tend to be magnets for attention."

Tutela ran the unit three times between 2001 and 2011, according to a city police spokesman. In 2002 and 2010, when he ran the unit for nearly the entire year, the department received 378 allegations of serious misconduct against officers. Only three were sustained, records show.

The disclosure of Tutela’s legal troubles is the latest controversy for Newark’s Internal Affairs unit. In 2010, the ACLU filed a scathing 96-page petition calling for a federal monitor to oversee the department. The petition said the department sustained only one out of 261 serious misconduct allegations filed against officers in 2008 and 2009.

Tutela ran the unit for the final six months of 2009.

The Department of Justice launched an investigation into the Newark police in 2011. Earlier this year, several sources told The Star-Ledger the federal government will place a monitor over the department.

The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating allegations that Tutela has been working at a second job when he is supposed to be on duty, according to two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the investigation, who requested anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the case. The investigation will also review claims that Tutela made officers perform maintenance on his home while he ran Internal Affairs, the sources said.

The department received those claims anonymously and referred them to acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray, who would not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.

ALLEGED REMARKS

Officer Jose Barros, president of the Portuguese American Police Association, also wrote a letter to Mayor Luis Quintana earlier this year, claiming Tutela made racist remarks at Police Director Samuel DeMaio’s retirement ceremony. Barros also claimed the harassment has been ongoing.

"Tutela has for years referred to the Portuguese, both officers of Portuguese descent and Portguese people in general, as ‘igloo people,’ ‘communists,’ ‘custard cups,’ ‘galao,’ ‘paelha land,’ etc," the letter reads.

DeGroot has denied all of the allegations brought forth during the prosecutor’s investigation and in Barros’ letter.

While his record raises questions, experts said the lack of complaints sustained when Tutela ran Internal Affairs were far more troubling.

"If you had St. Thomas Aquinas as the head of Internal Affairs, and you got those numbers, you’d need to take a second look," said Wayne Fisher, a professor with the Rutgers Police Institute.

DeGroot described Tutela as a "decorated officer" who has received numerous awards during a law enforcement career that began in 1982. But in 1988, Tutela was charged with assault after a wild bar brawl in the Bronx. While off-duty, Tutela and several other men allegedly pummeled a New York City court officer, breaking his jaw and nose, and assaulted a 20-year-old woman, according to a police report.

DeGroot says the charges were dismissed, but the court records are sealed.

Tutela was placed in charge of Internal Affairs for the first time in December 2001 by former police director Joseph Santiago, who now serves as Irvington’s top cop. Tutela ran the unit for 10 months until October 2002, and the department sustained just two out of 180 allegations of serious misconduct that year.

"If you had only one sustained complaint throughout a year, it would have been noticeable, and there should have been a review or an inquiry," said Santiago, who became superintendent of the New Jersey State Police in 2002.

Tutela was put in charge of Internal Affairs again in June 2009 by former director Garry McCarthy, who is now Chicago’s police superintendent.

Tutela was removed a year later, a day after his ex-wife sought a restraining order from Verona Police, claiming he had beaten and choked her for years, according to a police report. Criminal charges, however, were never filed, and Verona police did not return calls seeking comment.

McCarthy did not respond to requests for comment.

ASSAULT CLAIM

A second domestic violence claim surfaced in November 2010, when Tutela allegedly struck his teenage niece and nephew during a dispute in Roseland, according to a Roseland police report.

Roseland Police Chief Ronald McDonough said an investigation showed "no assault took place," but Salvatore Viola, the father of the children, said he simply declined to press charges.

"I never went through with the charges because I felt bad for (Tutela’s) kids, but I should have went through with the charges," Viola said.

Tutela regained control of Internal Affairs two weeks later.

In May 2011, DeMaio chose current Police Director Sheilah Coley to replace Tutela as head of Internal Affairs. Coley said she asked prosecutors to audit the unit and she said she found holes in investigations conducted on Tutela’s watch.

DeGroot said it was unfair to blame the shortcomings of an entire unit on one man.

"It’s not a snapshot frozen in time. When someone comes in, you inherit everything from the administration before," DeGroot said.

RELATED COVERAGE:

• Newark police to be monitored by federal watchdog, sources say

• Reports show 1 in 10 complaints against Newark police officers are not fully reported to N.J.

• ACLU accuses Newark police of false arrests, excessive force

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