Trenton cop who had affair with officer’s wife wants $70K settlement
TRENTON » The city police department’s “Serpico” got laid. Now he wants to get paid.
Sgt. Jason Astbury, a known biggame hunter who also hunted for action with a colleague’s spouse, wanted more than $70,000 to settle the civil lawsuit he brought against the department over his gun-strip affair, records show.
The city was primed to agree to the payout when the attorney who helped negotiate the settlement withdrew from the case, further delaying the outcome.
The city has since had a reexamination of conscience and plans to fight Astbury’s claim in court.
George Dougherty, the lawyer representing Astbury, didn’t immediately respond to phone calls requesting comment.
Dougherty has had success against the city. He won a huge payout for former Trenton firefighter Jesse Diaz who was ostracized and given a scarlet letter for standing up against racism in the fire ranks.
Astbury needs someone in his corner these days to help navigate the stormy waters.
The 2011 officer of the year has been in the headlines recently over his alleged booze patrol. Investigators found alcohol in the patrol vehicle he used Nov. 25, the night he was involved in a police shooting that wounded a Trenton man who cops said pulled a piece on them, near the intersection of Calhoun Street and Pennington Avenue.
Officer Matthew Hutchinson, who has already been involved in a prior on-duty shooting in his two years on the force, also fired at the suspect, 38-year-old Bahin Lynch, who was hit in the arms and took a bullet to the stomach.
The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office said a gun was recovered at the scene and it is investigating the shooting to determine whether the officers’ actions were justified.
Part of the probe surely centers on figuring out who the booze belonged to after sources gave varying accounts to The Trentonian about who was responsible for the cooler full of wine coolers and the halfempty bottle of whiskey found inside Astbury’s patrol car.
Astbury has cultivated a bad-boy reputation in the department over some of his questionable decisions, most notably having a full-blown affair with a fellow officer’s wife that led to him being stripped of his duty gun when the woman filed a temporary restraining order against him.
That also led to Astbury’s lawsuit in which he claimed superiors left him in the dark for months about why his service weapon was taken away. He claimed in a proposed settlement memo from March that the gun-stripping caused him “enormous embarrassment among his peers.”
Without his piece for eight and a half months, Astbury was on desk duty and lost out on overtime assignments and side security jobs that required him to be armed.
His attorney estimated Astbury lost out on $25,791 in supplemental income from overtime and side jobs, basing that number on his average monthly earnings in overtime in the two years after his gun privileges were restored.
Dougherty tacked on another $30,000 for “non-economic” losses and $14,382 in attorney fees. Those attorney fees have likely gone up since the settlement was first proposed in federal court, and will continue to increase, now that the deal has been completely blown up due to the withdrawal of attorney Michael Cifelli, who was defending the city.
Dougherty wrote to U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Tonianne Bongiovani in August explaining how Cifelli’s departure when his contract with the city wasn’t renewed had “interrupted the progress” that was made in resolving Astbury’s lawsuit, which contended he wasn’t given due process before having his gun taken away.
“I expressed my great displeasure at having this matter assigned out to new counsel, having invested so much time in pretrial preparation,” Dougherty wrote.
Attorney Mohamed Jalloh has subbed in for the city in September, records show.
The attorney responded to Astbury’s lawsuit denying his allegations and claiming immunity and several other defenses. The city said that Astbury’s damages were “caused by his own actions.”
An order on an oral motion made this month was not yet available in online court records.
The lighting-rod police officer, who has been named in several lawsuits, has drawn scorn in the department over the years. His flagrant affair with a fellow officer’s wife, an open secret in the department, led to high tensions.
An officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity previously told The Trentonian the two cops “needed to be separated” because colleagues feared they would “kill each other.” Besides the booze patrol and police shooting investigation, Astbury, who was likened by his attorney to the corruption-fighting NYPD cop Frank Serpico, has also been in the crosshairs for other comments he’s made and actions he’s taken as a cop. In May 2012, a probe was launched by the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office and Trenton Internal Affairs following the high-speed police chase fatality of 20-year-old Orenthia “Pookie” Upshur Jr. According to a press release from the prosecutor’s office at the time, “police had reason to question whether the facts as initially reported by responding officers were complete.” During the May 3, 2012 incident, Astbury and officer Wilfredo Delgado pursued Upshur until the 20-year-old’s car slammed head-on into a utility pole. The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office cleared the officers of any criminal wrongdoing, but referred the matter back to the police department for an internal investigation. Astbury was also investigated by internal affairs when he criticized the unit during his acceptance speech for officer of the year, according to news reports. He took IA to task over its treatment of an officer who had been suspended after being charged with aggravated assault following a bar fight. According to news reports, Astbury threatened to take legal action against the department for infringing on his free speech rights. A police spokesman wouldn’t say whether Astbury is back at work or still on paid leave following the shooting.