Deputy warden plans libel lawsuit against accusers
TRENTON » While prosecutors search for incriminating evidence in a criminal probe targeting the top brass at the Mercer County Correction Center, Deputy Warden Phyllis Oliver is tearing a page from President Donald Trump’s patented playbook of trying to silence critics.
Oliver has engaged an attorney about filing a libel lawsuit against her accusers, tactics similar to ones undertaken by Trump’s attorneys who sent ceaseand-desist letters to former chief strategist Stephen Bannon and the author and publisher of an explosive book about the White House in which Bannon makes unflattering remarks about the president.
“Phyllis has consulted me for the purposes of filing a lawsuit against the alleged complainants for slander and libel as the allegations [against her] are completely false,” attorney Robin Lord told The Trentonian over text message Thursday.
Oliver is also exploring taking action against the attorney, Arthur Murray, of Alterman & Associates, who represents two women in a lawsuit against the county over Oliver and Warden Charles Ellis’ alleged misconduct, which includes claims they retaliated against the corrections workers and pressured a nurse to engage in sex acts.
Lord said the “false allegations” shouldn’t be made “without consequences.”
Murray countered that any libel lawsuit against the nurse and her partner, a lieutenant, both who have expressed interest in cooperating with prosecutors, would be “frivolous.”
He believed the deputy warden was using intimidation tactics to silence others from stepping forward with accusations against her.
“If she thinks she’s going to intimidate people, it won’t stop us from continuing our efforts,” Murray said. “Any attempt to try to impugn my reputation would be absurd. But this is the United States of America. She’s within her rights.”
Oliver has been the target of much vitriol from corrections officers who have bitten back at her through their union.
Last week, PBA Local 167 filed a mismanagement and malfeasance complaint with the county against Ellis and Oliver.
The union complained about overtime abuse, producing documents it obtained through a public records request showing Oliver’s massive OT and comp time gains from 2014 through 2016.
A day after the complaint was lodged, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office informed the county it was investigating Ellis and Oliver.
The jail was buzzing with talk after news of the criminal probe made the rounds.
County spokeswoman Julie Willmot said earlier this week that Ellis and Oliver have not been placed on leave and the county hasn’t taken “adverse action” against them while it conducts a separate investigation into the allegations.
Sources inside the Hopewell Township facility told The Trentonian that Oliver met with Lord at the jail on Wednesday, leading to speculation she had lawyered up to stave off the prosecutor-led misconduct probe.
Initially when she was asked about it, Lord shrugged off her jail visit as routine.
“Please!” she wrote in text messages Wednesday. “I saw 10 clients. Arrived at 10 [a.m.] and left at 3 [p.m.]. People love to talk.”
Thursday, when The Trentonian pressed her, Lord acknowledged meeting with Oliver to hand her a flash drive for review prior to delivering it to Lord’s client.
Lord called back later to clarify that the interaction with Oliver on Wednesday wasn’t related to the libel lawsuit and that they discussed that over the phone Thursday.
More known for criminal defense and skirmishes with cops in police brutality suits, Lord is plowing new legal ground for a close confidant who she conspicuously carved out from a lawsuit she filed on behalf of former county inmate Rafael Jardines.
The lawsuit targeted Oliver’s boss, Ellis, as well as two suspended corrections officers charged with beating Jardines at the jail.
Despite her well-known criminal defense pursuits, the attorney insisted the scope of her representation relates only to the forthcoming libel lawsuit and she and Oliver didn’t discuss Lord signing on as defense counsel amid prosecutors’ criminal probe.
outside.
During the standoff, the guy tried to talk Jack into meeting him face to face.
“Go down there? Hell no. You’re crazy and you have a gun,” Jack told him.
The police were just a little miffed (Mt. St. Helens volcanic) when they learned that the reason they couldn’t call the bar and talk to the hostage taker was that Jack was tying up the line.
After that, word got out on the street that Jack was the person to surrender to in Trenton.
One of those who did was an ax murderer (really) who had been let out of prison on work release and assigned to gardening work at the New Jersey governor’s mansion.
The parolee had gotten into some new trouble – I think he murdered a drinking buddy.
So he called Jack and arranged to meet him at a restaurant, someplace public where the police couldn’t shoot him on sight. Jack soon talked him into surrendering to FBI agents who were waiting, and eating, at a nearby table.
Jack collected old manual typewriters and, when he could afford it, old cars. For a few years, one of his old cars was a hearse.
When he worked at the Washington Times, “the Moonie paper” owned by the Rev. Sun Myong Moon, Jack was living in the hearse in the paper’s parking lot.
One day, according to Jack, the employees were told to keep their cars out of the parking lot as Moon was coming to inspect the premises.
But Jack’s hearse wouldn’t start and the next morning, he found himself sitting in the hearse in the middle of a totally empty lot as Moon’s entourage passed by.
He was soon gone from that paper. He also got fired from the Burlington County Times when, as Jack told the story, he failed to show up for a deposition in a lawsuit against the paper. Trentonian
The deposition was scheduled for 10 a.m., Sept. 11, 2001, and Jack decided at 8:50 that he could better spend his time out reporting locally on the 9/11 terror attack, but he neglected to tell the lawyers or his editor that.
Once Jack drove his hearse to a party at my house, causing half the neighborhood to gather on the sidewalk outside, wondering who had died.
He was fearless, always going where he wanted.
He walked onto the Baltimore set of his favorite TV show, “Homicide, Life on the Streets,” and invaded the Phillies press box to pass the better part of a game with his hero Robin Roberts, according to another of Knarr’s friends and a former colleague, Mark E. Vogler.
I’m told Jack died at 74 of a heart attack triggered by sleep apnea when he fell asleep after eating a pizza and watching a football game. That is exactly how he would have wanted to go.
“After all the columns he wrote, all the people he touched, people should know what happened to him,” Vogler said.
I agree. I hope this will pass as an adequate sendoff.
Jodine Mayberry is a retired editor, longtime journalist and columnist. You can reach her at jodinemayberry@ comcast.net.