HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL
Former Lawrence cop, current township employee and gun dealer accused of flashing a piece during road-rage incident in Trenton »
TRENTON » Richard Kulak, a former Lawrence Township cop turned firearms dealer, was suspended from his part-time township side hustles and lawyered up after learning he’s being investigated for allegedly wielding his legally registered piece at another man during a road-rage incident in the capital city over Memorial Day weekend, authorities said.
Kulak resigned from the Lawrence Township Police in the late 1990s under mysterious circumstances.
Township records filled out by Kulak show he worked as a patrolman for Lawrence Police from April 1993 until December 1999 at an annual salary of $70,000.
Sources provided a screenshot of an internal employee database kept by Lawrence Police that conflicts with those dates, suggesting Kulak was a cop from April 1994 to May 8, 1999.
The database says Kulak resigned to run a restaurant, but some township insiders claim a connection between Kulak’s resignation and an incident in the 1990s, when Kulak was caught in a vehicle fraternizing with a beloved Lawrence restaurateur with a long-ago felony cocainedealing conviction.
Kulak referred questions to his attorney and hung up on The Trentonian.
Road Rage
Raymond Staub, Kulak’s attorney, told The Trentonian that his client’s resignation from the police force in 1999 was unrelated to the car stop that he said occurred three years before.
Staub said Kulak resigned to dedicate his time to running a pizzeria and another side business.
“I know about the incident you’re speaking with, but it had nothing to do with any incident with Mr. [Frank] Candela,” the attorney said. “It wasn’t a resignation in lieu of forfeiture of job or in lieu of discipline, or anything like that.”
The Trentonian was provided conflicting dates of when the car stop with Candela occurred, with some sources claiming it happened closer to when Kulak resigned from the police force.
The Trentonian was unable to corroborate the date of the alleged stop and has made a request for township police records to reconcile the dispute.
As for the road-rage incident, Trenton Police confirmed Kulak is a suspect in an alleged aggravated assault, but he hasn’t been charged.
The incident happened May 24, on Route 129 near Hamilton Avenue, Trenton Police Lt. Jason Kmiec said.
The dispute started in Hamilton, Kmiec said, and carried over into Trenton.
Kulak was a passenger in
a vehicle when a 27-year-old man allegedly confronted him as the vehicles exited South Broad Street, near the Taco Bell.
The victim told cops he drove next to Kulak’s vehicle, asking him what was his problem. Kulak allegedly brandished a handgun during the spat, the victim told cops.
The victim followed Kulak’s vehicle until loosing sight of him, Kmiec said.
Kulak also called Trenton Police to report the 27-year-old man for driving erratically and cutting off his wife. Kulak claimed the victim taunted and tailgated their vehicle through south Trenton.
He told cops he pulled out his gun for safety because the victim was aggressive, Kmiec said.
Cops planned to interview both parties before deciding whether to charge anybody, Kmiec said.
Meanwhile, Staub insisted his client did nothing wrong in the road-rage incident, calling Kulak the real victim.
The attorney said the road-rage complainant noshowed interviews with Trenton Police detectives.
Detectives have not sat down with Kulak, who is
willing to cooperate, his attorney said.
“I told him he can participate in any interview in the world, but I’ll be with him just to make sure it’s done the right way.” Staub said. “I don’t know whether I expect a charge or not. We’re just waiting.”
Kulak’s Past
Despite the circumstances of his departure in the 1990s, Kulak was rehired by the township in 2017 as a civilian municipal court attendant at more than $22 an hour, records show.
Kulak is also a licensed firearms dealer. In November 2016, he applied for a variance to operate the internet-sales Kulak Arms out of his township home on Lawrenceville Road.
The variance was required in order for Kulak to obtain a federal firearms license.
Kulak’s name appears in a database of federal firearms licenses kept by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Kulak said in a letter to the township that he wouldn’t conduct “retail” sales out of his home and planned to move to another location once the business got off the ground.
He felt his request to operate the business was “very reasonable.”
“Very little to no inventory will be stored at my residence since most products are drop-shipped directly from manufacture warehouse,” he wrote in a letter.
Kulak also operates a longtime landscaping business and reported hauling in $68,000 a year from that hustle, according to township records.
Insiders suggested Kulak’s return to the township payroll was a patronage hire because of his ties to township manager Kevin Nerwinski.
For years, Kulak cut Nerwinski’s grass. Nerwinski acknowledged that Kulak has done his landscaping for years but insisted that he always compensated Kulak for the work.
The township manager rebuffed the insinuation of an underhanded agreement or that he exerted influence to get Kulak re-hired in Lawrence.
“I have known Mr. Kulak for years,” Nerwinski said. “We do not regularly socialize, but he has cut my lawn for years, and I have paid him by check for his services and entered into no ‘quid pro quo’ agreement with him. I have always been committed to abide by the law at all times for all things. I knew it was only a matter of time for these people to turn their sites [sic] on me.
“Rich is a long time Lawrence Township resident, with a great work ethic and I trust him. His character (and mine) were attacked in a municipal political campaign last year and, it seems as though, these same people are at it again because they can’t help themselves.”
Nerwinski disputed ever being told about the decades-old car stop involving Kulak and Candela, pointing out the former cop passed a background check conducted by the police department before being rehired.
“These people that are contacting you are not good people,” Nerwinski said. “They have no ethical or moral filter. Their only purpose is to use any means possible for their personal gain and to hell with truth and destroying someone’s hard earned reputation . ... Just know that Rick Kulak is a good man. And when you write your article, all that you will be doing is being the sword for some very ill-intentioned people.”
Kulak remains suspended with pay from his township positions as brush code enforcement officer and a part-time civilian employee handling gun permits and administrative tasks for Lawrence Police, pending the outcome of TPD’s investigation, township officials confirmed.
All these chickens are coming to roost as the Lawrence PBA Local 119 is mired in a lawsuit with the township over an illegal ticket-quota system allegedly pushed by Police Chief Brian Caloiaro, and following the filing of criminal charges against three township cops.
The lawsuit was filed in October, and then last week, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office announced it charged township cops Hector Nieves, 44, Liubove Bjorklund, 32, and Officer Timothy Wallace, 28 for allegedly being dishonest while on-duty during the pandemic.
Nieves is one of the lead plaintiffs in the whistleblower suit.
The cops’ attorneys quickly seized on the readymade narrative that their clients were being retaliated against over the law
suit.