SPAG member sues special education supervisor
TRENTON >> The city school district’s special education supervisor has been sidelined from her job for months.
The reason has remained a closely guarded secret, not even privy to the most wellconnected educators in the capital city.
But The Trentonian has learned Harvey’s leave of absence could be tied to a defamation lawsuit quietly brought against her months ago by a board member from the Special Parent Advocacy Group.
The group has been fiercely critical of the school district’s special education program and staffers in the past, and the lawsuit from board member Tyhesha Marshall is sure to add another layer to the drama.
Marshall, a Trenton attorney and board member of the Ewing-based special education advocacy nonprofit, sued Harvey and the Board of Education in April.
She claimed Harvey contacted SPAG leaders to try to convince them to kick her off the board of directors based on “false and libelous” claims that she “committed violent acts” against Harvey and her family and lied about her credentials, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says the statements “were reasonably calculated to injure the plaintiff’s reputation and standing in the community and in plaintiff’s profession and was also intended to lower the plaintiff in the opinion of respectable members of her personal, familiar and professional communities.”
The whole to-do between the women appears to be related to a personal blood feud over a former lover in common, according to Harvey’s messages mentioning an “ex.”
In those messages, which were attached to the filing, Harvey referred to Marshall as a “truly wicked” and “calculating” person and claimed to have the “full support” of the Trenton BOE in her quest to get Marshall removed from SPAG’s board.
“I’ve been notified from people in high places that I have the full support of TBOE,” Harvey wrote, according to the filing.
Stark & Stark attorney Robert Bratman told The Trentonian in a phone interview Monday that Harvey was “making these requests, some would call them threats, with the support of the Board of Education.”
He called Marshall the “embodiment of the American dream,” noting she lost both her parents and worked to put herself through college and law school while supporting family members.
Harvey, who online public records show makes more than $116,000, claimed not to know what The Trentonian was talking about when reached on her cell phone for comment.
“For you to be calling me, there’s something not right about that,” Harvey said, indicating she planned to call school board counsel James Rolle Jr.
The Trentonian attempted to explain to Harvey the district indicated in recent court filings it was washing its hands of her.
Rolle wrote to Harvey on Sept. 28, informing her the school district would no longer foot the bill for her legal costs to fight the defamation lawsuit since Harvey’s Facebook conversation with SPAG leader Nicole Whitfield about Marshall fell “outside the scope of your employment with the Trenton Board of Education.”
The special education supervisor — who as best as educational stakeholders can tell remains on paid leave — was given 45 days to find an attorney.
Her comments allegedly disparaging Marshall came a few days after SPAG publicly announced Marshall’s addition to the board in a June 2017 post on its Facebook page, according to the lawsuit.
On July 3, 2017, Harvey asked Whitfield for a personal email address to send police reports and court documents that would fill Whitfield in on the Harvey’s and Marshall’s bitter history, according to the filing.
Whitfield said she couldn’t comment on the matter.
The district special education supervisor claimed Marshall was “obsessed with me n [sic] now she is coming to my professional life. … To use you and your business to impede further upon my life. She is messy and I am taking this to TBOE board and attorneys.”
Harvey claimed her daughter was involved in a fight with Marshall in 2014, sending the SPAG leader a screen grab of what appeared to be a Ewing Police report.
“It’s definitely time for a restraining order,” Harvey wrote, according to the filing. “This is crazy. What grown woman comes to another woman’s house and fights their daughter. I can’t with this situation.”
Harvey went on to contend Marshall wasn’t a licensed attorney and had lied to SPAG leaders about her resume, according the lawsuit.
The state NJ attorney index shows Marshall was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 2013 and remains in good standing.
“The same lies when she falsified documents about my ex income n [sic] he committed perjury,” one of Harvey’s hard-to-distinguish messages said. “But I had all his w2 [sic] and other information cause his my home was is [sic] address until I changed it in March.”
The special education supervisor allegedly promised SPAG leaders office space and “better access” to the BOE if they removed Marshall from the board, an offer Marshall’s legal camp called a highly inappropriate “quid pro quo.”
Harvey allegedly suggested the advocacy group would suffer financial consequences if Marshall remained on the board.
“She is not worth u [sic] losing state n federal monies or attached to any mess,” Harvey wrote.
Harvey also allegedly attempted to influence Whitfield into pulling the trigger on Marshall by claiming she knew people in high places in Newark who would work with Whitfield on “big things.”