Hispanic cops on former Hoboken SWAT team settle discrimination lawsuit

June 28, 2011 - Jersey Journal

Hoboken has agreed to pay five Hispanic officers $2 million to settle a federal discrimination lawsuit brought by the officers in October 2007, according to sources.

The Newark law firm that represented the officers has scheduled a press conference for noon today at the Hilton Gateway Hotel at Newark Penn Station to discuss the settlement.

The five officers, four of whom were members of the city’s now-disbanded SWAT unit, will also be present, according to a press release from the law firm, Ginarte, O’Dwyer, Gonzalez, Gallardo & Winograd.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs and defendants signed an agreement dismissing the case on Friday, according to court records, which noted the settlement was agreed upon in May.

“We are happy it’s over,” said Sgt. Edwin Pantoja, one of the cops who filed the lawsuit. “We can put this behind us and move forward.” He declined to discuss specifics of the settlement.

City officials didn’t return phone calls for comment about the settlement.

The plaintiffs Pantoja, Detectives Mario Novo, James Perez and Cesar Olivarria, and retired Detective George Fonseca alleged they were subjected to racial slurs and racially motivated mistreatment.

Some of the incidents occurred during two SWAT team trips to Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In the lawsuit, the officers accused former SWAT commander Lt. Angelo Andriani of using the “n-word” and placing a napkin over his head to look like a Ku Klux Klansman.

They also accused him of forcing them to work on his house and the home of former police chief Carmen LaBruno, but the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office did not find grounds for criminal charges.

The officers alleged that the brass at the Police Department retaliated against them after they complained about the discrimination.

Attorneys for Andriani, a defendant in the lawsuit, could not be reached last night to comment.

Andriani was at the center of the 2007 scandal that rocked the Hoboken Police Department.

He was photographed during two so-called mercy missions to the South posing with bare-breasted women at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, letting Hooters girls hold the unit’s weapons in Alabama, and downing Jell-O shots in a Louisiana bar.

After losing his temper and causing a disturbance at an airport in Tampa, Fla., in January 2010, Andriani was suspended without pay. At that point, he had been under suspension for two years but was still receiving his $11,000 a month salary.

He was eventually terminated by Mayor Dawn Zimmer in August 2010. The termination was retroactive to February 2008. Andriani is seeking to overturn the firing through the state’s Civil Service Commission.

LaBruno retired June 30, 2008 after he was shown in New Orleans during the SWAT trips posing with a woman flashing her breasts.