Prosecutor’s detective: Evidence in Sheridan case was destroyed

SOMERVILLE - A detective in the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office alleges that evidence was “shoddily” and “improperly” handled and even destroyed in the investigation of the deaths of Cooper Health System executive John Sheridan and his wife, Joyce.

Jeffrey Scozzafava claims in a lawsuit filed against the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office that he was retaliated against for lodging complaints about “deficient and improper evidence collection and casework” by the office’s Forensics Unit and its supervisor, Capt. Lee Niles.

FULL COVERAGE:  SHERIDAN CASE

“It was common knowledge and a topic of conversation among detectives assigned to the Forensic Unit that the Sheridan evidence was improperly collected, improperly preserved and subsequently destroyed,” the lawsuit alleges.

The Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office said it would not comment on the lawsuit because it is ongoing litigation.

The prosecutor’s office determined that 72-year-old John Sheridan, president and CEO of Cooper Health System and an adviser to several governors, fatally stabbed his wife of 47 years in a bizarre predawn incident at the couple’s Montgomery home in September 2014. Investigators assert Sheridan then started a fire and took his own life.

The Sheridans’ bodies were found by emergency personnel responding to a blaze at their Skillman house.

But that conclusion has drawn fierce criticism from the Sheridans’ sons, who say the investigation was flawed. The sons are offering a $250,000 reward for information about the case.

One of the sons, Mark Sheridan, did not respond to a request for a comment.

Among other criticisms, the sons contend investigators failed to look for potential clues outside the couple’s bedroom. They also note investigators never recovered the weapon that killed John Sheridan.

MORE:Sheridan sons reject report

Scozzafava, a former detective sergeant in the New Jersey State Police who started working for the prosecutor’s office in 2007, alleges in the 12-page lawsuit that he saw “unsealed and unlabeled evidence” from the Sheridan case in the fingerprint lab.

Scozzafava, who is president of the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts, also alleges that evidence was not handled properly in a Hillsborough murder case and that he “refused to lie” about how evidence was handled in a bank robbery.

In addition, Scozzafava said that he saw a large piece of bedding from the Sheridan case “lying exposed on a vehicle bay floor” and charred bedding in an open bag in the fingerprint lab.

Though Scozzafava told his supervisor, Lt. Joseph Walsh, that the evidence was not properly secured, “the evidence remained in its place for several weeks,” according to the lawsuit.

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Months later, in January 2015, Scozzafava saw Niles leave the fingerprint lab with a paper bag containing the charred bedding, walk to a dumpster and dispose the bag, Scozzafava said in the lawsuit.

A few weeks later, Scozzafava emailed Walsh for an update on the status of evidence from the Sheridan case.

But the next day, Scozzafava received an email from Chief of Detectives Tim Fitzgerald that he was being transferred from the Forensics Unit to the office’s Fugitive Unit. When Scozzafava asked why the transfer was made, Walsh told him that “everybody does time in the penalty box,” according to the lawsuit.

In a meeting about eight months later, in October 2015, Fitzgerald told Scozzafava that the transfer was being made because he could not get along with another detective, Kevin Parmlee. But Scozzafava was “astonished” because there was no conflict between him and Parmlee.

Scozzafava also said that in 2014, while investigating a car used in a bank robbery, a forensic technician found the money under a car seat and gave it to Niles. But neither Niles nor the technician wrote a report about finding the money, the lawsuit alleges.

Later in 2014, as the bank robbery case was preparing to go to trial, Niles asked Scozzafava to tell the assistant prosecutor in charge of the case how Scozzafava found the money. Scozzafava refused and Niles testified at the trial though he had not written any reports, according to the lawsuit.

In late October 2015, Scozzafava then met with Fitzgerald and former Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano and told them he had repeatedly complained about the handling of evidence in the Sheridan case and the Hillsborough murder, other deficiencies in the Forensics Unit and refusing the request to lie in the bank robbery case.

In November 2015, Scozzafava gave a statement to an internal affairs investigator, but when departmental transfers were announced in February, Scozzafava was not transferred back to the Forensics Unit.

Scozzafava said his transfer to the Fugitive Unit was made only in retaliation for making complaints about evidence collection and Niles’ conduct.

In the lawsuit, Scozzafava alleges that the problems in the Forensics Unit began in 2010 when Niles was promoted to lieutenant.

Four years later, Scozzafava told Fitzgerald that he was concerned about the work of the Forensics Unit. At the end of the meeting, the lawsuit says, Fitzgerald stormed out of the office and told Scozzafava, “you’re killing me.”

Shortly after that meeting, Walsh assigned Scozzafava’s Dodge Durango SUV to a newly hired detective. Scozzafava then was “downgraded” to a Chevrolet Impala without emergency lights or a siren and not enough room to store equipment.

That made Scozzafava the first detective in the prosecutor’s office to be “downgraded” in vehicle assignment.

Scozzafava is asking for compensatory and punitive damages, plus attorney’s fees. No individual is named as a defendant in the suit.

Staff Writer Mike Deak: 908-243-6607; mdeak@mycentraljersey.com