LEONIA, N.J. – A borough kept no record of what was said or who attended meetings at which the fire committee decided to suspend its fire department after a young boy was allegedly molested in the firehouse.
North Jersey.com reported that Attorney Paul Kaufman, who’s representing the Leonia Fire Company, said the borough was unable to provide the minutes to the meeting at which the committee voted to close the firehouse and suspend the entire department.
Kaufman has threatened legal action over the fire department closing. Officials reopened the department but restricted access to the firehouse to only firefighters who were responding to a call or performing department duties, such as equipment maintenance.
Fire Committee chairman I.S. Pak, when asked Monday why the committee had no records of the meetings, replied, “I don’t know,” then added that Borough Attorney Brian Giblin was still collecting documents that Kaufman had requested, according to the report.
Kaufman questioned why his Open Public Records Act request for the documents were not received by Giblin and said his clients would be willing to sit down with borough officials if the documents he requested were provided by Tuesday, according to the report.
Officials shut down the department citing liability concerns after 18-year-old Darius Levine was arrested on a sexual assault charge, according to the report. Levine, who applied to be a firefighter but was not part of the department because of his disabilities, is accused of inappropriately touching the 3-year-old son of a firefighter on June 13. Levine is being held in a psychiatric hospital and his court appearance is set for Tuesday.
Kaufman said the firefighters were denied due process and that the closure violated the borough’s own code. However, borough officials insist that they were within their rights to shut down the department and to limit access to the borough-owned building to only firefighters performing their duties, according to the report.