Political foes do battle on yet another front
BY KATHY BARATTA Staff Writer

MANALAPAN - The very public battle between two former members of the Township Committee was ramped up last week when news broke that they are now entangled in a personal legal matter.

Stuart Moskovitz, an attorney and former member of the Township Committee, is representing Murry Shapiro, who is the father of Democratic Township Committee candidate Drew Shapiro.

Drew Shapiro is also a former member of the Township Committee. He is being represented by attorney Eric Abraham. Shapiro said he was forced to seek eviction notices for the business known as Heirloom 73 because his father has not paid rent for more than four months for space in a building on Throckmorton Street, Freehold.

Drew Shapiro said he owns the building under an entity known as Three Girls Realty and has had to pay more than $10,000 personally in order to pay the building's mortgage.

He said he is planning to have his attorney file an ethics charge against Moskovitz because it is his contention that Moskovitz solicited his father as a client.

Moskovitz denies that claim and told the News Transcript he was contacted by Murry Shapiro. He emphatically stated that he did not contact Murry Shapiro, saying he would have had no idea that the litigation even existed between the father and son.

Drew Shapiro said, "Recent news reports of the business differences that have arisen between me and my father have made public a very sensitive matter that is personally hurtful and embarrassing. I love my family, and at times I have to make difficult decisions to protect our financial resources. My father's decision to cut off rent payments and keep his business in my building - rent free - placed my financial welfare and the welfare of his grandchildren at risk. I do not regret acting to protect my family from his decision.

"Yet, whatever my family's personal issues may be, it is abhorrent that Stuart Moskovitz has chosen to use my family's private differences to gain personal media attention and advance his political agenda. Mr. Moskovitz is abusing our entire family by perpetuating lies. He has highjacked my father's legal strategy to serve his personal political agenda.

"Mr. Moskovitz's actions are also intended to divert attention from the ongoing investigations into evidence of his over-billing Manalapan for legal services and a suit against him for negligence while he served as township attorney in 2005.

"It is also outrageous that Mr. Moskovitz sought a gag order to limit the press's ability to report on the negligence suit against him, yet he did not hesitate to use the press to advance his own smear campaign against me when it suited his purposes.

"I believe that Mr. Moskovitz's actions violate the ethical standards governing lawyers, and I have asked my counsel to file ethics charges with the New Jersey State Supreme Court," Shapiro said.

In response, Moskovitz said, "In typical Drew Shapiro fashion, he has attempted to divert attention from his own malicious activity by making false and wild accusations about others. There is no ongoing investigation of me or my billing, nor is there any ethical violation in defending a 78-year-old man from harassment and abuse by his son.

"The only thing political is Drew Shapiro's attempt once again to divert the focus off of his own actions by pretending that an attorney providing a legitimate defense to a client is somehow or other political," Moskovitz said.

Shapiro said he is filing the ethics charge against Moskovitz because it is his contention that Moskovitz contacted his father to solicit to represent him in a legal matter in which Shapiro said he was forced to take legal action against his father who is also his business partner.

In a conversation with the News Transcript, Moskovitz said he did not contact Murry Shapiro. He said Murry Shapiro contacted him. He said the litigation was filed in the state Superior Court Landlord-Tenant Division and that he would have had no way of knowing it existed unless he stayed at the court every day asking if Drew Shapiro had filed litigation against anyone.

The matter of the eviction is scheduled for a hearing in state Superior Court this week.

News Transcript Managing Editor Mark Rosman contributed to this story.