U.S. attorney sought records on The Village
Project in Manalapan has preliminary OK for Route 33 location
BY KATHY BARATTA Staff Writer

MANALAPAN - Records pertaining to The Village at Manalapan commercial project were subpoenaed by the U.S. District Attorney's Office in Newark in 2005.

Aspokesman for U.S.Attorney for New Jersey Christopher Christie told the News Transcript this week that Christie would have no comment as to whether there is an ongoing investigation involving Manalapan Township or The Village at Manalapan development project.

No charges against anyone who has had anything to do with The Village at Manalapan - including the developer who proposed it, a different developer who subsequently purchased the property, public officials or professionals representing the township - have been leveled to date. As of press time, it was unclear whether the investigation is still active or whether it was dropped.

Representatives of The Village atManalapan have received preliminary approval from the Manalapan Planning Board to construct 500,000 square feet of commercial and office space on a 135-acre site at the intersection of Route 33 and Millhurst Road. Construction has not begun.

The existence of the subpoena was confirmed at the Feb. 27 meeting of the Township Committee when Deputy Mayor Susan Cohen acknowledged its existence. The records requested by the U.S. Attorney's Office dated back to the 2000 zoning that had been adopted for the project.

Mayor Michelle Roth later said she was surprised when Cohen publicly disclosed that the subpoena had been served on Manalapan since it contained an instruction that the service of the subpoena was not to be disclosed.

The subpoena, which was sent by fax to Manalapan officials on Aug. 5, 2005, states, "The U.S. Attorney requests that you do not disclose the existence of this subpoena. Any such disclosure would impede the investigation being conducted and thereby interfere with the enforcement of the law."

Cohen said she was not aware the subpoena carried that admonition. She said she had informed Township Attorney Kevin Kennedy that she intended to discuss the subpoena at the Feb. 27 meeting.

After the subpoena was served in 2005, the Township Committee hired a special counsel to represent the governing body. Attorney Andrew Bayer was hired at the request of then Mayor William Scherer.

According to executive session minutes from the committee's Aug. 24, 2005 meeting, Scherer was concerned there might be the potential for conflict with the regular township attorney, Stuart Moskovitz, acting on behalf of Manalapan. That was because Moskovitz was Manalapan's mayor when the zoning ordinance that helped pave the way for The Village at Manalapan project was adopted.

"I figured, why take a chance since there was a potential for conflict being that he had been the mayor then (in 2000)?" Scherer said last week regarding his request for a special counsel.

The other members of the Township Committee in 2005 were Rebecca Aaronson, Drew Shapiro,Andrew Lucas and Joe Locricchio.

Lucas is the only member of the 2005 committee who still sits on the governing body. He said he forwarded some e-mails he had regarding The Village at Manalapan application to former township administrator Alayne Shepler for her to forward to the investigators.

Aaronson could not be reached for comment this week.

Scherer said he had no records regarding The Village atManalapan to submit to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Shapiro and Locricchio also said they had no records regarding The Village at Manalapan to submit to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

None of the four contacted - Lucas, Scherer, Shapiro and Locricchio - said they had been personally interviewed by any investigators or given any grand jury testimony.

Shepler, who is now the business administrator in Marlboro, said she remembers that once Manalapan received the subpoena all department heads were contacted and any materials they had pertaining to the application and zoning for The Village atManalapan were forwarded to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

In acknowledging that the subpoena had been served, Cohen said that since the subpoena was served in August 2005 and no arrests have been made to date, she took that to mean the investigators had found nothing worth pursuing.

Roth said although the News Transcript has made inquiries about the subpoena, she does not believe it is the place of township officials to speak about the matter publicly. She said that because she believes there is no way for those other than the investigating authorities to know if there is a continuing investigation in the matter or if the matter has been closed, she believes Cohen's disclosure of the subpoena was ill-advised.

"It's not our place to decide if the investigation is done or not," Roth said.

When contacted, spokesman Michael Drewniak of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark said the office would not comment on whether there is an ongoing investigation.