In a bizarre turn of events, a New Jersey state Appellate Court judge has ruled that a former North Bergen police officer must serve a state prison term for failing to arrest a man he allegedly observed selling drugs, while the officer was off-duty.
State Appellate Division Judge Harvey Weissbard ruled that former North Bergen officer Mark Corso should have acted in a professional manner when he allegedly watched another man deal the designer drug Ecstasy in a Fairview night club three years ago and arrested the man, even if he was off-duty at the time, instead of allowing the transaction to take place.
In April of 1999, Corso was arrested and charged with possession and intent to distribute that same narcotic, but was acquitted last year of those charges. Corso was found guilty on one count of official misconduct, which in turn cost the 29-year-old officer his job on the police force.
Once someone is convicted of any crime, they are no longer eligible to serve as a law enforcement officer.
Corso was off-duty and a patron when he was nabbed as part of an alleged undercover sting operation at the nightclub.
As part of his conviction, Corso was originally sentenced to serve probation, but the state appealed the sentence, seeking prison time.
Corso’s attorney, John Young of Jersey City, then appealed that ruling, alleging that the jury had not received the necessary information or proper instructions.
Young especially was adamantly against the jury’s instruction that stated “the duties of a police officer include the mandate to arrest persons committing crimes observed by the officer.”
“The police officer has a duty to report that he witnessed someone committing a crime, but to actually make an arrest is a stretch,” Young said. “How is an officer supposed to make an arrest, without a gun, without police equipment, in a town that is outside his jurisdiction? It’s ridiculous.”
Weissbard wrote in his decision, “If our system is to be and appear to be evenhanded, police officers convicted of serious crimes cannot be treated any more indulgently than any other similarly situated individual.”
Young believes that Weissbard is setting a “terrible precedent” with this ruling. “The precedent is disturbing, not just to Mark Corso, but to all police officers,” Young said. “The judge is saying that regardless of circumstances, an officer is supposed to make an arrest as soon as he witnesses a crime taking place. Well, what happens when a guy is driving down the street, with his children in the car, and he sees a drug transaction happening? Is he supposed to pull over and try to make an arrest, jeopardizing his family by acting on it?”
While Weissbard has not made a determination about a jail sentence as of yet, Young is taking the case to the Supreme Court. “I’ve already sent a notice of petition to the Supreme Court and we’ll pray that they take the case and hear it,” Young said. “This was a gross misinterpretation of the law.”
Weissbard also ruled that the first sentencing judge “erred” in offering probation to Corso. “There was no proof that imprisonment would create a serious injustice,” Weissbard ruled.
Weissbard also believed that the sentencing judge thought that Corso could face “peculiar hardships” in prison, being a former police officer, which might have been the reasoning behind the apparently lenient sentence.
Young said that Corso has handled the decision fairly well. “Mark’s a pretty level headed guy and deals with situations appropriately,” Young said. “We’re certainly not going to let this end this way, not at all, both for Mark’s sake and for all police officers in general. The Supreme Court has to review this case and exercise some discretion. Right now, as it stands, the Appellate Division has reinvented the law.”