Ken Zisa's lawyer blows his defense

Ken Zisa is expected to retire to La Zisa, a palace in Palermo, Italy.

The jurors hearing official misconduct charges against suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa were waiting to hear, "He didn't do it."


Instead, Zisa's defense lawyer claimed the criminal charges were part of a "witch hunt" led by the county prosecutor, The Record reports on Page 1 today.


With those words, attorney Patricia Prezioso all but blew her defense case and likely guaranteed Zisa will be convicted and end up in prison.


Zisaville to celebrate


If that happens, the city will fire him and the state will strip him of his pension. And Hackensack will no longer be called "Zisaville."


The cheers from Hackensack residents would be deafening, but in far-off Woodland Park, Editor Marty Gottlieb, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and the Borgs will continue to ignore the city the paper called home for more than 110 years.


Prezioso apparently has been so busy preparing Zisa's defense she is unaware of just of how sick everyone is of "politics."


She literally put her foot in her mouth when she said, "This was a politically convenient prosecution for Mr. [John] Molinelli," the prosecutor.


Lampooning Christie


Governor Christie's visit to Israel and Jordan has finally fallen off the front page (A-3). 


But none of the coverage has explained what the F he is doing visiting the Middle East, with all that he still has to accomplish in the Garden State.


Reporters asked him what he thought of the New York Post headline after he prayed at the Western Wall, "The Whale at the Wall."


Of course, in the two years he's been in office, no reporter has asked him what he is doing to end childhood obesity in New Jersey.


Beating a dead horse


For the third day in a row, Gottlieb and Sykes give prominent display to the return of a Marine who was killed in Afghanistan (A-1 and L-1).


But a protest march calling for the arrest of a Neighborhood Watch member who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, 17, in Florida ends up on the front of Sykes' Local section.


"The march took place in Hackensack," Sykes said at the news meeting on Wednesday afternoon. "Who says we don't cover the place?"


City is bleeding


Sykes continues to run stories on Englewood's financial problems, which have led to cuts in the public schools and library, inspired by wealthy residents of the East Hill, where Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg lives (L-1).


But none of the stories have mentioned Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, a non-profit that pays no property taxes to the city.