Judge to rule on bid to end suit against Van Lenten estate

The block of Euclid Avenue between Main Street and the tracks in Hackensack doesn't get much respect from the city's plows after a snowstorm, and in past years, it hasn't even been cleared. This is how the block looked on Tuesday afternoon, when blacktop was visible on most other streets.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Superior Court Judge Robert C. Wilson is expected to rule this week on a motion to dismiss the North Jersey Media Group suit against the estate of a former vice president.

The suit, filed in April 2013, is scheduled to go to trial in Hackensack on Monday.

The suit alleges Peter Van Lenten Jr., who was NJMG vice president of information technology until April 2009, helped others defraud the publisher of The Record.

The suit claims the company paid more than $2 million "on false/and or inflated invoices" from 2001 to 2009, and an additional $1 million for temporary workers hired at "greatly inflated charges."

Van Lenten died in April 2010, and the estate was named a defendant.

But Stephen R. Bosin, a River Edge attorney, describes the estate as an entity with no cash.

Bosin's motion to dismiss the suit cites "gross mismanagement" at NJMG.

In the suit, the company acknowledged the IT Department's "purchasing practices under Mr. Van Lenten's leadership" weren't reviewed until after his employment was terminated in April 2009.

For background on the case, click on the following links:

Suit filed against estate of NJMG vice president  

How NJMG lawsuit is enriching lawyers

Today's paper

Another court case, this one criminal, dominates the front page of The Record today, and it involves federal corruption charges against lawyer Joseph Ferriero, former head of the Democratic Party in Bergen County.

Good luck following the main story and sidebar on a case that was first tried in 2009, and has a lot of defense lawyers laughing all the way to the bank (A-1).

A bridge too far

Road Warrior John Cichowski is back with his first column since Jan. 25, when he wrongly claimed a photo supplied by Bob Leafe of Hackensack showed "a vertical gash that extends along one of the giant pillars" supporting the Route 4 bridge in Teaneck.

A photo that ran in the print edition and on North Jersey.com showed no such gash in the bridge support "near River Road."

Today's front-page Road Warrior column includes two photos of Route 4 bridges "over Palisade Avenue" and "over the Hackensack River," and inside, a graphic mentions Route 4 bridges in Hackensack and Teaneck (A-1 and A-4).

But it's unclear whether the photos and the graphic are referring to the same bridge Cichowski falsely claimed is unsafe on Jan. 25.   

Much of this can be attributed to continuing sloppy editing of Cichowski's column on the local assignment and copy desks, and the apparent total absence of fact-checking and proofing by minions who work under error-prone, six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton.

After embarrassing screw-ups like the Route 4 bridge fiasco, The Record's editors also are in the habit of trying to hoodwink readers by printing articles to correct unacknowledged errors, and today's Road Warrior column may be such an effort.

Two corrections of Local news stories appear on A-2 today.

Stiff upper lip

In London, Governor Christie is using the same "no comment" he has employed so effectively since 2010 to stop The Record and most of the other New Jersey media dead in their tracks (A-1).

This time, the GOP bully won't talk about how much a corporate group, Choose New Jersey, has paid for his trips, including a lavish jaunt to Jordan after "a trade mission" to Israel that was reported by The New York Times.

Add a stiff upper lip to Christie's double chin.

Two-thirds of registered New Jersey voters believe Christie is more concerned with his own political future than with governing the state, according to a new Monmouth University poll reported today by WBGO radio news.

Among Republicans, 54 percent believe Christie's White House ambitions are his paramount concern.