Judge dismisses suit against Van Lenten estate, others

After the snow stopped falling Sunday, a man cleared snow near a Korean school on Passaic Street in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Peter Van Lenten Jr. helped others cheat The Record's publisher out of more than $3 million.

The decision, filed last Wednesday, is an embarrassing setback for North Jersey Media Group's litigious general counsel, Vice President Jennifer A. Borg, and the Hackensack law firm of Pashman Stein, which often represents the company.  

The suit alleged Van Lenten, who was NJMG vice president of information technology until April 2009, helped about two dozen others defraud the publisher of The Record.

The suit claimed 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 his estate was named a defendant. But Stephen R. Bosin, a River Edge attorney, described the estate as an entity with no cash.

This afternoon, Bosin said Superior Court Judge Robert C. Wilson in Hackensack dismissed the suit against all of the defendants.

The suit was filed in April 2013.

Imagine how much Pashman Stein billed NJMG in legal fees for nearly two years of litigation at several hundreds of dollars an hour.

Today's paper

Except for all of that space wasted on the anti-climactic Oscars, the rest of Page 1 today is soft news that is of little use to readers.

Maybe The Record should save a ton of newsprint and publish Tuesdays to Sundays.

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.

On the first day of 2014, lots of boring old news

At Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus on Tuesday, a security guard dressed in black refused to discuss how many security personnel have been hired since a gunman invaded the mall on Nov. 4 and fired random shots before committing suicide. This guard, who was helping shoppers cross a road, didn't appear to be armed with a gun. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The Record's first edition of the new year offers lots of stale old news.

Editor Marty Gottlieb leads the paper with yet another story about The Traffic Jam That Ate Fort Lee after Governor Christie's flunkies at the Port Authority closed access lanes to the George Washington  Bridge (A-1).

And there is yet another column from Staff Writer Charles Stile scrutinizing the impact of Christie's every action or inaction, every bite of food and every bowel movement on his White House aspirations (A-1).

Gottlieb sent a photographer to Times Square for the routine New Year's Eve image, but he couldn't find anyone from New Jersey in the crowd (A-1).

On A-4, a man from North Carolina -- not the Garden State -- is shown with a story about the Affordable Care Act.

Laughing out loud

On the Editorial Page, readers get their first belly laughs of the year from the Woodland Park daily's "editorial credo," which runs every Jan. 1.

The credo is signed by Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, the chairman of North Jersey Media Group, and son Stephen A. Borg, the president and publisher, who pushed his father aside several years ago; Editor Martin Gottlieb and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin.

In the first paragraph, they renew their pledge to support policies on the Editorial Page that will improve life "in our region," not to mention the lives of the Borgs and their wealthy friends.

Ads dictate news

They also claim the newspaper's "cash register will not dictate the content of its news articles," despite volumes of evidence to the contrary that the editors lavish coverage on large mall retailers and stiff Main Street merchants. 

At least the Borgs acknowledge they guide the paper's "editorial policy," though they don't acknowledge steering news coverage to their rich friends, including real estate mogul Jon F. Hanson.

First dump of year

Road Warrior John Cichowski long ago ran out of his own ideas and opinions -- as well as any responsibility to report accurately on commuting issues.

So, it's no surprise he starts the new year pedaling more complaints from every crackpot driver who sends him an e-mail in hopes of seeing their names in print (L-1).

The Addled Commuter just doesn't understand that a long overdue expansion of mass transit -- not wider roads -- is the only viable solution to increasing traffic congestion.

Private school news

The huge spread on the Local front about a 9-year-old from Orange who attends an expensive private school in Englewood continues the Borgs' embargo on news of the city's public schools, including Dwight Morrow High School (L-1).

The elder Borg has lived on Englewood's East Hill for decades, but his newspaper and its "editorial credo" have had little impact on improving the city's largely segregated schools or its struggling downtown.

Same old news

Today, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza started the new year scrambling to fill pages with local news he didn't have, just as he did in 2013.

So, he ran another gee-whiz photo of a car, whose unidentified driver tried to climb a home's retaining wall just off Route 17 south in Waldwick (L-3).

Sforza leads Local today with a follow-up to the anticlimactic arrest of Joey Bariso of Lodi on charges he used a handgun to shoot his 85-year-old grandmother "several times as she slept on a couch."

Tuesday's story on the arrest of Bariso appeared two days after the fact, and ran on Page 1 over a second story on Christie failing to defend the state's stringent concealed gun law, which was upheld by an appeals court.

More brain fade

A major screw-up in another front page story on Tuesday wasn't corrected today -- more evidence of brain fade on the copy desk, which continues to labor under six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, the Queen of Errors.

The story on a shared services agreement between Montvale and River Vale reported incorrectly in the seventh paragraph that Montvale and "River Edge entered into the agreement over the summer" (Tuesday's A-6).

Tuesday's Local front carried a heartbreaking report on the funeral for Teia Gallo of Washington Township -- one of three African-Americans adopted by a white family -- who was stabbed to death, allegedly by her younger brother, Travis Gallo.

Van Lenten case

As of Dec. 16, lawyers for North Jersey Media Group and the estate of Peter Van Lenten Jr., as well as other defendants, filed 184 more pages of amended answers, motions, requests for default, certifications, affidavits of service and other legal mumbo jumbo.

Van Lenten, 47, of Pompton Lakes, former vice president of information technology for The Record and NJMG, died on April 28, 2010.

So, NJMG's litigious general counsel, Jennifer A. Borg, is going after Van Lenten's widow, Lauren, and son, also named Peter, though it's not clear how they can be held liable for what Van Lenten may or may have not done.

Enriching lawyers

The case is proceeding at the same snail's pace of most other civil litigation, serving only to enrich the lawyers involved.

NJMG is again using outside counsel, Pashman Stein, the Hackensack law firm that has been the subject of at least one favorable story in The Record's Business pages.

The suit, filed in April 2013, alleges Van Lenten conspired with outside computer and networking vendors and former employees to defraud NJMG.

Other named defendants include IC Systems Solutions and Computer Network Solutions. 

On June 14, the court entered defaults against defendants Philip Nolan and Nancy Nolan, who were identified as principals of one or both firms.

Lack of oversight

"Between 2001 and 2009, over $2 million was paid to [defendants] ICSS and CNS on false or inflated invoices," according to the suit.

But in the very next paragraph, the complaint acknowledges "shortly after [Van Lenten's employment was terminated in April 2009], NJMG began a review of the IT Department's purchasing practices under Mr. Van Lenten's leadership."

"That review lead [sic] to the discovery of the false and inflated invoices submitted by [defendants] ICSS and CNS," the suit alleges.

Is the lack of review during Van Lenten's tenure a major flaw in the suit, and if so, who at NJMG was responsible for failing to do that oversight?

The suit also alleges that from 2001 to 2009, NJMG paid [defendant] ICSS in excess of $1 million for temporary workers, many of whom were retired company employees, "at rates far in excess" of what they were making before they retired.

Porn allegations

In late 2011 -- in a footnote to the suit -- NJMG and the elder Borg settled a sexual harassment complaint filed by Tracey McCain, an Englewood woman who worked for Van Lenten.

McCain alleged that Malcolm A. Borg used company computers to disseminate pornography to Van Lenten and other managers and supervisors, knowing she would see them, because one of her jobs was to read and review her boss' e-mails.

The settlement was sealed by order of a Superior Court judge in Hackensack on Sept. 26, 2011, but likely involved the payment of money.