Police, Fire & Courts

Suspended Brick Schools Super Seeking to Quash Indictment; State Appealing Sentence of Co-Defendant

by
Daniel Nee
April 1, 2016

The Ocean County Justice Complex, Toms River, N.J. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

Suspended Brick schools Superintendent Walter Uszenski, along with his daughter Jacqueline Halsey and former Special Services Director Andrew Morgan, are seeking to have a grand jury indictment thrown out of court, Shorebeat has learned.

Superior Court Judge Patricia Roe will hear the motion to dismiss the indictments against Uszenski, Halsey and Morgan June 15. The motion was recently filed, nearly a year after the trio were charged with allegedly hatching a plan to provide Uszenski’s grandson with special education services, including full-time daycare and transportation, for which the state alleges the child did not qualify.

Defense attorneys and others involved in the case have consistently held that the child in question was eligible to receive the services in question and the case against all three individuals – as well as former Academic Officer Lorraine Morgan, Andrew Morgan’s wife – was politically motivated.

Last month, Lorraine Morgan was granted acceptance into pre-trial intervention, a diversionary program for nonviolent criminal offenders in New Jersey that expunges criminal records after they complete a probationary period. Prosecutors, according to Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, are planning to appeal Lorraine Morgan’s acceptance into the program. A court date for that matter has not yet been set, Della Fave said. Lorraine Morgan had been charged with third degree officials misconduct, but would avoid trial under the PTI program.

Uszenski, Halsey and Andrew Morgan have been charged with official misconduct and theft by deception. A grand jury returned an indictment against all three in September 2015. Andrew Morgan has also been charged with false swearing and theft by deception for “knowingly concealing” his prior criminal conviction for criminal sale of a controlled dangerous substance in New York City in 1990. State officials have told Shorebeat that Morgan passed a background check that was performed by the Brick school district since Morgan was granted a waiver to continue to be able to work in public schools in 1997.

Previously, two articles on his criminal case were published in the New York Times.