A Somerset County Prosecutor's Office detective has filed a whistleblower lawsuit claiming the office's Forensic's Unit mishandled evidence.
A veteran Somerset County Prosecutor's Office detective who worked the investigations into the deaths of John Sheridan and his wife, Joyce, has filed a lawsuit claiming the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office mishandled and destroyed evidence, according to a report on nj101.5.
The prosecutor's office concluded last year that John Sheridan, 72, murdered his wife Joyce, 69, in the bedroom of their Montgomery Township home, set the room on fire and then committed suicide by stabbing himself. A murder weapon was never discovered.
The Sheridans' sons have long disagreed with the prosecutor's office conclusion and have waged a legal fight to have the findings overturned. In February, a group of 200 prominent New Jersey residents, including three former governors, called for the investigation to be reopened.
Shortly after, Gov. Chris Christie announced that Geoffrey Soriano, whose first term as prosecutor had ended, would not be reappointed, the governor stating he had "lost confidence" in Soriano. The prosecutor's investigation's into the death of the Sheridans and several other high-profile cases is believed to have led the governor to remove Soriano from office.
"It was common knowledge among detectives assigned to the Forensic Unit that the Sheridan evidence was improperly collected, improperly preserved and subsequently destroyed," it is alleged in the text of a whistleblower lawsuit filed last month by Somerset County Prosecutor's Office Det. Jeffrey Scozzafava. A copy of the suit was obtained by NJ Advance Media on Wednesday.
Scozzafava claims officials with little or no experience in forensics were put in charge of the Forensics Unit and that officials retaliated against him when he pointed out errors and concerns he had with the Sheridan investigation and other cases.
No one from the Prosecutor's Office was available for comment Wednesday night, and did not respond to nj101.5's request for comment.
New prosecutor studying Sheridan case, others
According to the nj101.5 report, Scozzafava, who began working with the office in 2007 after retiring as supervisor of crime-scene detectives with the State Police, alleges:
- Evidence from the Sheridan bedroom, including large pieces of charred bedding, were left lying exposed for months on the vehicle bay floor and stored in an open bag in the fingerprint lab.
- Blood collection swabs were "improperly packaged" by a forensic technician.
- Evidence envelopes were "shoddily taped, leaving open gaps that created the potential for contamination."
- Capt. Lee Niles told an assistant prosecutor that investigators had searched for fingerprints using what he called a "flashlight technique" even though no such technique existed "and was an obvious excuse for nonfeasance during scene processing."
Scozzafava also claimed that in early 2015 he witnessed Niles take the improperly stored bedroom evidence and throw it into a dumpster in the office's parking lot, according nj101.5's report.
Dave Hutchinson may be reached at dhutchinson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DHutch_SL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.