By Karen Sudol
The Record
CRESSKILL, N.J. — Officer Brad Levitzki used a switchblade knife to remove Dumont Fire Department emblems from a shirt worn by a Cresskill firefighter and essentially assaulted him, according to arguments made by a prosecutor.
Levitzki’s attorney said that the officer was horsing around with firefighter Bryan Hakim and that witnesses laughed because they considered it a joke.
The two arguments were outlined in written summations that both attorneys submitted to a hearing officer overseeing Levitzki’s months-long disciplinary hearing. No decision has been made in the case.
A nine-year veteran of the force, Levitzki faces six charges related to violating borough policies and Police Department rules and regulations tied to three incidents in which he was on duty, according to William R. Lundsten, the attorney prosecuting the case. The patrolman has been suspended without pay since October.
Hakim testified that at the time of the August 2009 incident, he was shocked when Levitzki cut Dumont Fire Department emblems off the front and back of his shirt. Levitzki physically held Hakim while he cut Hakim’s shirt, Lundsten said.
“Levitzki’s conduct can in no way be considered a joking matter,” Lundsten wrote in the summations.
Lundsten also noted that Levitzki had been terminated as fire chief in Dumont. Albert Wunsch, the officer’s attorney, has said Levitzki resigned, but officials rejected his resignation.
Wunsch said Hakim never appeared scared, uncomfortable or mad during the event and Levitzki also harbored no ill will toward Hakim, who made the complaint a year after the incident.
“The prosecution enjoys using the phrase ‘pulled out a knife’ like Levitzki had some nefarious purpose with his actions,” Wunsch wrote. “They also seem to minimize that Hakim continued to socialize with Levitzki and spend time with him after the incident.”
The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office investigated the incident and did not criminally charge Levitzki, Wunsch said.
Levitzki is also accused of displaying a photograph on a departmental computer in June that offended another officer, Matthew Banta. The photograph depicted two young men — one shirtless — wearing Dumont Fire Department captains’ helmets. Banta is a captain in that department and testified that “he believed the picture was posted with the purpose to harass him by depicting either him or his fire department in a bad light,” according to Lundsten’s summation.
Levitzki “remains angry and bitter towards Banta” after Banta had an affair with Levitzki’s wife, whom he later married, Lundsten wrote.
The patrolman has admitted enlarging the photo on a computer in the dispatch area but said he was trying to identify one of the young men in it, according to Wunsch. There was no proof that Levitzki intended to mock or belittle Banta, Wunsch argued. He called into question how the photo could have offended Banta when that officer had seen it before and didn’t report it to the Dumont Fire Department.
Wunsch added in the papers that Banta was never disciplined for having an affair with Levitzki’s wife or apparently sending a picture of a man’s genitals to a woman in whom he had taken an interest.
Lastly, the borough claimed that in February 2010, Levitzki etched a racial slur in the dirt on paramedic Thomas Calimano’s car and attached nude male pictures to the bumper. Levitzki has denied doing either.
“It is not clear as to what happened, let alone clear as to who did it,” wrote Wunsch.
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