Demarzo, Lashman Sue Taylor, Wildwood

WILDWOOD ¬– Former city mayor Gary DeMarzo and attorney Samuel Lashman have filed a civil suit in Superior Court against Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor and the City of Wildwood along with several others.
According to the suit filed by attorney Louis Barbone on March 7, DeMarzo and Lashman are seeking compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorney’s fees from the defendants.
In the suit, the pair claims the “Defendants knew…that there was no probable cause or other lawful basis to initiate and continue criminal prosecution against plaintiffs, but did nonetheless maliciously prosecute plaintiffs causing them to suffer damages and injuries in order to attack plaintiffs for their political affiliations and gain the ability to install new city officials who have valuable business relationships with defendants and their subordinates.”
DeMarzo was initially charged in March 2011 with official misconduct for using city money in order to pay his personal legal fees.
The former mayor allegedly paid his attorney with city funds to represent him in a lawsuit questioning his ability to serve the city as both an elected official and an officer with the Wildwood Police Department. He has since retired from the force.
According to the indictment, DeMarzo was charged with second-degree official misconduct and conspiracy to commit official misconduct and four fourth degree offenses involving misuse of funds and corruption of public resources.
Charges against DeMarzo were initially dropped in April 2012. On June 12, 2012 DeMarzo was reindicted on charges that included two counts of official misconduct, one count of criminal contempt and one charge of corruption of public resources.
Those charges were dropped Jan. 4 by Superior Court Judge Albert Garafolo.
The decision to drop the charges has been appealed.
According to a March 9 release issued by DeMarzo and Lashman, “To date, Taylor has spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in taxpayer dollars chasing a $348 voucher that was approved by a public process. In his continued zeal for justification, Taylor has appealed a decision that has been dismissed by the courts three times.
“Now it is our turn in court and have the evidence to prove everything we claim. We will prove Taylor conspired with other defendants to collaborate, fabricate, hide evidence, manufacture facts and manipulate the grand jury to fraudulently obtain these indictments while knowing we did not commit a crime nor an unauthorized act and quite frankly we proved that the charges were never even been supported by probable cause,” continued the release.
“The suit papers have not been served on me,” said Taylor. “The DeMarzo case is on appeal to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court and has not been finally determined in his favor. The suit is frivolous.”