Charles "Chuck" Cusack served as an Ocean City police officer for 25 years and later managed beach tag operations in Ocean City.
A Superior Court judge on Tuesday heard oral arguments in a motion to dismiss charges against a former Ocean City beach tag supervisor, including one that carries a mandatory minimum of five years in state prison.
Charles E. Cusack, 52, is accused of having an ongoing sexual relationship with an underage female employee.
Judge John C. Porto reserved his ruling following the hearing in state Superior Court in Cape May Court House on May 5. The judge will issue his ruling during a hearing on a date to be determined. Porto did not set a trial date in the case.
Cusack was charged in August 2012 with one count of second-degree sexual assault. A retired Ocean City police officer who was later hired to run the city's beach fee operations, Cusack allegedly had an ongoing sexual relationship with the beach-tag inspector, who was then 17. In February 2015, a Cape May County grand jury handed up a superseding indictment adding a second-degree charge of official misconduct and a second-degree count of endangering the welfare of a child against Cusack.
Cusack’s attorney, Louis M. Barbone of Atlantic City, argued in his motion that the official misconduct and endangering charges against his client should be dismissed. The superseding indictment was based upon “prosecutorial vindictiveness” because Cusack wouldn’t plead guilty and instead opted to go to trial, Barbone contends.
Barbone’s motion references a Feb. 9 letter to him from Assistant Cape May County Prosecutor Dara Paley, in which the prosecutor writes, “please be advised I have decided to present an official misconduct count to Mr. Cusack’s indictment. I do so with a heavy heart as I was hoping your client would change his mind and accept the non-custodial resolution the State proposed.”
Barbone contends this paragraph is evidence of the prosecutor’s office intent to punish Cusack for refusing to accept a plea offer that would have kept him out of prison.
But, Paley countered in her reply brief that with those words, she was simply expressing her disappointment that a trial seemed unavoidable.
If Cusack is convicted of official misconduct, he faces a mandatory minimum of five years in state prison.
In New Jersey, the age of consent is 16. But Cusack was charged under a provision in state statute that makes it illegal for a person to have sex with someone over whom he or she has supervisory authority when an alleged victim is 16 or 17 years old.
Cusack served 25 years in the Ocean City Police Department before retiring in May 2011. He has three daughters and had been separated from his wife at the time of his arrest.
Cusack was in his second season as director of the city’s beach-tag program when he was arrested. He has been free since posting $150,000 bond shortly after his arrest.
He also faces a civil lawsuit filed in March by his alleged victim. The lawsuit alleges Cusack helped the girl land a plum summer job with the city’s beach fee office, and then used his position of authority to sway her into a sexual relationship. The city of Ocean City is also named as a defendant in the civil suit.
