Attorney raises conflict of interest questions

March 1, 2011

TUESDAY MARCH 1, 2011, 7:22 PM
BY MARK J. BONAMO
MANAGING EDITOR
HACKENSACK CHRONICLE

HACKENSACK – An attorney who represents the Hackensack police officer who has added the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office to her civil lawsuit filed against suspended Hackensack Police Chief Charles “Ken” Zisa and the City of Hackensack has asserted that the hearing officer for the officer’s recently concluded disciplinary hearing had a conflict of interest.

James Burden, the Montclair attorney who represents Police Officer Alessandra Viola, claims that attorney Raymond Wiss, the Westwood attorney who was hired by the city to serve as the hearing officer in Viola’s disciplinary hearing, should not have been selected because of his prior legal representation of Capt. Thomas Salcedo, a Hackensack police officer who formerly led the department’s internal affairs division.