Borough officer faces department charges for drinking, partying with teens

Patrolman Garrett Brown, an officer on the Borough police force since August 2006, attended a disciplinary hearing about the charges at Borough Hall on March 25. Martha Gates, who hosted the party along with her ex-fiance, offered testimony about the night’s events. Gates and her ex-fiance, both of whom live in Keene, N.Y., pled guilty to unspecified misdemeanor charges, The Princeton Packet reported.

Gates’ testimony will help determine what charges, if any, the department brings against Brown, Borough Police Chief Anthony Federico told the Packet.

“[Gates] testified that Officer Brown was there for a few hours [and] that he had brought alcohol,” prosecutor Arthur Thibault, who represented the Borough, told the Packet. This testimony is consistent with what Gates told the New York State troopers who originally handled the investigation, Thibault noted.

Brown told the investigators that he only drank half a beer at the party and left soon after, but witness statements and a photograph showing Brown sitting at a table with teens and holding multiple bottles of beer suggest otherwise. Gates also testified that Brown chewed tobacco with the six teens present at the party.

James Mets, the attorney defending Brown, said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian that he doubted the veracity of Gates’ testimony.

“Her testimony was incredibly inconsistent with the testimony of other people that were at the party, as well as with some of the documents the Borough submitted,” he said. He declined to comment on the details of these inconsistencies because the case is ongoing.

“I’m not going to reveal my entire strategy to a paper,” he said.

Mets has also questioned Gates’ credibility based on her former gang affiliation and her severe anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders, according to The Times of Trenton.

It remains unclear why Brown was in upstate New York, but Thibault told the Packet that Brown “hunts up there with some people who used to live in Princeton.”

After receiving an anonymous tip about the party, New York State Police broke it up and charged Brown with “unlawfully dealing with a minor.” The court dismissed the charge last year because it was not deemed serious and because Brown was neither a repeat offender nor a New York resident.

“[Brown’s case] wasn’t dismissed on the merits at all,” Thibault told the Packet.

Mets said, however, that regardless of the merits of the dismissal, the New York State investigation is no longer relevant.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“The [criminal] investigation is over,” he said. “We’re at the hearing to determine whether Mr. Brown’s conduct was unlawful and if he will be punished in any way.”

Brown is serving on desk duty, Federico said, and he potentially faces more severe punishment.

“Right now as the charges stand, the Police Department is recommending 90-day suspension without pay,” Thibault noted. He added that after the disciplinary officer hearing the case issues a ruling, the Princeton Borough Council will be responsible for imposing any disciplinary action.

The next hearing will be on April 16, when Thibault said he plans to call the New York State troopers who originally investigated Brown’s actions to testify.

Federico, who sat at the prosecution table alongside Thibault, noted that the hearing may conclude with Brown’s termination.

“It could run the gamut of suspension to firing to being found not guilty,” he said.

Thibault said that Brown’s behavior reflected badly not just on Brown himself, but also the Borough Police as a whole.

“A police officer is a special kind of public official,” he said in his opening statement, according to the Times. “So his conduct not only calls into question his integrity, but it calls into question the respectability of the police department.”