Settlement reached in car crash case implicating Princeton Mayor Mark Freda

A civil lawsuit that implicated Princeton Mayor Mark Freda in a fatal, high-speed car crash has been settled following over four years of legal battles. Both Freda, individually, and the Municipality of Princeton will pay substantial sums to David Marcou, whose wife Jodi Marcou was killed in the car crash, though the exact terms of the multimillion dollar settlement are not public.

The settlement was approved by Mercer County Superior Court Judge Russell Wojtenko, Jr. on Aug. 28 and brings to a close a wide-ranging lawsuit that pitted Freda against the municipality he serves and the fire department he volunteers for.

The case stems from a Nov. 7, 2021 early afternoon incident in which 15-year-old Damajia Jenay “Majia” Horner and two others attempted to steal a Ferrari from the driveway of Dina Shaw, a former Princeton Council candidate. Shaw called Freda about the attempted theft while her husband called 911, but Horner was unsuccessful in stealing the Ferrari.

Horner drove away in a Jeep Grand Cherokee that was stolen from another house with a 14-year-old boy in the passenger seat. Elhajjmalik Diallo, a 19-year-old who was the other person with Horner, drove away in a separate stolen vehicle, according to a police press release at the time.

After responding to Shaw’s call, Freda spotted both stolen vehicles on Snowden Lane and activated courtesy blue lights he had from his volunteer work with the Princeton Fire Department on his private vehicle. Freda followed Horner’s vehicle with his blue lights on as it turned onto Route 27. Horner swerved around cars on a single-lane road with solid yellow lines, with Freda following, and drove at times around 90 miles per hour, according to a Princeton Police Department crash investigation.

Near Lake Carnegie on Route 27, which is also known as Princeton-Kingston Road and Nassau Street, Horner swerved into the opposite lane and collided head-on with a vehicle driven by Jodi Marcou coming in the opposite direction. Jodi Marcou, who was a Rutgers University administrator, and Horner died in the car crash. The 14-year-old passenger was taken to the hospital unconscious and in critical condition.

In June 2022, Jodi Marcou’s husband David Marcou and several other family members filed an initial lawsuit in Middlesex County against Horner’s mother, Diallo, and others implicated in the crash. The complaint was amended in July 2023 to name Freda, the Municipality of Princeton, and the Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad (PFARS), of which Freda was the president of at the time, as defendants in the case.

The lawsuit accused Diallo of hiring Horner to steal the vehicles, but he never responded to the civil case. Diallo was sentenced in 2023 to three years in prison after pleading guilty to crimes in five counties. He pleaded guilty to his involvement in stealing the vehicles involved in the Princeton incident, though not for employing the minors to commit a crime.

The complaint was amended for a second time in October 2023 to name the Princeton Fire Department after details emerged that Freda’s blue lights were authorized by the department, and the case was later moved to Mercer County court in December 2023.

The August settlement was reached between David Marcou and Freda, in both his capacity as mayor and as an individual; the municipality and the fire department; PFARS; and Arbina Asani, the owner of the stolen Jeep who was accused of contributing to the crash by leaving her car door unlocked with the car keys inside. David Marcou and his lawyers will be awarded 6 million dollars from the settlement.

Nicholas Leonardis, a lawyer of the New Jersey-based Stathis & Leonardis firm who represented David Marcou in the case, told The Daily Princetonian that the “vast majority” of the money is coming from Freda, individually, and the municipality. According to Leonardis, the municipality, which includes the fire department and Freda in his capacity as mayor, paid more total than Freda did individually.

Leonardis added that Jodi Marcou’s insurance carrier Hanover Insurance Group will separately pay roughly $1.25 million as part of her uninsured motorist coverage, as Horner was not insured at the time of the crash.

“There are some crashes that completely should never happen, and this was one of them,” Leonardis said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ He said that Freda’s actions, including following Horner at high speeds with his blue lights on, “should shock everybody,” and claimed that, in the absence of Freda’s conduct, he didn’t “have any reason to think this crash would have ever occurred.”

Leonardis said it was likely Freda’s blue lights made Horner think he was a police officer, which may have given her the impression she was being chased.

Freda declined a request for comment, as did Asani’s lawyer Helen Cummings. The municipality and the lawyers representing it in the case did not respond to requests for comment.

PFARS Executive Director Ari Meisel shared a statement with the ‘Prince’ describing the organization’s involvement as “limited to responding to the emergency and assisting with the investigations that followed” while adding that he hopes the settlement “brings some measure of closure to those involved.”

A major issue in the case was the question of whether Freda was acting in his capacity as mayor during the incident or in a personal capacity, which would impact the legal and settlement costs. In a June 2024 deposition, Freda argued that he was acting in his capacity as mayor.

In the deposition, Freda said he activated the blue lights in his car in his capacity “as the mayor,” noting that there was no active fire department or PFARS dispatch at the time. He acknowledged that, in his work as a volunteer firefighter and a PFARS employee, he was supposed to use the blue lights only while going to the first aid building or fire house in response to a fire or EMS call.

Additionally, Freda said that Shaw called him in his capacity as mayor, asserting that she “wouldn’t have called [him] otherwise,” and agreed that he acted as “the eyes and ears of the police department,” which he said municipal employees are expected to do.

Freda said in the deposition that he passed two or three cars while driving on Route 27 with his blue lights on by crossing over the double yellow line into the direction of opposing traffic. He also said that, with his blue lights on, he passed vehicles stopped at a traffic light by entering the oncoming lane of traffic while turning left from Snowden Lane onto Route 27.

Later in the deposition, Freda backtracked and said he was unsure whether he crossed the double yellow line on Route 27 — a violation of traffic laws — or if cars yielded to him.

Freda has not been charged with any crime or motor vehicle violation related to the incident. In the deposition, he repeatedly said that his intention when following the stolen vehicle onto Route 27 was to “call 911 and say where these vehicles were going.”

The PFARS operations committee voted in August 2023, 8–1, to suspend Freda for 30 days. He was also asked to stop using the blue lights when responding to incidents for PFARS and the fire department. Freda retired from PFARS in March.

The municipality, on the other hand, strongly disagreed that any of Freda’s actions while responding to the incident were done in his capacity as mayor.

“Defendant Freda’s conduct that day was not authorized by the Municipality of Princeton or sanctioned by the Princeton Fire Department. It was not directed by any superior, preceded by any dispatch, or supported by any policy, job description, legal obligation, or employment responsibility,” the municipality’s lawyers wrote in an April court filing. “It was an entirely personal decision, made by a civilian responding to a phone call from a private resident, that set in motion a chain of events in which no municipal authority played any role.”

The contested nature of Freda’s role also contributed to confusion in legal representation. Freda was represented by a lawyer in his capacity as mayor and by two separate legal teams in his capacity as an individual. The lawyers representing him as an individual came from two different insurance companies — NJM Insurance Group, Freda’s personal auto insurance carrier, and American International Group, Freda’s personal excess carrier.

At one point, Brian Bontempo, the lawyer representing Freda as mayor, accused AIG of never speaking with Freda prior to filing in the case.

“AIG has a duty to act in Mr. Freda’s best interests. NJM has the same duty,” Bontempo wrote in a filing. “It would appear that these parties are more concerned with the best interests of NJM and AIG rather than Mr. Freda.”

Lawyers representing Freda on behalf of NJM and AIG continued to file court documents but did not respond to Bontempo’s comments directly.

The settlement avoids a definitive ruling on what role Freda was acting in. The total costs to Freda personally and the municipality, outside of their insurance plans, is not clear, but the Princeton Council voted in January to allot up to $17,500 for attorneys to represent the municipality in the case.

Freda, through his NJM insurance plan, deposited $500,000 to the court in an interest-bearing account in April as a settlement offer, though it is unclear how that money was used in the final settlement.

Oliver Wu is the assistant News editor for the ‘Prince’ leading town coverage, focused on the Municipality of Princeton and beyond. He is from Stony Brook, N.Y., and can be reached at oliver.wu[at]dailyprincetonian.com.

Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.