July 26, 2005

Newark, N.J. - With growing reports that Palisades Interstate Park Police Department in New Jersey is spending taxpayer money to lure gays into sexual acts and that a judge is giving lighter sentences to straights similarly charged with lewdness, Garden State Equality and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey today wrote to Governor Richard Codey and the Palisades Interstate Park Commission calling for a comprehensive investigation.

In their letter, the two statewide organizations ask the Commission to investigate the park police's sting operation for its apparently exclusive focus on gays; and the Governor to investigate the sentencing practices of Judge Stephen J. Zaben, the municipal judge with park jurisdiction.

"We seek this investigation not to condone public lewdness," said Jeanne LoCicero, staff attorney at the ACLU of New Jersey, "but to stop the disparate treatment of gays and straights that may well be a violation of the New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination."

"Let the police and the judge clean up the park," said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality, "but make sure they do it without a witchhunt or a double-standard in sentencing. Anything else is sexual-orientation profiling."

In 2004, according to the Gay City News, police arrested at least 98 men in the park, including many men lured by undercover male police officers. Judge Zaben's sentences in those cases, the Gay City News reports, have included suspended jail sentences, one or two years on probation, a two-year ban from the park and court-supervised psychiatric counseling.

Earlier this month, the Gay City News reported that Judge Zaben sentenced a straight couple - violating the same lewdness statute - to fines and a ban from the park, but not to a jail sentence, probation or court-supervised psychiatric counseling. And unlike many of the gay men, the straight couple engaged in lewd behavior without being lured into it by police.

In their Letter to Governor Codey (95k PDF) and the Park Commission, the ACLU of New Jersey and Garden State Equality wrote: "We believe that an investigation by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission of its police department's practices and procedures regarding lewdness arrests is necessary to determine whether the department is engaging in discrimination. Additionally, we call on the Commission to reconsider using its limited resources to conduct undercover sting operations in the park.

"We call on the Governor's office to conduct a comprehensive review of Judge Zaben's handling of lewdness charges against gay men including comparisons to determine whether his practices indicate disparate treatment of, or have a disparate impact on, gay men."

Palisades Interstate Park extends from Fort Lee in New Jersey north to Bear Mountain in New York. The New Jersey and New York Governors each appoint five of the 10 commissioners. Separate forces on each side of the border police each state's portion of the park.