BELLEVILLE –
A veteran Belleville cop is under suspension pending completion of an investigation by an outside agency relating to an 11-month-old alleged shoplifting case.
When asked about the matter last Friday, Police Chief Mark Minichini confirmed that Officer Wanda Posada-Vallese was placed on the suspension list, without pay, as of January 2016.
“The suspension is indefinite pending this investigation,” said Minichini.
Posada-Vallese has served on the Belleville PD since February 1998 and her annual salary is listed as nearly $95,000 a year.
On June 6, 2006, the officer – then known as Wanda Scheumeister – was charged with shoplifting about $60 worth of merchandise from a local department store where she was working an overtime detail, according to official reports brought to light this month by a website called “Random notes on NJ government.”
After being charged and suspended without pay on June 7, 2006, the officer petitioned the N.J. Dept. of Personnel’s Merit System Board for interim relief of her suspension but was denied.
On Sept. 26, 2006, the officer pleaded guilty to an amended charge of loitering and paid $533 in fines and court costs following a Sept. 21 hearing in West Orange Municipal Court.
A month later, however, the officer filed a complaint against the township with the federal EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) alleging she was “wrongfully accused of shoplifting” charge, that she had “maintained an excellent work record,” was currently serving as a detective and was a victim of sex and race discrimination.
But in March 2007, she agreed to drop that complaint in return for accepting an unpaid suspension from June 7, 2006 to Oct. 7, 2006, a reassignment to the patrol division and a 6-month probationary period. In a separate settlement of departmental charges, the township agreed to provide the officer with 23 weeks of back pay against which she would apply 22.5 days of unused vocational and personal days.
The matter that Minichini was referring to involves a probe that he says is being conducted by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office stemming from a more recent episode involving the reported theft of a bottle of booze from the White Oak liquor store on Union Ave. in Belleville on Dec. 31, 2015.
In that incident, the suspect reportedly identified herself as a local cop but the identity of the suspect has not been revealed by investigators.
Said Minichini: “The case is still being handled by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. Essex is the busiest office in New Jersey and they’re probably backed up [with various investigations]. And because they have [the case], we’re on hold” with any possible further action on the officer’s status.
“I know that may be hard for the public to swallow,” the chief said, but the course of justice can move slowly at times, he added.
A police report on the 2015 New Year’s Eve incident that was recently published by an activist website – and whose contents were verified as accurate by Minichini – said that officers responded to a report of a shoplifting at White Oak Liquors on the 400 block of Union Ave.
According to that report, the store owner told police that at about 2:40 p.m. that day, a woman customer was observed walking the aisles shopping for liquor and, at some point, approached the counter with a .750-liter bottle of Don Julio Anajo Tequila encased in a paper box.
The owner told police that the woman claimed the box was damaged and asked for another, adding that she worked for the BPD.
Police said the owner told them he brought two bottles of the Tequila to the counter/register and accepted a credit card payment of $50.28 from the patron for one bottle and left the room.
A short time later, the owner told police, he noticed that he was missing one of the Tequila bottles from his inventory and a subsequent check of the store’s surveillance video reportedly showed the patron placing a bottle, later discovered to be missing, priced at $46.99 before taxes, into her purse during the checkout process.
