An investigation has been launched into possible criminal activity among police officers in Orange, the city's chief has confirmed.

"There has been an ongoing criminal investigation within the city," said Chief Robert Sorge. "I'm actively and aggresively continuing this investigation."

Sorge added that further comment "would be inappropriate at this time."

John J. Fahy, as assistant U.S. attorney for New Jersey in charge of the special prosecutions division, said, "We can't confirm any current investigation."

"If he (Sorge) is saying he's conducting a criminal investigation, we just hope that it's done fully and properly, so we can clear our department of any and all alleged of aspersions cast upon it." said Lt. Charles Cobbertt, president of the Kinsmen, a black police officers group in Orange.

"We remember that, in 1974, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office had an investigation (of the department)," Cobbertt continued. "At the time, it was rumored throughout the department that they (the prosecutor's office) did not get everyone who may or may not have been corrupt at the time."

John Redden, deputy first assistant prosecutor in Essex County, said he had "no comment" on whether his office was involved in an investigation of the Orange department.

Chief Sorge disclosed the investigation in the wake of public inquiries raised at Tuesday's city council meeting. Some residents questioned whether it was true some police officers were involved in drug trafficking.

Rocco Zarillo, a South Center Street resident and the city's former director of information and complaints, noted how he was "affronted" by reports that some police officers are under investigation for drug trafficking, and neither Sorge nor Mayor Paul Monacelli, the city's police director, attended the meeting.

If there were police officers "using or selling narcotics" Zarillo continued, Sorge had an obligation to arrest those people and refer the matter to the municipal court and prosecutor's office.

"We're talking about durgs here," Zarillo told the council. "The matter should be investigated. We've got too many clean cops in this department" who are being forced "to have a stigma attached to them."

On Oct. 22, 1982, two Orange police detectives, Thomas Fazio, 31, and Daniel O'Connor, 26, were arrested in a Newark apartment during State Police drug raids.

A state grand jury indicted them on charges of failing to investigate and arrest six alleged drug dealers.

O'Connor and Fazio, Orange officials later reported, were supposed to be at a stakeout in Orange looking for a suspected rapist at the time of their drug-related arrests in Newark.

Both men resigned from the force and lost their pensions. In May 1985, Fazio and O'Connor were sentenced to three years' probation and fined $10,000 and $2,000 respectively.

In a separate probe, the Essex County Prosecutor's Office four years ago investigated the disappearance of $4,500 worth of jewelry from the Orange Police Department's evidence room.

The prosecutor's office concluded there was "some negligence" on the part of authorities in Orange. But, it added, no one person could "be pinpointed as a suspect" responsible for either misplacing or taking the gems.

Two Orange police officers, Abdul H. Bilal, 30, and Craig Burns, 29, were charged with aggravated robbery, receiving stolen property and carrying concealed weapons while in Cleveland last August on official business. They face trial in Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Common Pleas Court on Feb. 11.

This is not the first time Bilal has been in trouble. He was fired from his post on Nov. 7, 1983, after being accused - by then Police Chief Pasquale (Pat) Messano and an independent hearing officer - of improper conduct, discipline problems, failing to answer and assist other police officers while on his post and self-admitted "personal problems."

Two months later, then-Mayor Joel Shain reinstated Bilal after agreeing to do so at the urging of the Kinsmen. Bilal and Burns are members of the organization.

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“Reach Back with One Hand and Pull Someone Else Up With You.”

– Charles C. Cobbertt

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