Now,
that everything, except a minor traffic offense has been dismissed ... It's time
for the local media to exercise some appropriate judgement and place this matter
in proper context ...
It is
time for Jake Glassey to return to work ... In our view, there has been a
total abuse of the system by the State
Authority.
June 11, 2005
Court rules toll collector should be reinstated
By THOMAS BARLAS Staff Writer, (609) 272-7201, E-Mail
New Jersey Highway Authority officials don't want Jason Glassey - fired last year after being involved in a 2003 road-rage incident - back on the job as a Garden State Parkway toll collector.
They just have to figure out how successful they'll be at doing that.
Authority officials are deciding whether to appeal a recent Superior Court ruling that Glassey get his $44,452-a-year job back. The ruling upheld a January finding by an arbitrator that Glassey be reinstated as a toll collector.
"The arbitrator ruled that the punishment didn't fit the offense," said authority spokesman Joseph Orlando.
Glassey, who was last reported living in Egg Harbor Township, was driving home from his job as a parkway toll collector in Cape May County on Nov. 21, 2003, when another driver cut him off on the parkway.
Glassey allegedly pulled out a paintball gun and fired repeatedly at the van, hitting it with blue paint pellets.
The driver of the van reported the incident to a state trooper on patrol. Glassey's vehicle was stopped a few minutes later.
Authority officials immediately opened an internal investigation after learning of the incident.
The investigation revealed that Glassey had been distributing altered parkway pamphlets to his tollbooth customers. Some of those pamphlets were found in his tollbooth and some at other tollbooths, where confused motorists apparently turned them in.
The pamphlets, which included parkway maps and other guides, featured photographs of then-Gov. James E. McGreevey and an authority supervisor with black eyes, glasses and mustaches drawn on them, along with expletives written beside them.
Glassey wound up being sentenced in Superior Court in July to two years' probation on a charge of interfering with a vehicle in transit, a disorderly persons offense.
In return for his plea, prosecutors dropped a third-degree charge of possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.
Neither Glassey nor his attorney, Len Schiero, could be reached for comment Friday.
