SUIT SAYS POLITICS PLAYED INTO ARREST ON POT CHARGES

NORWOOD -- The borough council candidate who was charged with marijuana
possession two weeks before an election last year has filed a federal suit
against the borough, asserting that the arrest was politically motivated.

The suit by Mark Bocchino, who lost the election, states that borough
police officers should be held liable for trespass, assault, battery, and
false arrest.

The lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court in Newark, comes after
criminal charges against Mark and Melba Bocchino were dismissed following
rulings by two courts that the search of their home was unjustified.

"They made blatant misrepresentations to the court to get a search
warrant," said Robert Woodruff, the Bocchinos' attorney. "Two separate
courts have said to the police, 'We don't believe you.' There was strong
evidence that whoever prepared that affidavit did so falsely. The actions
of the police were unconstitutional."

The suit, which seeks unspecified compensatory damages, names as defendants
Police Chief Frank D'Ercole, police officers Thomas Eilinger and James
McVey, and the Borough of Norwood.

Borough Attorney Francis J. DiVito responded that "we have a respected
police department, and they are good men, and I feel confident that truth
will ultimately prevail."

D'Ercole, Eilinger, and McVey did not return The Record's calls. Mayor Gus
D'Ercole, brother of the police chief, refused to comment.

Bocchino, 38, a plumbing-and-heating contractor and a member of a prominent
Norwood family, had no comment. But he has said in the past and in the
lawsuit that he was devastated by the arrest and ensuing notoriety.

Woodruff asserted that the publicity surrounding the arrest cost Bocchino
election to the council.

At the time of the arrest, Bocchino was in a special runoff election for
the council against Democrat Thomas Brizzolara, a political ally of the
mayor. Bocchino, who would have been the sole Republican on the council,
lost the May election by a vote of 604-486.

That runoff was required because an election in November 1999 finished in a
tie. It first appeared that Brizzolara won that election by a single vote,
but a judge ruled that one vote was cast illegally for Brizzolara and
scheduled the runoff for May 2000.

Two months before the runoff, Eilinger responded to the Bocchinos' house
after a 911 call, which turned out to be an accidental call placed by one
of the couple's three children, the suit states.

Eilinger reported to his commander that while in the home he detected a
strong odor of marijuana. That night officers entered the house and
arrested the Bocchinos, charging each with one count of possession of
marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia. Police said they recovered less than
an ounce of burnt marijuana.

Bocchino and his supporters accused Chief D'Ercole of ordering the arrest
to aid the Democratic candidate and help his brother, the mayor. The chief
has maintained that his officers acted properly and that he has always been
tough on drugs. He has said in the past that the arrest was unrelated to
politics.

But the documents filed by Woodruff accuse Eilinger, Chief D'Ercole, and
McVey of conspiring to prepare an affidavit with "intentionally false and
misleading information so as to obtain a search warrant for the plaintiff's
home." The suit states there was a history of tension between Eilinger and
Mark Bocchino.

The suit states that Eilinger wrote in an affidavit that he was familiar
with the odor of marijuana as a result of 150 narcotics arrests. In fact,
the suit claims, his experience with raw marijuana was limited to two
automobile stops. Other misleading information in the affidavit, according
to the suit, were claims that the house smelled strongly of raw marijuana
and that there were frequent visits to the Bocchino home, which indicated
drug trafficking.

Without such misrepresentations, a warrant to search the home would not
have been issued by a judge, according to the suit.

The suit notes that in July 2000, state Superior Court Judge Bruce Gaeta
ruled in the Bocchinos' criminal case that the affidavit contained
misrepresentations. Judge Gaeta, who sits in Hackensack, ordered the
evidence to be suppressed. An appeals court last February affirmed Gaeta's
decision.