Fired Cop Beats 48-Year-Old Woman, Has Her Arrested & Kills Her Dog

Home News Tribune
Aug. 26, 2005

WOODBRIDGE — What began as a quick Sunday night drive to the grocery store with her beloved dog turned into a "nightmare" for a 48-year-old township woman after an altercation with a former Woodbridge police officer who was apparently concerned that she had left her dog unattended in her vehicle.

Before it was over, the woman, Maura Ciardiello, was handcuffed and taken to the Woodbridge Police Department, though she was not charged with a crime. She spent yesterday in pain from the bruises to her arms, a missing tooth and a possibly broken rib, the result, she says, of being grabbed and shoved against her sport-utility vehicle by the man, state Department of Human Services Police Officer Stephen Sexton.

And Rusti, the collie-shepherd mix that Ciardiello and her husband refer to as their daughter, escaped from the vehicle and apparently ran onto Route 1, where she was killed in traffic.

"I still can't believe this happened," Ciardiello said yesterday, sitting in her kitchen and still shaken from the incident. She hadn't slept the night before, she said. She hadn't been able to eat.

Because Sexton, who was fired from the township's police department a decade ago, did not initially present himself as a police officer, Ciardiello said, she feared during the scuffle that she would be raped or carjacked.

Ciardiello said she plans to file a complaint about the incident with authorities today. She and her husband, Robert, said they are planning a lawsuit.

Sexton could not be reached for comment yesterday. A request for a report and information from the Department of Human Services Police Department was not answered yesterday.

Woodbridge Police Chief William Trenery said Sexton had been investigating an animal-cruelty complaint when he called township police for assistance in making an arrest. He said that bringing Ciardiello to the Woodbridge police station reflected standard police procedure of transporting someone who had been arrested to the nearest police station.

But Trenery said he did not know if the state Human Services Department had filed any charges against Ciardiello.

A report on the incident by Woodbridge police was incomplete yesterday, Capt. Charles Rowinski said. He said Ciardiello had not been charged with a crime by township police, and he confirmed that Sexton had previously worked on the Woodbridge police force.

Sexton was fired from the department in 1995 after a locker-room skirmish in which he attempted to arrest a superior officer. Then a 22-year veteran officer, Sexton appealed his firing to the state Superior Court's Appellate Division, but his termination was upheld by a series of court rulings.

Speaking through tears in her home yesterday, Ciardiello said she only took Rusti on the shopping errand because she needed just a few items for dinner and knew it would be a quick trip. She purposely parked close to the store so she could see if anything happened to Rusti, she said.

While in line to buy the ravioli, bread and sodas she planned to serve, Ciardiello said she saw Sexton standing against her SUV, his arms folded across his chest.

He was still there when she got to her vehicle, she said. When she opened the back door to load her groceries, Ciardiello said, Sexton asked her if it was her car and her dog; she said yes.

He told her she should not have left her dog in the car, and put his hand in the open back of the car as if to see the temperature inside, she said.

At some point, he must have opened a side door, Ciardiello said, because as she loaded her groceries, Rusti appeared at her feet.

Nervous, she got the dog back in the SUV and made her way to the driver's seat. At that point, she said, Sexton flipped out what appeared to be a wallet, showing something silver but unidentifiable to her, and saying that he was a state police officer. Ciardiello said she told him she didn't do anything wrong and got into her SUV, moving her hand toward the button that locked the doors.

Before she could lock the vehicle, Sexton reached toward her and pulled her out of the driver's seat, Ciardiello said. He pushed her against the side of the SUV, she said.

She screamed. Several people stood nearby, she said, but no one stopped him.

"I kept saying, "Help me, help me, I don't know this man,' " she said.

Ciardiello said she didn't believe he was a police officer; she said she thought he was going to attack her. There was a van parked next to her vehicle, she said, and she believed she would end up in it.

Instead, Woodbridge police, who Sexton had apparently called, arrived at the scene. Ciardiello said she was handcuffed and taken into a police car, but never read her rights or placed under arrest. She was taken to the police station, where she answered questions and cried hysterically, handcuffed, she said.

Ciardiello said police told her Rusti was being taken care of by animal-control officers. But as her husband would learn later, while she was being taken by ambulance to a hospital after she was released from the police station, Rusti had not survived the night.

Robert Ciardiello said a police officer told him there was more bad news for them: Their dog was dead.

The incident seemed a surreal twist for the Ciardiellos, who had recently moved from Staten Island, N.Y., to their "dream house" in Woodbridge.

"My dog is dead, my wife's been traumatized, and I'm selling my house soon," Robert Ciardiello said, adding that he no longer feels safe in the township.

Rusti, the beloved creature they adopted from a shelter after she had been abused by past owners, peered at them yesterday from the photograph bearing the caption "Our girl."

"Our dog is our baby," Robert Ciardiello said.

"Was," Maura corrected him.

Robert nodded.

"Was," he said.