Good for Rob. He should be proud of standing up to Miller, the police department and the PBA. Most people would have been intimidated and given up.

My question is: Has Miller been fired? If not, why not? We have a Judge saying that he went after a candidate for mayor for purely political reasons. Miller -- and it sounds like other officers -- didn't like what Rob had to say about police consolidation so they tried to make sure he wouldn't win the election. If Miller keeps his job I will lose what little respect I have left for the Hightstown Police.

This is great news and a perfect Christmas present for Rob. So sad that he had to go through this for more than a year. But I'm sure some in the PD were just happy to see him spending money on legal fees. The former chief should have put an end to this a long time ago. The saddest thing is that something so blatantly wrong (and now determined to be by a judge) won't result in Miller's firing. This is the same guy who let me and all kinds of media types trample through the site of a decapitation murder, saying Amy Giordano had just upped and left town.

Hightstown PD should be ashamed of themselves. Blatant fascism. Somebody should be held accountable.

Miller thinks that he is God's gift. Get over yourself and retire.

As others have said, good for Rob. I'll add my thanks to him for having the courage to fight the HPD. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that he helped ensure that voters get to decide elections, not the police.

I agree that Miller should be fired. The HPD should also issue a formal apology to Rob and all residents for what Miller did. I'd also say that the Voices of Hightstown and other "supporters" of the police should also apologize for their attacks on Rob over this, but I doubt any of them has the class to do so.

Personally, I don't like Rob Thibault. I've met him once at a council meeting and again when he came to my home during his campaign. He has made a couple of good points in regards to the municipal budget and issues with how council conducts their business, a true consolidation (merger) of the police force, not disbandment. But for the most part I find him to be rude, obnoxious and tents to be untruthful when trying to make his point. Now that he has been elected and now will get to sit behind the iron curtain, let's see how things go. I wish him well! The only point I want to make is this, the police department is made up of at one time 15 men and women, most of which come to work everyday and do a good job. They can't be everything to everybody, but they come pretty close! Over the past couple of years, they've gotten rid of the the "bad apples". Det. Miller, I don't if he's really a bad apple or just a little over zealous. If its truly his time to go, I'm it will happen in good time. But I'm tired of hearing how every time one officer does something wrong, the entire department gets named as its was some kind of conspiracy. Please, give the good officers who professionally serve our town day in and day out a friggin break and the respect and support that they deserve! You sound ungrateful and ignorant. We have a new Police Director to be named shortly after the new year, lets see what happens. Maybe, just maybe things will work out for both those good officers and our town.

Unfortunately, its not just one guy its cultural. The charges against Mr. Thibault were politically motivated - that was clear from the start and the department did nothing. From the get go they should have dropped the charges and, at a minimum, filed administrative charges against the detective who went after a citizen for political reasons. Let me repeat that; a police officer went after a citizen because the citizen had the wrong political view!

Here's hoping that civilian oversight moves us in the right direction.

I'm not criticizing anyone but Miller and his former boss. A judge has said what most folks knew all along-Miller harassed Thibault because he simpy expressed his opinion in favor of police consolidation. That was obvious in part because his actions came immediately after the Herald published a story that included that opinion from Thibault, a mayoral candidate at the time. And besides the harassment by someone sworn to help and protect residents, Miller's actions cost Thibault thousands of dollars in legal fees when he did NOTHING wrong. How could you or anyone not be sure if Miller violated the public trust or that Euphemia should have quashed this along time ago?

I'm not a lawyer, but from what I know it seems that judges almost never openly criticize police and take a cop's word over everyone else's. So I think it's pretty shocking for this Judge to say "it was difficult to accept" Miller's testimony and “One can only conclude this was all about politics." That's pretty much saying Miller lied.

So if the Judge says Miller lied, other Hightstown cops must know he lied. If they were trully professionals they should have come forward, at least to the Chief but they didn't. It seems like they all campaigned against Thibault so its easy to see that they supported Miller with their silence. There's your conspiracy.

Yeah, but it's not their responsibility to step forward into someone else's "investgation," especially when they are outranked. It was Miller and Eufemia's responsibility to do their jobs with integrity, and without political motivation, even though Thibault was pushing for consolidation. Folks seem to conveniently forget that an unbiased outside consultant studied that issue for a long time and came to the obvious conclusion that police consolidation would save hundreds of thousands of dollars. But then certain people would lose their little fifedoms.

People, only Det. Miller knows what was going on in his mind, his motivation,and or his intent. And Miller says otherwise you will never know. You can speculate until the cows come home. Its funny, those who have issue with the police department seem to be hell bent on the idea or wrong doing or some kind of police conspiracy. But those who support the police department are the only ones who seem to understand that error or not, you can't possible believe that Thibault didn't know that his license was suspended. He chose to either ignore the issue or simply neglected to address and correct it. That is no ones fault but his own. Why hasn't anyone commented on those facts. And regards to his law suite, he failed to file by the deadline. So her is a person who obviously has trouble handling his personal business and now your all excited that come January he will be a member of council. lets see how forgiving you are when his procrastinate on borough business which results in costing you more tax dollars. But please, would someone post their opinion on the issue of Thibault having a suspended license in the first place???

Procrastinate....are you kidding me? This 1 square mile of Hightstown is still spending over 2 million dollars on a police budget because of procrastination. The people of Hightstown stepped up to the plate and voted in the right people this past election. It frightens me to think of all the votes that Mr. Archer did receive . I am willing to bet my $2500.00 quarterly property tax payment that Mr. Thibault will do an excellent job. Don't forget about that $40,000,000.00 worth of tax exempt property owned by Peddie or the $200,000,000.00 they have sitting in the bank. Oh yea they Hightstown around $25,000/year. Don't forget about thes guys Rob........

Merry Christmas

Time and again, Miller exhibited his inability to perform his duties in an honest fashion, which indicates that corruption in the Police Department is an acceptable way of doing business. Finally, he should lose his job.

Meanwhile, ex Police Chief, Eufemia was rewarded with a generous retirement package and a large settlement for his management of the corruption.

Hightstown deserves consolidation of services and the ability of police to ethically perform their job.

"RogersAvenue" is typical of the police groupies that we have in town and they would be funny if they're attitude of "the police can do no wrong" wasn't so dangerous. As to his/her comments:

The HPD didn't get rid of the "bad apples.". The chief did nothing and we are still paying for it. One "bad apple" was paid for two years to sit at home and then allowed to retire with a full pension despite not being able to do his job because he couldn't carry a gun because of a domestic violence charge. Another was allowed to retire with a pension when faced with charges resulting from handcuffing an ex-girlfriend to a chair. Those are just in the past couple of years.

Miller wasn 't "over zealous". Over zealous is giving someone a ticket for going 1 MPH over the speed limit. It's not me or other commenters saying Miller's actions were "all about politics" it was a Judge. A judge who heard evidence and testimony from Miller.

I don't know if Thibault knew about the NC ticket, but the article this one is linked to says "North Carolina officials subsequently expunged Thibault’s traffic record and New Jersey officials acknowledged the underlying mistake by reinstating his license at no charge." DMV isn't one to waive fees so I'm guessing they did't notify him or screwed up in some way.

All of this is a sideshow though. The fact of the matter is that we have a cop who went after someone because he didn't like his politics. That is wrong and dangerous.

To Vic: Yes I said that I don't like him, but I went on to give him credit for making good points. I don't like my neighbor but if him mail mistakenly gets placed in my box I don't though it in the garbage. I'll have to go back and find the article, but somewhere it read that he was notified. To Bill: I agree, it take far too long to get rid of government employees but that's an issue to take up with the state law makers. There is a process in place for a reason. To: Homeowner: Just because I think that we shouldn't get rid of our police department, because to me I see more positive than negative, and you don't, doesn't make me a groupie! Andlastly, I think its quite unfair to use words like corruption when your on the outside looking in and may or may not have all the facts. And, what about showing a little respect for the officers that serve you?

Rogers ave, respect must be earned and in my 10 years in Hightstown I've seen very little the police have done to earn residents' respect. Their actions last year during the shared services discussions were deplorable. I attended a number of the council meetings to learn more about the issue and saw the Hightstown PBA representative berate and intimidate an older resident for supporting an agreement with East Windsor. I saw the police and their supporters heckle Mr. Thibault when he tried to speak at another meeting. And I heard the PBA attorney tell the council that he would file a lawsuit the minute any agreement with East Windsor was signed.

Then earlier this year we had the disgusting performance of the Chief concerning the obviously fabricated gang data. Add to this the incidents mentioned by a previous commenter about cops being allowed to retire instead of being fired. Learning conclusively that Officer Miller targeted Mr. Thibault for political reasons doesn't surprise me. It is just one more example of an action by an organization with a sense of entitlement and culture that supports that distorted sense.

If you have any doubts, ask yourself why we do not see similar patterns of behavior and incidents with other nearby police departments.

P Henry with all due respect, the police department had what 15 cops, now they are down to I believe 11? You're trying to tell me you've personally have had interaction with all of these officers and have concluded that all of them are "corrupt" and don't do there job? 11 officers and you have no respect for not one?

Answer this, at one of the council meeting that I had attended, there were 130+ tax paying citizens of Hightstown in attendance and out of all of these people 6 spoke up in favor of contracting police services with E. Windsor. Are all these people stupid, uninformed idiots? Are these people somehow benefactors of all this romped corruption? And lastly, after all of the time and money spend negotiating with E. Windsor, council did an about-face and voted to keep our own PD for at least 5 years. Obviously, the figured out that the grass is not all that greener on the other side. All I'm saying, the new year is starting with Thibault and Bluth on council and a new police director to be named in a couple of weeks, to run the department, lets see what happens.

Focus people. Even if the Hightstown Polce Department was undeniably clean, look at what happened here. The police officer chose to investigate Rob Thibault for a political or personal reason. RT is now exonerated. That leaves Officer Miller to explain why he chose to data enter "Thibault; Roger" on his keyboard in a data base that surely has restrictions against personal use.

The heart of the matter is that the judge said "the search violated Thibault’s first, fourth and 14th amendment rights." I don't care if you like or agree with Rob Thibault or not or think Hightstown should keep its police department or not. The judge's decision says Officer Miller wilfully violated a citizen's Constitutional rights. A citizen who was running for public office no less.

That should make you angry as hell and it should mean that Miller loses his job. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that Miller has made a mockery of the rule of law and attempted to subvert the democratic process. We cannot allow a police officer with such a disregard for the Constitution to remain on the force.

I will be contacting the Attorney General's office to demand that they take action against Officer Miller. I would urge others to do the same.

Ok, folks. So which way is Hightstown heading? As taxpayers, will we continue to let this nonsense continue for OUR tax dollars? Do we have to go to meetings to get anything done, where those who represent us can then label us "negative complainers" and get away with doing nothing? Will all laws and codes now be enforced in the same way for all people? Will Miller now stop all motorists to prove he wasn't singling out one? Does the same rule apply to all homeowners? Will all codes for all people be enforced? Will the peeling dilapidated homes trashing up our once beautiful neighborhoods now be cited, or will they continue to be the impetus for the rest of the slumlord/homeowners to do absolutely nothing while our latest governing bunch of bananas stand by with their hands in their pockets feeling sorry for them. It's my tax dollars and yours too. Our borough workforce is not made up of volunteers, they are paid, trained professionals. They must be made to do their jobs, fairly, for all people, or we're nowhere, just where we've been.

To Linda, whose comment came to me in an e-mail but isn't showing up here yet:
You obviously didn't read the story and obviously don't know the facts or choose to ignore them
His "suspension" was a mistake by the DMV. It was a "clerical error," which he was unaware of, and his record was expunged. He did not break the law. Nonetheless he was forced to spend thousands to defend himself against an officer, who the judge said violated his Constitutional rights and acted with political motivation. Usually folks who write online comments read the story first.

Sorry to hear about more bad journalism , Les. Since I've never seen Linda's comment here (just in an e-mail from Patch), my guess is that Ashley removed it because it was so factually incorrect. Or perhaps Linda realized that and removed it herself.

omg people hello lets be clear & honest. the fact is, no the bottom line is, thibault was driving on a suspended license. him saying he did not know is simply a darn lie & a cop-out & an excuse for being stupid. mr. thibault you are not above the law! I saw the voh's study which cleary proved that the patriot study was incorrect & misleading thats one of the main reasons it did not happen! lets be real, the only way consoildation will work is if its done county wide. then as a boro resident i would be 100% behind it. then we would really save. lets also be more truthful, now thribault somehow got a council seat which i feel really bad for the people of this town & the other council members who are really trying to do positive things for this great town that i love so much. you say mr thibault how you want to save money for this town because you are a true townsmen? FALSE! SO YOU WAIT UNTILL YOU LUCKLY WIN A SEAT THEN, AS THE SNEAKY PERSON THAT YOU CLEARLY ARE, YOU THEN GO AHEAD & SUE THIS FINE TOWN! Which will cost this town more money & higher taxes! Soon, everyone will know what a mistake it was as i do already! also all of you people bashing our fine police department and employees are the same few people everytime. keep in mind there are over 5000 people in this town and the same people always saying the same thing! so here i am, making it clear to all, "our pd is the best and we are so lucky to have such professional officers"! the pd can't be everything to everyone!

last word to the hightstown police dept, please dont be deterred by these few negitive and false statements from the same few people. remember there are over 5000 people in this fine town whom most of them stand behind you and love you 100%. i also want to say thank you to our k-9 unit for helping to keep the drugs off the streets of our fine town. i know what an asset the two of you are to the residents of hightstown. thank you HPD.

to the council members, keep up the hard efforts to make this town better. please continue to find viable ways to bring in new revenue into the town and not cut the services that help make this town great. and please, lets stop beating a dead horse and utilize your time and resources more effectively.

THIS IS TRUE STATEMENTS, CAN YOU HANDLE IT!!!

"True Statements." That's an ironic moniker to hide behind, given your comments.
First, you should look up the word "few." There are more than a few here that understand and are upset by the FACT, as stated by an objective judge, that a law enforcement officer hired to protect the public violated Thibault's constutional rights.
Secondly, the Patriot group was an objective firm that studied the issue for close to two years. VOH were local folk with an opinion and some with a vested interest.
And third -- and I don't know why this is hard to understand if you can read the story -- Thibault's "suspension" was a clerical error for which he had no way of knowing and for which authorities expunged his record.

ok, i'm not going to argue with what the judge ruled. but the the bottom line is that he knew that he was suspended. yes it was a claerical error, but it was sent to him here in Hightsown. everyone is jumping on miller but wont address the fact that tribault was "KNOWINGLY DRIVING WHILE SUSPENDED"! and vic, to be clear i only care what the residents of hightstown have to say, you live where? i could care less what you have to say. what actually are your motives? you don't live in hightstown and no longer write for the herald. and when you did write for the herald all you did was bad-mouth our town.

regarding the patriot study, i don't care if they reviewed it for 10 years, they were proven to have incorrect data!

I could have assumed you wouldn't care about the opinion of any "outsider," such as a professional consultant who essentially wasted two years or a journalist who spent even more years getting to know Hightstown and letting its residents know what was going on. I'm kinda suprised you even give the judge a modicum of credit.
I'm sorry you didn't appreciate my work but I did my best while certain borough officials made that very difficult and others appreciated my work and were transparent, as they should be. Nowadays, unfortunately, you have fewer reporters covering the borough...and that probably suits you.
Regardless, I still care about misinformation being spread by folks like you.
Patriot was NOT "proven to have incorrect data." That's a ridiculous, biased statement.
And what makes you think you know Thibault received the notice from the South? And even if he did, what makes you think you know he didn't try for a long time to get it cleared up? I guess you would have immediately stopped driving to your job under such circumstances.
You're just making stuff up based on your own biases, while hiding behind an online pseudonym...and I'm sure you'll continue.
Bottom line--Miller violated Thibault's constitutional rights...and you don't seem to think the Constitution is important.