Your recent story regarding the Muniz case is biased and disappointing. You simply recounted a lawsuit with its allegations, along with the phrase “court documents say.” It is important for readers to know that anyone can file a civil suit for anything. No verification of facts will take place until the suit goes through a lengthy process of discovery and eventually either settlement or a determination by a judge. The suit you reference is currently going through that process, so it is inappropriate to comment on it. When you said “court documents say” you led readers to believe this was somehow a proven fact, instead of merely an allegation of one person against another.

Even more disturbing, you stated “There is a question of what Caffrey did or did not know about Muiz’ activities prior to his summons.” However, the very finding of Muniz’ guilt leaves NO question about that. The statute in this case was 2C:33-16. This statute reads, “Any person of legal age to purchase alcoholic beverages, who knowingly and without the express written permission of the school board, its delegated authority, or any school principal, brings or possesses any alcoholic beverages on any property used for school purposes which is owned by any school or school board, is guilty of a disorderly persons offense.” So, in order for Mr. Muniz to be guilty, the judge had to determine that neither the administrators (including me), nor the Board knew anything about this. This was part of the “finding of fact” that the judge read when he issued the verdict.

Let me say for the record that I had absolutely no knowledge about any of this until April, 2012, just before the BOE placed me on administrative leave. I had just begun an internal fact-finding process, which I was unable to conclude. Had the Board not taken this highly political action against me, I would have been able to address this issue appropriately. However, in my absence it was handled by the acting superintendent in a way that is now the subject of multiple lawsuits. When I returned from leave, I made decisions based on the best information available to me at the time. As more information came available, I took other actions.

The most disturbing part of your article is that you never attempted to contact me at all. Had you done so, I would have been happy to discuss this matter with you so that your story could have been more accurate. Other publications did so, which resulted in more balanced representations of the facts. It is my hope that in the future, The Amboy Guardian will work diligently to provide facts to its readers in a way that is free from bias.

Sincerely,
Janine Caffrey