Suit that polarized town enters a new chapter
Coda • GREG BEAN
I've written about the Stuart Moskovitz/Manalapan imbroglio a number of times over the last few years, so it's appropriate to note the fact that one chapter of this sorry mess may finally be over.

Last week, according to a story posted on the Greater Media Newspapers website by Mark Rosman, managing editor of the News Transcript, the Manalapan Township Committee took action to end its lawsuit against Moskovitz, the former mayor and former township attorney some of them claim did not protect the town in the purchase of a property in 2005.

Good for them. They're doing the right thing, and it's just too bad they didn't do it a long time ago.

As I said in 2007, I've had mixed emotions about this lawsuit from the get-go. I never believed Manalapan would recover any of the money it claimed it lost because of Moskovitz's alleged malpractice. I thought it would cost them a ton of money in legal fees and in the end, they'd wind up spending even more on a losing proposition.

The case was complicated, but in a nutshell, the Township Committee sued Moskovitz because it claimed that Moskovitz's actions in the sale of properties on Route 522 left the township liable for the cost of an environmental cleanup on the land.

At one point, attorneys for the township even served a subpoena on Google, demanding the identity, or identities, of the lunatics who run da Truth Squad, a bacon-headed, language and truth-challenged blog that allows other chuckleheads to post any disgusting and defamatory thing their deviant brains can think up.

That little excursion into windmill tilting put the Manalapan Township Committee on the national stage and drew the ire of an Internet legal defense group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Needless to say, Manalapan never got the names or information it was looking for.

And — Manalapan being Manalapan — the protracted wrangling brought out the worst in everyone.

At one point, Moskovitz even hired a private detective to stalk Andrew Lucas, former mayor and then-member of the Township Committee, to see if he really lived where he said he lived. All the detective and Moskovitz gained from that gross invasion of privacy was the revelation that even though Lucas has lived in Manalapan for all his life (except college), he didn't always sleep there. For a period of several months, he spent a lot of time at the home of his new wife in Freehold. Then she moved into his home in Manalapan.

Big god-danged deal. And the only publication that paid it any serious attention was the Asbury Park Press, where Moskovitz took his "bombshell." They wrote a front-page "exposé" without asking any of the important questions, the first of which should have been to ask Moskovitz what his personal agenda was for bringing the story to them in the first place.

Those answers would have been:

• Revenge, for Lucas' part in bringing the malpractice suit against Moskovitz; and

• Misdirection. Moskovitz didn't like being in the spotlight in the malpractice case and was eager to do anything to divert attention away from it, even something as skeevy as hiring a private detective to birddog his rival's sleeping accommodations.

Following the story week to week, I was eager to come home at night and jump in the shower to wash the slime off.

And for the whole time between then and now, and as recently as this week, the chuckleheads running and posting (always anonymously) on da Truth Squad have been banging the drum of misinformation and out-and-out lies to keep this noxious pot boiling.

Those people disgust me on many levels, but these days they've sunk to a level I've seldom seen in this country. Last time I came across morons of their ilk was when I was living in Illinois and had gotten crosswise with the local Ku Klux Klan. They were also big proponents of the big lie and the anonymous attack and threat, but at least they had the courage of their convictions to occasionally appear in public, even if they did it wearing their trademark disguise of a beer-stained bed sheet.

Last week, I was even informed that someone had posted on the site using my name. That posting, which was taken down the same day, read:

"Greg Bean said … As an observer it looks to me as if the walls of Moskovitz's ugly little world are finally closing in on him, and it's about time. The only question is whether there is a law in place wherever he moves to that would require public notice that a confirmed putz is moving to the neighborhood."

I would like to assure my readers and anyone who might have heard of that posting that I did not, and have never posted on that despicable blog site. For starters, I would never use the word putz. Where I come from, we've got our own descriptive phrases for that particular anatomical appendage. But the coward who posted under my name got one thing right. If I had suffered severe brain damage and posted on that site, I would have had the courage to use my name.

Other posters are putting up comments under the names of several sane Manalapan residents (including one who's apparently been dead for a while) so I guess I'm in good company.

I am incredibly angry about attacks these anonymous scaredy-cats have made against another local resident of my acquaintance, which have gone beyond random, hate-filled rantings into the arena of criminal threat.

Maybe the police will be able to do something about that situation. I certainly hope so. It would please me immensely to get our first glimpse on the anonymous Truth Squad idiots doing a perp walk in handcuffs and ankle shackles.

Even though township officials have indicated their desire to end this case, it is not clear when and if that will happen.

Moskovitz has said he is not ready to give up his right to sue for malicious prosecution.

This case is like herpes: the gift that keeps on giving. It just won't go away.

Gregory Bean is the former executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at gbean@gmnews.com.