Evesham school official widens defamation suit, blames mayor for lost job offer

An Evesham school official has added three school board members and the township to his defamation suit against Mayor Randy Brown.

Richard Dantinne Jr., personnel director for the K-8 district, named the Evesham school board's vice president, Sandy Student, and board members Nichole Stone and William McGoey  in the expanded suit, which his lawyer filed Tuesday in federal district court in Camden.

The three had sat with Brown at a Jan. 12 news conference where the mayor pushed for a sexual-harassment investigation of Dantinne. Dantinne's suit says Brown's claims are false.

The suit also says Gloucester Township's school district withdrew an agreement to hire Dantinne as its personnel director starting in February following Brown's allegations. It seeks unspecified damages from Brown and the others. It accuses Brown of  "character assassination" against Dantinne and says Brown's career has been "ruined due to the conduct of the defendants."

It also names the township as a defendant because Brown has spoken in his official capacity, depriving Dantinne of his constitutionally protected "liberty interest," according to the lawsuit.

Dantinne's lawyer, Matthew S. Wolf of Cherry Hill, said Wednesday he had withdrawn a defamation suit he filed last week in Superior Court in Mount Holly that named only Brown. Wolf declined to discuss the complaint. Dantinne said Tuesday he had been instructed not to discuss the matter.

Federal courts may hear a larger range of complaints, including constitutional issues, than  state courts, and may also oblige the defendant to pay the plaintiff's legal costs if the plaintiff wins.

The new suit reasserts the complaint of the earlier suit, which alleged that Brown defamed Dantinne at the news conference, held at Evesham's municipal building. There, he told reporters he had heard rumors in December than Dantinne might have harassed several young teachers of the district around 2015.

Brown said he had been unable to learn if School Superintendent John Scavelli had investigated the rumors. He added that in early January he had a conversation with one young teacher who described what Brown said was inappropriate behavior on Dantinne's part. Asked if the behavior had "crossed the line," Brown replied, "Without question," but did not provide details or name the teacher.

He said she told him she had not informed the district of the alleged incident for fear of reprisals, including the possible loss of her job. Brown then called on the school board to hold an emergency meeting and hire an independent investigator to look into the harassment rumors.

The district has not called such a meeting. The school board's president, JoAnne Harmon, has declined to discuss Brown's allegations, other than to say she took issue with Brown's unveiling his concerns in public on a personnel matter.

The suit further accuses Brown of having an ax to grind with Scavelli because the superintendent did not hire Brown's son and hired someone else instead. Brown declined to comment on the allegation.

Dantinne and Scavelli arrived together in Evesham in 2014 from the Franklin School District, where Dantinne had been an elementary school principal and Scavelli the superintendent.

Student, Stone, and McGoey made no assertions at the news conference that they had any evidence Dantinne had spoken or acted inappropriately with a subordinate, saying instead they felt frustrated that Scavelli would not advise the board if he had investigated Dantinne.

The suit asserts that Brown and the board members violated Dantinne's "right to privacy as protected under New Jersey state law" and put him in "a false light before the public." It also claims they acted in their capacity as elected officials, and that as such they deprived Dantinne's of his due process rights.