(The following story by Ed Johnson appeared on the Asbury Park Press website on January 15.)
KEANSBURG, N.J. — It began with illegal parking and ended with the arrest of an NJ Transit employee on charges of impersonating a police officer and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, police said.
Theodore H. Reick Jr., 38, of Ann Court, Hazlet, was arrested Friday night after two officers from the borough’s street crimes unit noticed his car parked directly under a no-parking sign in what police termed “a known drug zone.”
When officers John O’Connor and Jillian Koehler spotted Reick’s car parked near Woodland Avenue and Shore Boulevard, they decided to investigate, Deputy Police Chief James Pigott said. As they activated their emergency lights, Reick drove off, Pigott said.
“He drove off about 50 feet, and then he stopped again,” Pigott said. “At that time, he told the officers he was a New Jersey Transit cop. When they asked him for some ID, he changed his story and said he was a train engineer.”
It turned out that neither identity was truthful, police said.
Reick is an NJ Transit maintainer, whose responsibilities include maintaining a portion of the railroad’s signal systems, said Penny Bassett Hackett, a spokeswoman for NJ Transit.
A search of Reick’s car with the help of Holmdel Police Officer William Bernard and his drug dog, Harley, turned up eight plastic bags of apparent rock cocaine in a storage pouch behind the passenger seat, according to a report filed by O’Connor and Koehler.
Reick was charged with possession of cocaine, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, possession of cocaine within 500 feet of a public park, impersonating a police officer, failure to stop for a police vehicle, wandering in a drug zone, failure to wear a seat belt and parking in a no-parking zone.
NJ Transit now lists Reick as “out of service without pay” pending an internal investigation and a hearing to determine his employment status, Hackett said.