Marianne Coyle Harassment Hearing Postponed, Again

Gloucester Township school board member Marianne Coyle strode out of a Winslow courtroom this morning, ignoring a reporter's request for comment after a hearing for a harassment complaint she filed was once again postponed.

After several sidebar conversations over an hour with Prosecutor Donna Platt, while Judge Michael Diamond plowed through case after case of mostly traffic and parking violations Wednesday morning, Coyle was finally summoned to the front of the large courtroom. She was told that Platt, the defendant and his attorney never received discovery information and witness statements from Gloucester Township police on the disorderly persons complaint.

This is the second time the hearing has been postponed since Feb. 28. The first delay was to move the hearing to Winslow to avoid any potential conflict in Gloucester Township, where Coyle is a public official.

The defendant, John Schmidt, 24, of Gloucester City, is accused of "screaming and yelling" at Coyle during and after a school board meeting on Feb. 28. Schmidt had peppered Coyle with questions during a public comment portion of the meeting about an alleged conflict of interest with a political action committee for which she was associated.

Schmidt is a gadfly and open-government activist in South Jersey. Last year, he went on a crusade to stop parents from parking in the yellow zone outside two schools in Runnemede, even though he doesn't live in the town or have children in the school district, Fox 29 News Philadelphia reported.

Schmidt referred all questions to his attorney after Wednesday's hearing.

"My client did absolutely nothing wrong," attorney Ted Rosenberg said. "The state is obligated to send us discovery and they failed to do so. The complaint is that after the meeting was over he acted inappropriately toward her. Of course, we dispute that."

Gloucester Township Police Chief Harry Earle said Wednesday his department never received a request for information on the complaint.

"The discovery for this incident would be a basic computer entry report that would easily be forwarded to an attorney requesting it," Earle said.

Rosenberg said Platt would now be responsible for requesting the information. A new hearing date was not immediately announced.

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