Pushak’s trial postponed amid dispute

Former Cecil police chief John Pushak was supposed to appear in Washington County Court Thursday for a nonjury trial, but a motion filed by his attorney claiming that the evidence against Pushak violates his Fifth Amendment rights has delayed the proceedings.
In an order dated Wednesday, Washington County Judge Gary Gilman ordered a suppression hearing on the matter after Pushak’s attorney, Thomas Brown, filed a motion arguing that the evidence against his client was gleaned from an interview in which Pushak was protected from incriminating himself under federal case law.
According to the motion filed Sept. 23, Pushak was “requested to execute a document titled statement of Garrity Rights,” which ordered him to cooperate with the investigation against him. The Garrity Rights doctrine protects public employees from being compelled to incriminate themselves in investigatory interviews with their employers or employers’ designee, court documents show. Additionally, Brown argues that the Fifth Amendment prohibits the government from compelling a person to incriminate themselves.
Pushak is charged with theft, accused of siphoning more than $10,000 from a special investigations bank account to gamble at two area casinos between January 2010 and January 2013 while he was still employed with the police department.
Pushak, whose career in the Cecil department spanned 38 years, resigned in February 2013 after the allegations surfaced in a special audit of a federal property account created in 2009 with money from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He has since returned all of the money to the federal account, the record shows.
Brown argues that the investigation into Pushak occurred one month after the Garrity interview, and that all investigators had to do was gather the necessary documents.
“The evidence obtained was clearly the result of leads and/or information that was obtained from (his) Garrity interview, and, as such, should be disallowed into evidence … under the doctrine of use/derivative immunity,” Brown said in the motion. “Allowance of the aforesaid evidence into the trial … would violate (Pushak’s) rights under the Fifth Amendment.”
Gilman scheduled a hearing on the matter for Monday, but Assistant District Attorney Jerry Moschetta said the date most likely would be pushed back.
Pushak is free on a recognizance bond.