Richard Kreimer, a formerly homeless man whose lawsuit against a New Jersey public library made headlines a decade ago, has sued for access to records he claims police kept on him in the 1990s.
The suit alleges that investigators sent by the state attorney general and the Morris County prosecutor harassed him during his quixotic 1993 run for mayor of Morristown. It calls for the state Superior Court to allow him to review his police files, asks for damages if it turns out his civil rights were violated, and requests that the case be moved to a jurisdiction outside the county, the Bergen Record reported January 24. He also asks that New Jersey’s 1963 Open Public Records Act be declared unconstitutional because it fails to grant citizens access to their own police files.
Kreimer received an $80,000 legal settlement in 1992 after claiming the Joint Free Public Library of Morristown and Morris Township, New Jersey, violated his rights when it removed him after patron complaints about his hygiene and behavior. A 1991 federal court ruling in Kreimer’s favor was overturned the following year. When running for mayor Kreimer gave a park bench as his address. The Record said police investigated his residency because he began living in a motel in nearby Parsippany after receiving the settlement.
Posted January 28, 2002.