HACKENSACK — Mayor John Labrosse, his campaign manager Zonie LeSane and his running mates on his ticket for the May municipal election are being sued for defamation by a city police lieutenant.

Lt. Anthony DiPersia's suit states that Labrosse and his campaign team disseminated false statements last month designed to impugn his “character, reputation and standing in the community.”

The statements were published soon after Hackensack Policemen's Benevolent Association Local 9A, the supervisory officers' association for the city, endorsed Hackensack Unites, the rival slate running in the May 13 City Council election, according to the suit.

DiPersia, the president of the union, signed his name to the endorsement letter, which urged voters to choose Hackensack Unites as a “fresh start for our city and police department.”

The Labrosse team responded by writing that the “letter from a Hackensack PBA union official” criticized the current administration’s efforts to address a “culture of corruption” within the police department.

The statement went on to name DiPersia as “one of the few rogue superior officers who manipulated the system to enrich themselves by earning hundreds of thousands of dollars through ‘extra duty’ jobs while they should have been performing their actual roles.”

Labrosse, who has been mayor since 2013, is running for reelection in May with Deputy Mayor Kathy Canestrino, former school board members Lance Powell and Marlene Somerville and Richard Garcia.

DiPersia has another suit pending in court alleging harassment and retaliation against the city police department and Ray Guidetti, who recently stepped down as police director.

Guidetti was hired as police director in August 2022 to reform the department after an independent assessment found overtime abuses by some of the department's ranking officers and a drop in arrests.

The Labrosse campaign’s March 8 statement claimed DiPersia was one of the “worst offenders” of these abuses and earned more than $225,000 in 2021.

“It is important for taxpayers to recognize the Labrosse Administration’s role in ending DiPersia’s scheme,” the letter read.

The reforms “effectively halted DiPersia’s profitable activities. However, he’s seeking revenge by involving the police union in city politics,” it said.

A victory in May for “DiPersia’s team” the Labrosse statement said, would “signify the return of a corrupt system that wasted hundreds of thousands of tax dollars and nearly crippled the police department.”

The statement accused DiPersia of corruption and manipulating the system to “fleece Hackensack and its residents,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit notes that officers who work extra duty details are not compensated through taxpayer dollars but are instead paid directly by outside private contractors.

DiPersia was exonerated of the charges levied by the city police department that he had abused overtime and extra duty details through an investigation by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, said his attorney, Robert Tandy.

“The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office conducted an investigation and fully exonerated Lt. DiPersia of any wrongdoing,” Tandy said. “Simply, the BCPO determined Lt. DiPersia did not violate any law, regulation, directive, guideline, policy, or procedure issued by the Attorney General or County Prosecutor.”

Nick Bond, a spokesman for the mayor’s campaign, said the campaign letter is “very obviously protected political speech” in accordance with the state’s anti-SLAPP law, a 2023 bill written to protect against lawsuits intended to intimidate people and suppress free speech.

The law was “designed for cases just like this when someone like DiPersia tries to misuse the legal system to silence political opponents,” Bond said.

Labrosse, LeSane and the other defendants plan to move immediately to dismiss the suit, Bond said.

“DiPersia is indisputably a public figure and he got himself involved in this campaign by endorsing a city council slate,” he said. “If DiPersia can’t stand to see his hypocrisy and history of exploiting Hackensack taxpayers be exposed, he should find a new line of work.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Hackensack police lieutenant sues city mayor for defamation