Fairfax County Police Watch: Delco cop pleads not guilty to charges he stalked Montco woman

By Carl Hessler Jr

NORRISTOWN — A part-time Colwyn, Delaware County, police officer has pleaded not guilty in Montgomery County Court to charges he allegedly harassed and stalked his former fiancée.

Stephen Rozniakowski, 32, of Norwood, waived his formal arraignment on Wednesday and entered a not guilty plea to the 25 counts of stalking and 50 counts of harassment lodged against him in connection with alleged incidents that occurred in Plymouth between October 2013 and April 2014. By waiving his arraignment, Rozniakowski did not have to appear in court and his case will now be listed for trial.

However, Rozniakowski has a hearing next week on his request to have the charges dismissed against him. He wants a county judge to review a district court judge’s decision that ordered him to stand trial on the charges.

Rozniakowski, through his lawyer Martin P. Mullaney, claimed prosecutors did not provide sufficient evidence during a June 11 preliminary hearing before District Court Judge Francis J. Bernhardt III of Conshohocken to support the charges. Prosecutors will have the opportunity to address Rozniakowski’s request during next week’s hearing.

Rozniakowski remains free on $100,000 unsecured bail pending his next court hearing. As a condition of bail, Rozniakowski is prohibited from contacting the woman he is accused of stalking.

Rozniakowski reportedly is still employed as a police officer with Colwyn, but Mullaney previously revealed that he is on desk duty and does not patrol the streets.

With the charges, prosecutors alleged Rozniakowski contacted his former fiancée thousands of times through unwanted phone calls, text messages and emails during the seven-month period. Prosecutors alleged Rozniakowski’s alleged conduct caused the victim to fear for her safety, so much so she sought help from police. Even after police warned Rozniakowski to stay away from the victim and have no further contact with her, he allegedly continued texting, emailing and phoning the young woman, at times 20 times an hour, prosecutors alleged.

The victim contacted Plymouth Township authorities on Feb. 28 and told them she and Rozniakowski had been engaged to be married, but that she broke off the relationship last September, according to the affidavit of probable cause. After the breakup, Rozniakowski began contacting the woman repeatedly by calling, texting and leaving messages on her cellphone, according to the arrest affidavit filed by Plymouth Police Officer Joseph LaPenta III.

The victim, who is employed as a certified paramedic for the Plymouth Community Ambulance Association, estimated that on some days Rozniakowski called her cellphone 50 to 100 times and text messaged her 100 times a day, according to the arrest affidavit. The woman told police she blocked Rozniakowski’s number, but he continued to call from blocked phone numbers, according to court documents.

“When (the woman) would ignore the phone calls, Rozniakowski would then leave voice mail messages in an attempt to explain his need to speak with her,” LaPenta wrote in the arrest affidavit.

Prosecutors alleged Rozniakowski ignored the woman’s repeated requests to stop contacting her.

In March, LaPenta spoke with Rozniakowski and informed him that his former fiancée had filed a complaint against him. At that time, Rozniakowski allegedly admitted to calling his former fiancée from blocked numbers, saying he calls “simply because he cares about her,” according to the arrest affidavit. LaPenta warned Rozniakowski to cease all forms of contact with the woman or face criminal charges and Rozniakowski indicated he understood and promised to stop all contact with the woman, according to the arrest affidavit.

However, the calls, texts and emails continued, authorities alleged.

“The amount of phone calls, voice mails and emails that have continued to occur even after I advised Rozniakowski to cease all contact with (the woman) show an escalating course of conduct,” LaPenta alleged in the affidavit.

The woman also told authorities that she had observed Rozniakowski following her from her home to numerous locations and that he had gained access to her work schedule, according to the criminal complaint.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.