How Police Chief Derek Clark,

Mayor Michael Serra,

and Borough Administrator Michael Carelli

Collaborated to Ensure Only Two Officers Would Succeed

After a review of previously unreleased materials, we now see all of the joint efforts to only ever promote and appoint two officers: Anthony Rodriguez, current Police Chief, and Stephen Kouefati, current Lieutenant AND Mayor Michael Serra’s son-in-law. Now, questions asking why the borough would allow retired Chief Derek Clark to do anything he wanted and only promote Anthony Rodriguez despite being named in tort claims, lawsuits, and emerging allegations makes sense: Mayor Serra’s son-in-law’s career was at stake, and Mayor Serra has spent YEARS ensuring that Lieutenant Kouefati could make Police Chief following Anthony Rodriguez. Below is a very clear timeline (obvious to any lawyer, judge, or juror— ouch).

In a closed council meeting on March 13, 2024, Chief Clark presented the topic of a police table reorg. This presentation included immediate promotions within ranks. Chief Clark was so invested in this reorg, in fact, that he had contacted civil service himself during the first two weeks of March 2024 to discuss promotional lists.

On March 18, 2024, Mr. Carelli emailed the civil service to ask about promoting a lieutenant over a captain to the rank of police chief. On this date, the PLPD lieutenants were Michael Klepacky and Anthony Rodriguez. The PLPD captain was Ryan Cichon. The short answer was no, that a waiver for police chief would only be possible if there were just two candidates competing for the position, and that though the test for chief could be (and historically was) offered to both the captain and lieutenant levels, with three candidates at the time, bypassing the captain to simply install a lieutenant to be chief was not possible.

In a closed council meeting on June 12, 2024, the council formally agreed to the police table reorg, which added another captain’s position, two more lieutenant positions, and another sergeant’s position. Stephen Kouefati (the mayor’s son-in-law) and Joseph Ruffo (who had a higher civil service exam score than Kouefati) were simultaneously promoted to lieutenant, and Anthony Rodriguez was promoted to captain, despite Michael Klepacky having a considerably higher civil service exam score and more years in the department and at the lieutenant’s rank. Financial costs of the reorg were discussed — and a current review of police payroll for the time period following these added positions shows that these projections of cost increase were valid and beyond expectation, and operational strain did occur.

On July 12, 2024, Captain Cichon was suspended at random, with Chief Clark failing to even identify the specific reason for the immediate suspension. A slew of random offenses were then listed and discipline was labeled “TBD.” This was the beginning of a two-year suspension.

On March 17, 2025, Mr. Carelli emailed civil service and said, “So, if I wanted to appoint a Lieutenant to Police Chief next year, my first step would be to call for a Captain's test right now? When can I start that process? When is the Captain's test?” On this date, the PLPD lieutenants were Michael Klepacky (lieutenant since 2016), Joseph Ruffo (lieutenant for less than a year) and Stephen Kouefati (lieutenant for less than a year).

On March 21, 2025, Mr. Carelli emailed civil service to say that the town was likely pursuing the waiver process for “eligible police captains” to appoint a new police chief. As mentioned above, the only way to waive someone into the chief’s role was with two sole competitors, and unable as of that date “reach down past the captains” to the lieutenant level, the option was to waive Anthony Rodriguez, whose continuous promotion Chief Clark had supported for years.

On March 24, 2025, Mr. Carelli emailed civil service several times. He canceled certification PL250456, citing have made a mistake [accidentally having validated Lieutenant Klepacky for Captain], and told civil service he had intended to call for the captain’s test. Mr. Carelli then sent an email marked high importance and called for a captain’s test, knowing that Lieutenant Kouefati would need to be in one of the two captains’ positions in order to make police chief following Rodriguez. (Scores from this captain’s test, PM2775G, just arrived, and Lieutenant Michael Klepacky came in number one— again.)

There has been a tremendous push and longstanding plan to promote both Anthony Rodriguez and Stephen Kouefati so both could achieve the rank of Police Chief, and this has been done by excluding testing whenever possible, and when test scores and eligibility lists are evaluated, they are still ignored. Additionally, competition for these positions (Captain Cichon) has been sabotaged, going so far as Chief Clark wanting to pursue criminal charges for contrived and minor infractions (like arriving an hour early to a mandatory CPR recertification course). The special council meeting held on May 11, 2026, to discuss Captain Ryan Cichon’s employment, was scheduled for that date because the borough of Pompton Lakes knew it was the exact final date of Lieutenant Michael Klepacky’s eligibility to be captain based on previous 2022 captain’s test scores.

At an absolute minimum, Mayor Serra should immediately recuse himself from any further police matter discussions or voting, as it is clear that Mayor Serra was and is willing to allow the sabotage and destruction of good officers for the sake of helping his son-in-law Stephen Kouefati ascend to the rank of Police Chief.

The Pompton Lakes Borough Council should thoroughly investigate everything that Mayor Michael Serra and Borough Administrator Michael Carelli have provably done, and they should review ALL allegations in legal filings which clearly outline the abuse and terror of the retired and current Pompton Lakes Police Chiefs Derek Clark and Anthony Rodriguez.