New Jersey's Hudson County has been hit with a $662,000 judgment in a 10-year-old suit claiming a jail administrator conducted unlawful wiretaps of phone calls made by a corrections union leader.

The ruling comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided that a district court judge erred by dismissing wiretapping claims against the county. The case has been pending for so long because it was stayed during a criminal prosecution of the former deputy director of the Hudson County Department of Corrections, a trial slowdown during COVID and a detour to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, said Charles Sciarra of Sciarra, Catrambone, Curran & Gray in Clifton, New Jersey. He represented plaintiff Luis Ocasio along with his firm's Jeffrey Catrambone.