"An Old Tappan woman and her husband accuse former Bergen County Democratic Organization leader Joseph Ferriero of sexual misconduct in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Bergen County Superior Court.

Ferriero was cleared last year of any criminal wrongdoing in the case.

The female plaintiff, who is identified in the lawsuit as “A.R.,” alleges that Ferriero “intentionally deceived and/or intimidated and/or drugged and/or intoxicated and/or sexually assaulted and/or raped and/or falsely imprisoned” her while at Ferriero’s Old Tappan home last August.

“She was surreptitiously given a drug which impaired her mental ability and physical ability and was sexually assaulted by Ferriero,” said Rosemarie Arnold, the plaintiff’s attorney. “The severity of what happened to her is going to be exposed by the forensic evidence.”

The lawsuit names five other defendants under the fictional names “Bob Boe 1-5.” The identities of those defendants may be revealed later on in the legal process.

Ferriero’s attorney, Joseph Hayden said his client had done nothing wrong.

“The vague allegations in a belated complaint filed against Joseph Ferriero are completely untrue,” Hayden said. “The matter was investigated by an independent prosecutor who decided after everyone was interviewed that the matter didn't even warrant going to a grand jury.”

Arnold confirmed that A.R. is the same person who filed criminal charges against Ferriero last summer after attending a Labor Day weekend party at the former party chief’s home. The matter was referred from Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli to the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office because of an apparent conflict of interest.

Hudson County Prosecutor Ed DeFazio announced in November that the charges were being thrown out. Arnold said that since then DeFazio’s office, the Old Tappan Police Department and Hackensack University Medical Center have declined to provide her clients with records of the incident.

“I have been told by the Old Tappan police that they are under strict orders from the (Hudson County) prosecutor’s office not to release any information at all,” Arnold said. “There is forensic evidence in this case. There was a rape kit.”

DeFazio said the plaintiffs will be given access to any records they have a legal right to view.

“Whatever they’re entitled to get, they’ll get,” he said. “All the lawyer has to do is send a subpoena to the prosecutor’s office.”

The initial sexual misconduct allegation first became public in early September, just days before a federal grand jury indicted Ferriero on eight counts of conspiring to commit fraud as a result of his involvement in a grants consulting firm that had several public contracts in Bergen County. That trial is scheduled for September.

Arnold noted that that witnesses — including Bergen County Sheriff Leo McGuire – have not stepped forward.

“This was reported the night it happened, and Leo McGuire … was standing right there when it all went down,” Arnold said.

McGuire’s spokesman Ben Feldman did not respond to a request for comment."