Police Chief Arrested for Kidnapping and Domestic Assault

A New Jersey police chief has been arrested and is facing felony charges related to a domestic violence incident in Massachusetts, authorities confirmed on December 21.

Carmen Veneziano, the former chief of the Totowa Police Department in northern New Jersey, was arrested for charges connected to an incident that occurred in Boston back in September. According to Totowa Mayor John Coiro, the Boston Police Department confirmed the case involved domestic violence.

Veneziano was indicted on December 18 on one count of kidnapping and three counts of domestic assault and battery. Prosecutors allege that on September 14, he confined and assaulted a woman in a hotel room in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood in the early hours of the morning.

Veneziano was arrested on December 19 by officers with the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey. He waived extradition and is now in custody, awaiting transport to Massachusetts.

The former police chief is scheduled to be arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court on December 22, where further details of the case will be revealed.

Totowa Mayor Coiro expressed surprise at the arrest, telling reporters, “We don’t actually know the exact charges, because they haven’t been shared with us, but we do know from the prosecutor’s office that they would be felonies, if he’s convicted. We were quite surprised.”

In response to the charges, the mayor stated that Veneziano was suspended without pay pending the resolution of the legal process. Coiro also mentioned that an interim chief would be appointed before the end of the year.

Veneziano, a 1996 graduate of Passaic Valley Regional High School, started his police career in Woodland Park (then West Paterson) just days before the September 11, 2001 attacks. In January 2005, he was part of the security detail for President George W. Bush’s second inauguration in Washington, D.C. He joined the Totowa Police Department in June 2005 and became chief in March 2020, after Chief Robert Coyle retired at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.