Blogfinger

By Charles Layton

We told you the other day about George Matreyek, the man who lost his job as a gun salesman in Pennsylvania because police records falsely say he’s a convicted felon. (Read the story here.)

Well, the Township’s business administrator, Phil Huhn, said Friday that the Neptune police have figured out the problem and “we’ll do whatever it takes to straighten the thing out for him.”

According to Huhn, many years ago a woman was arrested in Neptune for assaulting a police officer. When she was being booked, the wrong Social Security number got written down on her record. Unfortunately for Matreyek, it happened to be his Social Security number. So now, as he told the Township Committee last Monday, that information has found its way into law enforcement databases far and wide, and he’s been unable to get the mistake corrected.

Huhn said Neptune Police Chief Robert Adams has called Matreyek, and an officer, Detective Lieutenant Jeff Force, has been assigned to the case.

Neptune will probably first ask the Pennsylvania State Police to correct the misprint on its records, and then all the other agencies (which include the FBI, U.S. Justice Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) will be notified.

Neptune will stay on the case until the problem is solved, Huhn said, but “I can’t tell you whether it’ll take two weeks or six months.”