A New Jersey businessman denied at a hearing before the State Civil Rights Division here yesterday that he had acted to prevent the sale of a neighbor’s house in the affluent suburb of Essex Fells because the prospective buyer was a Jew. John C. McDonough, a tire dealer and a member of the State’s Legalized Games of Chance Control Commission, admitted that he objected to the sale of the house to Myron S. Lehman, a Jewish lawyer of Short Hills, N.J., but for other reasons.
Mr. McDonough’s hearing, which opened yesterday, was the first civil rights case in which neighbors who allegedly violated anti-discrimination statutes faced punitive damages, according to George S. Pfaus, director of the New Jersey State Division of Civil Rights. Mr. Pfaus is serving as hearing officer in the case.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
