Hearing Held in Ongoing Top Soil Depot Case

A Passaic County Superior Court Judge heard testimony today from health professionals regarding Allan Rombough Sr.’s mental capacity.

Judge Mary Margaret McVeigh Rombough undergo a battery of tests earlier this year to see if he understood a court order to remain off the 12-acre Top Soil Depot site on Pompton Plains Crossroad.

Rombough is being accused by the state Department of Environmental Protection of storing 22,000 yards of contaminated dirt and fill on the site for years. Rombough’s son, Allan Rombough Jr., is also a defendant in the case.

State Deputy Attorney General Robert Kinney, who is representing the DEP in the case, said McVeigh did not issue a ruling Monday morning. Both Kinney and David DeClement, Rombough’s attorney, said they did not know when McVeigh would issue her ruling. The hearing Monday was closed to the public. 

The state Rombough put in jail for allegedly allowing the soil and fill to be stored on the site, which is located at the confluence of the Pompton, Passiac, and Pequanoock Rivers.

McVeigh a trail date of Dec. 12 to determine how many of more than 20 trucking companies are responsible for and just how culpable the Romboughs are in the matter.

The elder Rombough testified in May that he has difficulty with his memory. He allegedly suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

Rombough violated a court order barring him from the site earlier this year.

Rombough’s son Alex testified in May that his father told him that the reason they were visiting the site was to retrieve documents for DeClement and remove flood-damaged items.