Ex-NJ Chief Arrested for Tampering, Threats

The former chief of the Delran Emergency Squad was arrested this week on a slew of charges related to him working without an active EMT certification and fudging paperwork to hide it.

NJ.com reports that Donald Horner, 66, also threatened investigators and hindered their investigation when the issue came to their attention this past summer before the entire unit was shut down in July.

Horner, a former Riverside police officer who served as police chief from 1995-2005, is accused of altering 27 reports about calls where he served as a crew member. Investigators said when he went out on a call, he would replace his name on the paperwork with the name of a certified staffer.

The State Health Department's Office of Emergency Medical Services visited the Delran EMS building for an audit on June 11, but investigators had to leave without learning much because Horner was "belligerent, combative and uncooperative" and told them to leave before he killed himself or killed them, according to a letter from Scot Phelps, the Health Department's paramedic director.

"As they started to leave the property, you followed them out, continued to scream and threaten them and, at one point, were nose-to-nose with one of the investigators," Phelps wrote.

Horner was charged with insurance fraud, criminal computer activity, tampering with witnesses, making terroristic threats, theft by deception, attempted theft by deception, hindering apprehension, tampering with public records, alteration of medical records, tampering with records and obstructing the administration of law.

Horner made his first appearance in Burlington County Superior Court on Tuesday. He was not detained but had to surrender his passport and firearms.