Husband of slain Cresskill woman sues claiming complaints about her killer were ignored

The husband of a Cresskill woman who was killed and dumped in Overpeck Park in June 2020, accused the Cresskill Police Department, public schools and the borough of failing to properly investigate the man who killed her.

Divna Rosasco was found weighed down in the waters of Overpeck Creek and stabbed 55 times, 34 of which were in the head. She had neck and defensive wounds.

Lodi resident Nicolas Coirazza pleaded guilty to Rosasco's fatal stabbing and was sentenced in February to 50 years in prison.

The lawsuit, recently filed in New Jersey Federal Court by Victor Rosasco, claims Coirazza was sexually grooming and abusing their daughter, who was 14 at the time while Coirazza was 19.

Rosasco said it was the defendants' disregard of their concerns that led to his wife's murder. The suit stated their daughter was going through puberty and was facing "difficulty getting along with her family."

Messages left for Cresskill police Chief James Domville and Superintendent of Schools Peter Hughes were not returned.

The suit said Coirazza took advantage of the younger girl, saying he made her "psychologically and emotionally dependent on him."

During the sentencing, Coirazza's attorney said his client was only trying to protect a young girl from being "terrorized" by her mother.

Victor Rosasco said his and his wife's concerns were ignored when brought to the school district and police. The suit said the district told Rosasco her concerns were police matters and when she went to the police after previously being ignored by them, they labeled her "a hysterical woman."

Cresskill police told the Rosascos the Lodi police would contact Coirazza to tell him to stay away from their daughter, the suit stated. Coirazza told police he had not been in contact with her for two months, ending Lodi's contact with him, according to the lawsuit.

Victor Rosasco said the lack of follow-up encouraged Coirazza to "continue and intensify his unlawful sexual relationship" with his daughter and it grew his hatred of them, especially Divna.

The lawsuit said Victor Rosasco had a meeting with Coirazza in an attempt to tell him to leave his daughter alone.

He said then-police Chief Edward Wrixon, told his wife she "needed to get psychiatric help" when she continually tried to reach out to get them to do something.

According to the lawsuit, the school district failed to do anything about Coirazza and his believed sexual grooming of several students at Cresskill High School. Victor Rosasco said his wife was once again told to seek psychiatric help by the principal and a guidance counselor.

Rosasco was killed by Coirazza after an argument broke out between her and her daughter. Coirazza was hiding in the home and had grabbed a knife before hiding in the closet.

He came out of the closet, pushed Rosasco down the stairs and proceeded to stab her 55 times, one so forcefully, the tip of the knife broke off. Some of the stab wounds left indentations in her skull.

The lawsuit stated Coirazza took advantage of the young teen's "traumatized mental state" by telling her she had to help dispose of her mother's body.

Rosasco was found after a Bergen County sheriff's officer did a regular check of the county park just before 2 a.m. and discovered Rosasco's abandoned car. When the officer checked the car, it appeared someone had tried to conceal who owned it, which made the officer realize that something was off.

A K-9 unit brought police from the car to the creek, where Rosasco's body was discovered wrapped in a bedsheet, with a plastic bag wrapped around her head and her body weighed down with cinder blocks.

The lawsuit accuses the police of treating the daughter as a co-conspirator to Coirazza instead of a victim and that the Cresskill Police Department and the Bergen County Prosecutor's Major Crimes Unit "hatched a plan" to violate the girl's Fifth Amendment rights.

Victor Rosasco said he was brought to the prosecutor's office and told his missing wife had been found and was dead. He said he was not in the right frame of mind to waive his daughter's Fifth Amendment rights and was not told his daughter was a suspect.

The suit claimed that police said they didn't know if she was involved and told she wasn't a suspect, "a fact critical to the decision as to whether she should speak or remain silent."

Victor Rosasco said, despite Coirazza's guilty plea and subsequent sentencing, he has never been held accountable for the sexual abuse of his daughter and his kidnapping of her.

He said the Cresskill Police Department issued a "defensive" statement in response to a GoFundMe set up to try and start a foundation in his wife's name to bring awareness about social media predators, saying they found no evidence of grooming by Coirazza, despite there being video and photographic evidence.

The lawsuit further accuses the media of "repeating the false, misleading and incomplete narrative" from Cresskill police, reporting that the young girl had also been arrested in connection with Rosasco's murder and that resulted in "sensational and offensive headlines."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Cresskill NJ man files lawsuit after his wife's murder