Peter de Vries and Timothy Carter who lived next door to a Secaucus firehouse, said they were confronted by firefighters yelling homophobic taunts after Carter complained about a raucous early morning party in the firehouse parking lot in April of 2004. They said they continued to be harassed, eventually forcing them to move.

The pair, claimed in a lawsuit that town officials in Secaucus, New Jersey, did little to protect their civil rights or investigate the firefighters’ actions.

“After April 25, 2004 we began to live in constant fear,” Carter said in court papers. “We knew that the firefighters who had attacked us were right next door and they had not been arrested or disciplined in any way in connection to the attack. To this day we remain terrified that we could be attacked.”

On Tuesday, the jury awarded about $433,000 for economic damages and $1 million in emotional damages to de Vries, and $1.4 million in emotional damages to Carter. Totaling $2.84 million in damages by a Hudson County jury.

Secaucus town Administrator David Drumeler declined comment on the verdict on the advice of the town’s attorneys.

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