What to KnowAtlantic Metropolis Mayor Marty Small Sr. was indicted with witness tampering after Atlantic County prosecutors accused him of asking his daughter to lie about how she sustained a head harm. The Democratic mayor and his spouse, La’Quetta, have been beforehand charged with assault and abuse. Prosecutors say Marty Small “asked his daughter to do him a favor and ‘twist up’ the story she had previously told police about alleged abuse allegations she made against him specifically by asking her to state that she tripped and fell in her room when her head was injured.”Upon the allegations being revealed final month, Small’s lawyer known as it “sheer nonsense” and stated Small requested his daughter to inform the reality.
Atlantic Metropolis’s mayor, already accused of abusing his teenage daughter, now faces a cost that he requested her to lie about how she sustained a head harm.
Marty Small Sr., 50, was indicted Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, with third-degree witness tampering involving the woman, whom he and his spouse, La’Quetta — the New Jersey seaside playing resort metropolis’s superintendent of colleges — have been beforehand charged with assaulting and abusing.
The Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Workplace on Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024, stated Marty Small, a 50-year-old Democrat, requested his daughter to “twist up” a press release she had given to investigators relating to his alleged abuse of her again in January.
“It is alleged that during the month of September 2024, while criminal charges against him were pending for abusing his juvenile daughter, J.S., the defendant asked his daughter to do him a favor and ‘twist up’ the story she had previously told police about alleged abuse allegations she made against him specifically by asking her to state that she tripped and fell in her room when her head was injured,” prosecutors wrote.
“This was in reference to an alleged incident on January 13, 2024, when Marty Small, Sr. is alleged to have hit his daughter multiple times in the head with a broom causing her to lose consciousness,” prosecutors added.
A grand jury returned the indictment for the third-degree witness tampering cost this week after the allegation beforehand got here to gentle in November.
Again in November, Small’s lawyer, Edwin Jacobs, known as the newest cost “sheer nonsense,” including that Small requested his daughter to inform the reality about what occurred.
“When a parent encourages a child to be accurate and truthful in statements to investigators, that parent is not witness tampering,” Jacobs stated on the time. “That parent is doing what a good, responsible parent should do. And that is precisely what Marty Small has done.”
Jacobs known as the cost “one more effort by the prosecuting authority to second-guess my client’s parenting and corrupt his relationship with his daughter.”
The lawyer didn’t say on the time whether or not the teenager was nonetheless dwelling at residence together with her mother and father. As just lately because the early fall, Small stated she was doing so.
NBC10 reached out to Jacobs once more on Wednesday for any new remark.
Prosecutors allege that Small requested his daughter to contradict her earlier declare of being abused whereas realizing he was about to be indicted on the unique little one abuse cost. The alleged request was made two days earlier than a grand jury indicted Marty and La’Quetta Small.
They are saying each mother and father hit and emotionally abused the woman, who was 15 to 16 years outdated, on events final winter. The couple deny the allegations.
Prosecutors stated that on Jan. 13, Marty Small hit his daughter a number of instances within the head with a brush, inflicting her to lose consciousness. Ten days earlier, they stated, Small argued together with his daughter, grabbing her head, throwing her to the bottom and threatening to throw her down the steps. The mayor is also accused of punching his daughter within the legs, inflicting bruising.
La’Quetta Small is accused of punching her daughter a number of instances on the chest, leaving bruising. She can also be accused of dragging her daughter by the hair and placing her with a belt on her shoulders, leaving marks.
The couple pleaded not responsible to the unique prices earlier this yr.
