The mayor of Atlantic City, New Jersey, was charged with witness tampering this week after he was accused of asking his daughter to “twist up” her previous abuse allegations against him to the police, prosecutors said.
An Atlantic County grand jury indicted Mayor Marty Small Sr., 50, on Tuesday, County Prosecutor William Reynolds’ office said in a news release .
Small and his wife, La’Quetta Small, the superintendent of Atlantic City Public Schools, were indicted in September on charges tied to endangering the welfare of their teenage daughter. The mayor was also indicted on charges of making terroristic threats and aggravated assault. The couple pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to The Associated Press.
Prosecutors alleged Wednesday that while those charges were pending, Small asked his daughter in September to reverse her previous abuse claims against him, “specifically by asking her to state that she tripped and fell in her room when her head was injured.”
Authorities allege that Small made the request because of accusations that on Jan. 13 he struck his daughter in the head repeatedly with a broom, resulting in her losing consciousness.
Small blasted the new indictment in a statement Wednesday, saying his attorney Edwin Jacobs would handle any further comments.
“A bad prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich and this is what happened here,” Small said in a statement. “We look forward to beating this bulls— case, Eddie Jacobs will do the rest of the talking for me.”
Jacobs did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening.
In addition to the broom incident, Small and his wife are accused of emotionally and physically abusing their daughter on several other occasions in December and January, prosecutors said when they announced the earlier indictment.
During an argument on Jan. 3, the mayor threatened to harm his daughter by slamming her down the stairs, grabbing her head and tossing her to the ground, prosecutors asserted.
They also alleged that in another incident, he repeatedly punched his daughter’s legs, bruising them. Prosecutors said that La’Quetta Small bruised her daughter by repeatedly punching her chest in one incident and that she abused her on other occasions.
Small was appointed mayor in 2019 after Frank Gilliam pleaded guilty to wire fraud and resigned. He was elected to a full four-year term in 2021.
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