This Monday, authorities accused the mayor of Atlantic City, New Jersey, with witness tampering after he reportedly asked his daughter to fabricate her earlier abuse claims against him for the police.
Mayor Marty Small Sr., 50, was indicted by an Atlantic County grand jury on Tuesday, according to a news release from the office of county prosecutor William Reynolds.
Both Small and his spouse, Atlantic City Public Schools superintendent La Quetta Small, were charged in September with putting their teenage daughter’s welfare in jeopardy. In addition, the mayor was charged with aggravated assault and terrorist threats.
While those criminal accusations were still ongoing, according to the prosecution on Wednesday, Small allegedly persuaded his daughter in September to retract her earlier allegations of abuse against him, “specifically by asking her to state that she tripped and fell in her room when her head was injured.”
Small allegedly made the request in response to claims that on January 13, he repeatedly whacked his daughter in the head with a broom, causing her to lose consciousness.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Small criticized the latest accusation and said any more remarks will be handled by his lawyer, Edwin Jacobs.
In a statement, Small added, “A poor prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich and this is what happened here.” “We look forward to beating this bulls— case, Eddie Jacobs will do the rest of the talking for me.”
A request for comment Wednesday night was not immediately answered by Jacobs.
Prosecutors said in their earlier indictment that Small and his wife are accused of physically and mentally assaulting their daughter on multiple occasions in December 2023 and January 2024, in addition to the broom incident.
Prosecutors stated that during a fight on January 3, the mayor threatened to hurt his daughter by throwing her to the ground, grasping her head, and slamming her down the stairs.
Additionally, they said that the mayor had repeatedly punched his daughter’s legs, causing them to become bruised, in another incident. Prosecutors claim that La Quetta Small abused her kid on multiple occasions and left her bruised after repeatedly striking her chest in one instance.
After now-former Mayor Frank Gilliam resigned and entered a guilty plea to wire fraud, Small was elected mayor in 2019. In 2021, he was elected to a four-year term.
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