ATLANTIC CITY, NJ — Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small and his wife disapproved of their teenage daughter’s boyfriend, who secretly recorded an incident in which Small allegedly physically and verbally assaulted the girl over a video chat, prosecutors said in an affidavit.
Small and his wife LaQuetta, the superintendent of Atlantic City schools, were charged Monday with child endangerment and abuse related to interactions in December and January with their daughter, who is now 16.
The affidavit filed in the case by the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office says the girl at one point acknowledged that she had made up the accusations against her parents because she was angry that they wouldn’t let her go out with friends.
But in many other parts, the affidavit detailed the girl’s claims that the abuse was real, saying she photographed bruises she said were inflicted by her parents and sent them to her boyfriend, which she shared with investigators .
Prosecutor William Reynolds’ office cited evidence including recordings of interactions between the girl and her parents; her statements to police, school staff, a therapist and state child welfare investigators, and messages she sent to friends asking for help, saying she did not feel safe at home.
The mayor is accused of repeatedly hitting his daughter in the head with a broom until she blacked out and hitting her repeatedly in the legs, according to court documents. Her mother is accused of dragging her by her hair, punching her in the chest and face and beating her with a belt.
“Mayor Small and Superintendent LaQuetta Small are completely innocent of any wrongdoing and will ultimately be vindicated,” their attorney Ed Jacobs said in a statement Tuesday. “These complaints focus solely on private family matters, essentially seeking to challenge parents’ decisions.”
He said the Smalls “remain a close, loving and intact family,” adding that the mayor plans to continue in office.
The affidavit quotes the girl, whose name The Associated Press is not publishing because she is the alleged victim of a crime, as telling child welfare authorities that her parents disapproved of her boyfriend. LaQuetta Small is also quoted as telling the same thing to a therapist who was made available to the girl after she reported abuse to school staff.
The affidavit was first reported by the websitebreekac.com.
It contains a transcript of dialogue between the Smalls and their daughter, which was recorded on cellphones or laptops, apparently without the parents’ knowledge. The Attorney General’s Office has not released any actual audio or video.
Several recordings involve a Jan. 3 incident between Marty Small and his daughter while she was talking to her boyfriend on a video chat.
“I’m scared,” the girl whispers to her boyfriend, the transcript shows.
The mayor uses the girl’s name and says, “Don’t make me hurt you.”
She replies, “Hurt me, that’s all you do!”
The mayor orders his daughter to sit down and she tells him to stop pushing her.
“I’m going to hurt you,” he says, threatening to throw her down a flight of stairs. ‘Tell them. I do not mind. What are they going to do to me? I’ll knock that braid out of your head. Nothing will happen to me!”
The transcript also references an alleged Jan. 7 incident between the girl and her mother, stating that her grandmother witnessed the teen yelling at her mother to get off her and to stop hitting her.
“A little punch in the eye won’t stop her,” says the grandmother.
The affidavit also includes messages from the girl to friends asking if she can stay with them, stating that she does not feel safe at home and that her bags are packed.
“I have been abused mentally, emotionally, verbally and physically, and it is a lot,” she wrote. “I’m overwhelmed and I keep crying every night.”
She sought treatment at a hospital for a head injury three days after her father allegedly hit her with the broom and told a nurse that she had hit her head on a window and lost consciousness, a claim her father agreed with was, according to the affidavit.
But the affidavit also includes quotes from the girl to county investigators and investigators from the state child welfare agency, the Division of Child Protection and Permanency, alleging she fabricated the claims against her parents.
In a Jan. 25 interview at Atlantic City High School, the girl told detectives that she “told DCP&P. She fabricated the allegations and she was not physically abused,” the affidavit said.
The girl told detectives that she wanted to meet friends at a seafood restaurant a few weeks earlier, but her parents did not allow it.
“She stated that she had made up the allegations for this reason and that no physical abuse had occurred,” the statement said. The girl “was asked if she had ever been beaten by her parents and she said no.”
The Smalls have an initial court date of May 15.
On Monday evening, he posted a photo of himself with the hashtags “undisturbed” and “God has us.”
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