An Atlantic County judge upheld the indictment of second-degree child endangerment against Atlantic City’s superintendent Thursday.
Dr. La’Quetta Small and her husband, Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small, were indicted in September after being accused of physically and verbally abusing their teenage daughter.
The two are expected to go to trial this summer, but not before several motions in the case have been argued.
Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury’s latest decision denies a motion by Dr. Small’s attorney to have the indictment against her tossed on several factors, including that the state failed to present the Smalls’ cases separately.
Both Smalls face the same child-endangerment charge, but the grand jurors also heard arguments for additional charges against the mayor of aggravated assault and terroristic threats.
This caused “undue prejudice” for Dr. Small, attorney Michael Schreiber argued, because it was difficult for grand jurors to separate the allegations against her from those against her husband — which include claims that Mayor Small beat his daughter unconscious with a broom.
DeLury disagreed, finding "it appears that the Grand Jury was properly instructed as to which counts of the indictment corresponded with each Defendant."
"The transcript of the grand jury presentation shows that the State made an orderly, logical and straightforward presentation of the testimony regarding the events between J.S. and her parents that occurred over the span of several weeks," the judge wrote in his 19-page decision. "The witness testimony was clear and understandable. The facts elicited from the witnesses, and the reasonable inferences that could be drawn from those facts, more than adequately and clearly delineated the specific acts that supported the allegations made against the Defendant by J.S."
DeLury also found that — despite the defense's claims to the contrary — the state did present evidence that the Smalls' daughter had denied the abuse allegations on multiple occasions, including Sgt. Ryan Ripley testifying about one of those instances.
The judge included a snippet of Ripley's testimony, which indicated that one denial was made when the girl was questioned in front of her parents.
Question: Later that night of the 24th of January, did workers from (the Division of Child Protection and Permanency) go to the Small residence to interview J.S. and her younger brother?
Ripley: Yes.
Q: And, according to the DCP&P worker, both interviews were conducted in the presence of Marty and La'Quetta Small, correct?
R: Yes.
Q: In your experience as a detective with (the Special Victims Unit), is that normal to interview victims in front of their alleged abusers?
R: No.
Q: During the interview of both J.S. and her younger brother, did they both deny any abuse was happening?
R: yes.
Q: And did J.S. in fact tell DCP&P that she made the whole thing up?
R: Yes.
Q: And did she tell DCP&P why she made it up?
R: She told DCP&P she made it up because her parents took her phone away and neither of her parents agreed with her relationship with her boyfriend.
Last month, attorneys for the couple argued that the Smalls were just concerned parents desperate to protect their daughter from a “juvenile delinquent” who turned the once straight-A, well-behaved student into a defiant teen at risk of needing to repeat the school year.
In that motion, they were looking to have the charges lessened or dismissed. DeLury denied that as well.
The Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office declined to comment on the judge's latest decision.
Schreiber did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Smalls are due back in court next Thursday.
