TRENTON – Three Ewing cops were indicted on federal charges Friday after they were caught on tape stomping and kicking snow in the face of a handcuffed Black teenager while he was prone on his stomach during an arrest in 2018.
The indictment, unsealed Friday, charges Officers Matthew Przemieniecki, Justin Ubry and retired Lt. Michael Delahanty each with civil-rights deprivation under color of law for their roles in the Jan. 5, 2018 beatdown of a 16-year-old Black teenager from Burlington, according to the indictment obtained by The Trentonian.
Delahanty, 51, of Robbinsville, and Przemieniecki, 43, of Hamilton, both face felonies carrying up to 10 years in the slammer if they’re convicted. Ubry, 33, of Burlington, is charged with a misdemeanor count carrying a maximum of a year in prison. All face fines ranging from $100,000 to $250,000 if convicted.
Their actions are described in the indictment as “unreasonable and excessive.”
Indictment by The Trentonian on Scribd
Delahanty and Przemieniecki both booted the teen while he was face-down on the ground, handcuffed and not physically resisting, while Ubry kicked snow in the teen’s face, the indictment outlines.
Przemieniecki is also accused of kicking snow in the teen’s face at least three times, the feds said.
“As police officers, and while acting under color of law, defendants Delahanty, Przemieniecki and Ubry were required to comply with the Constitution and the laws of the United States,” the indictment reads. “Accordingly, the defendants Delahanty, Przemieniecki and Ubry were required to respect the right of others to be free from unreasonable search and seizure during an investigation and arrest, including the right to be free from the use of unreasonable force.”
The officers surrendered themselves Friday morning to special agent Vernon Addison at FBI headquarters on American Metro Boulevard in Trenton.
Przemieniecki was accompanied by his attorney, Jerome Ballarotto, while Ubry walked in with his buddy, former Ewing cop Jeff Caldwell. Delahanty was accompanied by lawyer David Schroth, who also serves as Ewing’s council president. .
The cops appeared before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Tonianne J. Bongiovanni, who ordered them released on $50,000 unsecured bonds, meaning they didn’t have to put cash up.
They’re required to surrender passports and firearms and are restricted to travel within the U.S.
The Ewing trio are expected to plead not guilty at arraignment next week before U.S. District Court Judge Michael Shipp.
“This prosecution is a classic example of an overreaction,” Ballarotto, Przemieniecki’s attorney, told The Trentonian after the hearing. “Matt has always been a fine police officer that any jurisdiction should be proud to have. I’m confident when all the facts come out, it’s going to be clear this was a wrongful prosecution.”
Township Mayor Bert Steinmann called the indictment a “black eye” for Ewing Police.
“Hopefully we’ll learn from it,” he said. “I think this is an isolated incident. I’m expecting that this type of situation doesn’t occur again.”
The charges are the culmination of The Trentonian’s three-year-long fight to expose police records and body-camera footage in the Jan. 5, 2018 arrest, which began with an anonymous tip to the newsroom.
The newspaper first reported in June that officers were being investigated by the FBI.
The township spent $173,000 to keep an officer’s use-of-force report sealed from the public.
Last year, an appeals court sided with The Trentonian in ordering the report released.
The report showed that Officer Kevin Hoarn, who isn’t facing charges, put the teen in a compliance hold.
Shocking body-camera footage released to The Trentonian this year showed white officers Przemieniecki and Ubry kicking snow into the 16-year-old’s face while calling him a “p**sy” and mocking him when they found condoms in his pocket.
It all happened after the teen was pulled from a shed in the backyard of a township home.
A police source said officers wanted to teach the teen a lesson after he led them on a car chase in a stolen vehicle and bailed out after crashing it.
Striking suspects as punishment or retaliation “for past conduct” is against AG use-of-force guidelines.
Delahanty stomped the teenager’s head into the snow as a scrum of officers had him under control on his stomach, with his hands behind his back, according to the footage.
He retired a year after the incident and collects more than $9,000 in monthly pension benefits.
Przemieniecki, a 20-year police veteran who makes more than $129,000 with Ewing Police, also booted the teen, and he and Ubry took turns kicking snow in the teen’s face, the footage shows.
Before being hired by Ewing, Przemieniecki was embroiled in a steroid scandal while employed by Trenton Police.
Retired Ewing cop and FBI cooperator Lalena Lamson first brought up the excessive-force allegations in a 2019 whistleblower lawsuit, which was settled this year for $37,500.
Her husband, Nick, a fellow Ewing cop, first pursued the teen after spotting him in a stolen vehicle left warming up in a driveway, according to sources and footage.
The whistleblower cop complained to Mercer County prosecutors and the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, but they declined to pursue cases against the officers.
So she went to the FBI, which launched an investigation earlier this year, according to sources.
In all, six cops, including Carlos Santiago and Christopher Boller, manhandled the teen in some fashion during the arrest but failed to file reports documenting their use of force.
Shocking Footage
The video picked up with a phalanx of officers converging on a home on the 100 block of Central Avenue.
They circled a locked, gray wooden shed in the backyard, as Officer Nick Lamson arrived with his police dog.
“The police. Better come out. Got a dog,” says Lamson, the cop who initiated and later called off a car chase after spotting the teen in the stolen vehicle on Parkway Avenue.
The teen, who was charged with unlawful taking means of conveyance, collided with another car and bailed out of the vehicle. He was discovered hiding in the shed.
As Lamson pulled the dog back, officers Santiago and Hoarn positioned themselves on opposite sides of a window on the side of the shed, near a wooden fence.
“Let me see your hands,” Hoarn, wearing a gray sweatshirt and blue police beanie, shouted with a hand on his piece. “Show me your f**king hands.”
Hoarn and Santiago pulled the teen from the shed, and Boller helped wrestle the 16-year-old down to the ground to handcuff him.
Out of nowhere, Delahanty walked over and stomped the teen’s head into the snow, the footage shows.
“What’d you do?” one of the cops asked while Przemieniecki and Ubry kicked snow into the Black teen’s face.
Przemieniecki walked back over and put his foot on the teen’s head a second time, keeping it there for several seconds while urging the teen to “relax.”
An officer was heard calling the teen a “p**sy,” the footage shows.
Przemieniecki shoved the teen back on the ground and ordered him searched again.
“Stop resisting,” Przemieniecki said while smugly smiling at an arresting officer.
After officers found Durex condoms, one was heard telling the teen he wouldn’t be “needing condoms for a while.”
