MAYS LANDING — A new indictment charges Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. with witness tampering in a case involving alleged mistreatment of his daughter.
Small, 50, and his wife, the city’s school superintendent, were indicted in September for allegedly endangering the welfare of a child. The mayor also was accused of aggravated assault and making terroristic threats.
The new indictment claims Small asked his daughter to “twist up” her previous statement to police about alleged abuse by her parents, according to the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office.
Small asked the girl to change her story as a favor when criminal charges were pending against him in September, the prosecutor’s office alleged in a statement Wednesday.
It said the mayor wanted his daughter to say she injured her head by tripping and falling in her room.
That would provide an alternate version of a January 2024 incident, when Small allegedly hit his daughter in the head several times with a broom, causing her to lose consciousness.
The mayor and his wife, La’Quetta Small, denied the original charges at an April press conference attended by their daughter and son.
The mayor’s attorney, Edwin Jacobs, said in September that the couple “ultimately will be completely exonerated.” He accused the prosecutor’s office of “meddling in the personal private affairs’ of the Small family.
Authorities also have charged Atlantic City High School’s principal, Constance Days-Chapman, with failing to report the daughter’s abuse allegations, as required by law. The girl, then 15, was a student at the school when she went to Days-Chapman in December 2023.
Instead, the prosecutor’s office says, Days-Chapman, described as a family friend and the mayor’s former campaign manager, met privately with the parents after a school employee brought up the girl’s claims on Jan. 22.
Authorities learned of the alleged abuse two days later, when “a non-school entity” called a hotline, the prosecutor’s office said.
Days-Chapman, an Atlantic City resident, is accused of official misconduct and engaging in a pattern of official misconduct. She’s also charged with hindering apprehension and endangering the welfare of a child.
The charges against the Smalls and Days-Chapman are allegations. No one has been convicted.
Small continues to serve as mayor. The school district’s website lists La’Quetta Small as its superintendent and Days-Chapman as Atlantic City High’s principal.
Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: Jwalsh@cpsj.com.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Marty Small Sr. faces new charge of witness tampering