ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small and his wife disapproved of their teenage daughter's boyfriend, who secretly recorded an incident of Small allegedly physically and verbally assaulting the girl over a video chat, prosecutors said in affidavit.
Small and his wife LaQuetta, Atlantic City's superintendent of schools, were charged Monday with child endangerment and assault regarding 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 making up the accusations against her parents because she was angry they wouldn't let her go out with friends.
But in many other sections, the affidavit includes detailed claims by the girl that the abuse was real, and it said she photographed bruises she said were inflicted by her parents and sent them to her boyfriend, who shared them with detectives.
The office of Prosecutor William Reynolds cited evidence including recordings of interactions between the girl and her parents; her statements to police, school personnel, 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 repeatedly punching her in the legs, court documents say. Her mother is accused of dragging her by her hair, punching her in the chest and face, and hitting her with a belt.
“Mayor Small and Superintendent LaQuetta Small are completely innocent of any wrongdoing and will ultimately be vindicated,” their lawyer Ed Jacobs said in a statement Tuesday. “These complaints focus exclusively on private family matters, basically attempting to second-guess parental decisions.”
He said the Smalls “remain a close and loving and intact family,” adding the mayor intends to continue serving 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 personnel.
The affidavit was first reported by the web site breakingac.com.
It includes a transcript of dialogue between the Smalls and their daughter that were recorded by cell phones or laptops, apparently without the parents' knowledge. The prosecutor's office did not release actual audio or video.
Several recordings involve an incident from Jan. 3 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, according to the transcript.
Using the girl's name, the mayor 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 gonna hurt you,” he says, threatening to throw her down a staircase. “Tell them. I don't care. What they gonna do to me? I'll smack that weave out ya head. Nothing is gonna happen to me!”
The transcript also references an alleged incident on Jan. 7 between the girl and her mother, saying her grandmother witnessed the teen yelling at her mother to get off her and stop hitting her.
“A little punch in the eye ain't gonna stop her,” the grandmother is quoted as saying.
The affidavit also contains messages from the girl to friends asking if she can stay with them, saying she does not feel safe at home, and that her bags are packed.
“I've been mentally, emotionally, verbally and physically abused, and it's 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, telling a nurse she had hit her head on a window and lost consciousness, a claim with which her father agreed, according to the affidavit.
But the affidavit also includes quotes from the girl to county detectives and investigators with the state child welfare agency, the Division of Child Protection and Permanency, in which she claims to have 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 made the allegations up and she was not physically assaulted,” according to the affidavit.
The girl told detectives she wanted to meet friends at a seafood restaurant a few weeks earlier but her parents would not allow it.
“She stated she made the allegations up because of this and stated no physical abuse occurred,” the affidavit read. The girl “was asked if she was ever hit by her parents and she stated no.”
The Smalls have a May 15 initial court date.
Monday night, he posted a picture of himself with the hashtags “unbothered” and “God got us.”
Follow Wayne Parry on X, formerly Twitter, at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC
Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small speaks at an event in Atlantic City, N.J., on Feb. 2, 2024. On April 15, 2024, Small and his wife were charged with abusing their teenage daughter, a situation their lawyer described as a private family matter. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small speaks at an event in Atlantic City N.J., on Feb. 2, 2024. On April 15, 2024, Small and his wife were charged with abusing their teenage daughter, a situation their lawyer described as a private family matter. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small speaks at an event in Atlantic City, N.J., on Feb. 2, 2024. On April 15, 2024, Small and his wife were charged with abusing their teenage daughter, a situation their lawyer described as a private family matter. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — NATO countries haven’t delivered what they promised to Ukraine in time, the alliance’s chief said Monday, allowing Russia to press its advantage while Kyiv’s depleted forces wait for military supplies to arrive from the U.S. and Europe.
"Serious delays in support have meant serious consequences on the battlefield” for Ukraine, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference in Kyiv with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Outgunned, Ukraine’s troops have struggled to fend off Russian advances on the battlefield. They were recently compelled to make a tactical retreat from three villages in the east, where the Kremlin's forces have been making incremental gains, Ukraine's army chief said Sunday. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Monday its forces had also taken the village of Semenivka.
“The lack of ammunition has allowed the Russians to push forward along the front line. Lack of air defense has made it possible for more Russian missiles to hit their targets, and the lack of deep strike capabilities has made it possible for the Russians to concentrate more forces,” Stoltenberg said.
Kyiv’s Western partners have repeatedly vowed to stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” But vital U.S. military help was held up for six months by political differences in Washington, and Europe’s military hardware production has not kept up with demand. Ukraine’s own manufacturing of heavy weapons is only now starting to gain traction.
Now, Ukraine and its Western partners are racing to deploy critical new military aid that can help check the slow and costly but steady Russian advance across eastern areas, as well as thwart drone and missile attacks.
Zelenskyy said new Western supplies have started arriving, but slowly. "This process must be speeded up,” he said at the news conference with Stoltenberg.
Though the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line has shifted little since early in the war, the Kremlin’s forces in recent weeks have edged forward, especially in the Donetsk region, with sheer numbers and massive firepower used to bludgeon defensive positions.
Russia also continues to launch missiles, drones and bombs at cities across Ukraine. Two people were killed and eight injured in a Russian missile strike on residential buildings and “civil infrastructure” in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa on Monday, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on the Telegram messaging site.
Russia is a far bigger country than Ukraine, with greater resources. It has also received weapons support from Iran and North Korea, the U.S. government says.
Drawn-out Ukrainian efforts to mobilize more troops, and the belated building of battlefield fortifications, are other factors undermining Ukraine’s war effort, military analysts say.
Nick Reynolds, a research fellow for land warfare at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said the war “is still largely an artillery duel.”
He said he did not expect to see major movement of the front lines in the near term, but that “the conditions are being set for which side has military advantage at the front line. The Russian military is in a better position at the moment.
“When we see one side or the other being in a position to move the front line, at some stage, maneuver will be restored to the battlefield. Not in the next few weeks, maybe not even in the next few months. But it will happen,” he told The Associated Press.
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh, at a briefing with reporters Monday, also acknowledged Russia’s recent battlefield gains, noting that a delay in congressional approval for additional spending “set the Ukrainians back.”
NATO chief Stoltenberg, however, said more weapons and ammunition for Ukraine are on the way, including Patriot missile systems to defend against heavy Russian barrages that smash into the power grid and urban areas.
Ukrainian officials say Russia is assembling forces for a major summer offensive, even if its troops are making only incremental gains at the moment.
“Russian forces remain unlikely to achieve a deeper operationally significant penetration in the area in the near term,” the Institute for the Study of War said in an assessment Sunday.
Even so, the Kremlin’s forces are closing in on the strategically important hilltop town of Chasiv Yar, whose capture would be an important step forward into the Donetsk region.
Donetsk and Luhansk form much of the industrial Donbas region, which has been gripped by separatist fighting since 2014, and which Putin has set as a primary objective of the Russian invasion. Russia illegally annexed areas of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions in September 2022.
Associated Press writer Tara Copp in Washington contributed reporting.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, welcomes NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 29, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, welcomes NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 29, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center right, talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, centre left, during their meeting in Kyiv Ukraine, Monday, April 29, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, welcomes NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 29, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
Two women walk along a street in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A woman sells toys in front of a building with windows protected by sandbags in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg talks during his joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, welcomes NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during their meeting in Kyiv Ukraine, Monday, April 29, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg talks during his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv Ukraine, Monday, April 29, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, welcomes NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg walk before their press conference in Kyiv Ukraine, Monday, April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
