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TRENTON, NJ – New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability (OPIA) announced that a state grand jury has indicted six corrections officers. Those charges are related to the 2020 assault of an inmate at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility.

The seven-count indictment accuses the officers of pepper-spraying and forcibly removing an inmate from a cell on April 8, 2020. Additionally, the officers allegedly filed false reports of the incident.

The officers charged include Sgt. Michael Emmert and Senior Correctional Officers Christopher Toth, Mark Sadlowski Jr., Raymond Quinones, Michael Gaines and Michael Ambrozaitis. The indictment follows an investigation by OPIA’s Office of Corruption and the Department of Corrections’ Special Investigations Division.

All the officers are charged with official misconduct, falsifying public records and falsifying or tampering with records. Emmert and Toth face an additional charge of aggravated assault. Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.