some shocking news out of Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small and his wife La'Quetta Small are facing charges related to the alleged physical and emotional abuse of their 16-year-old daughter mayor small is accused by prosecutors of beating her with a broom until she was unconscious and repeatedly punching her in the legs along with threats of quote Earth slamming her down the stairs before actually throwing her to the ground and threatening to smack the weave out of her head his wife La'Quetta small who is the superintendent of schools in Atlantic City is accused of repeatedly beating her daughter dragging her by her hair and striking her with a belt the mayor and his wife told us in a statement they're innocent of all charges and that this is not about public corruption or misconduct but mayor small joins a long line of Bel leered Atlantic city leaders accused of misconduct while in office here to talk about this case and why Atlantic City has such a long history of corruption and complication is Mike Rasmussen director of the Rebovich Institute Institute for New Jersey politics at Ryder University Micah thanks so much for joining us today to talk about this now to be fair Mayor Marty small has not been accused of any kind of misconduct or corruption charges in His official office but this is a complicated story nonetheless uh take a look at the fact that the principal of his daughter's school Candace da Chapman is now accused of uh withholding charges of allegations of abuse uh to the state something that she's required to do and she ran Small's re-election campaign in 2021 how now does Mayor small govern Atlantic City with these charges uh and with all of this complicated story kind of hanging over his head it's going to be very difficult for him um until he can get resolution on this criminal trial um New Jersey law allows for the forfeiture of public office for Crimes of the second or the third degree which many of the crimes that he's charged with are crimes of the second and third degree so if he were convicted of any of those crimes they would rise to the level of losing his office and so it doesn't really so much matter that it doesn't involve the office itself because of the seriousness of the crimes that are involved here yeah so some of those charges that you're talking about aggravated assault simple assault making terroristic threats also his wife is facing many of those similar charges she is the superintendent of schools that's another complicated layer we'll get to that in a second but what are we looking at in terms of I know you're not a legal scholar here but in terms terms of the timing of what a a case like this could look like a trial could look like how long could he be governing with this hanging over his head well I don't think that that we see very quick resolutions to matters that are not in municipal court for example right you're talking about um really in all likelihood the rest of the calendar year if not next year going into next year and the tricky part of that for him is that he is facing potentially his reelection next year his term is up next year and so this could be a real factor in whether or not he runs or wins another term as mayor when you look at at Atlantic City as a whole I mean he's just in he's one of many in this long line right of of baguer leaders of uh corruption charges or misconduct charges that have come down the line um what is it about this city in particular that makes it so ripe for corruption for misconduct well the the city's um Scandal problems political Scandal problems date to the beginning of legalized gambling in Atlantic City um and what I think you can say about the five Mayors who have been uh who have faced criminal charges while in office since uh gambling was legalized in 1978 you can say that some of them were for public corruption some of them were involving corruption uh of of public office some of them were more personal in nature uh one mayor the last mayor who was indicted it was about uh a personal embezzlement of funds of a youth basketball team that he had founded the mayor before that that got into trouble it was over um uh falsifying military uh accomplishments that he had earned so you know it's not always the public corruption charges but it doesn't make it any less serious and let's just quickly talk about Lita Small's his wife who is the superintendent of schools what could happen now to her position to principal da Chapman right so I think that they have less protection than the mayor has according to the law um Council for example can't remove the mayor um unless it's like involving um attendance but the superintendent the principal they don't have those same protections they have a due process rights but they don't have um you know the rights to conduct themselves with impunity so I think you can expect to see charges of course it depends on the willingness of the school board members to move on those members on those employees and so it remains to be seen what kind of political will there is on the school board but it's going to be tough them to ignore uh charges of this nature involving a student Mike Rasmussen director of The Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics thank you for the Insight thanks Joanna [Music]