Former Bordentown Township police chief, convicted of lying to the FBI, will be released from prison

Former Police Chief Frank Nucera will face house arrest and electronic monitoring for 90 days, as well as a curfew.

Published May 31, 2023, 4:48 p.m. ET

Former Bordentown Township Police Chief Frank Nucera Jr. will be released from prison after a federal judge on Wednesday gave him credit for time served after being convicted on charges he lied to the FBI.

Nucera has served 13 months in the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Ky., on a 28-month sentence for lying to the FBI about striking a handcuffed Black teenager during an arrest in 2016.

An appeals court last month vacated that sentence and ordered U.S. District Court Judge Robert Kugler to reconsider guidelines. Nucera was already scheduled to be released Sept. 5 to home confinement with electronic monitoring, the judge said.

In granting time served, Kugler said Wednesday that a strong message already had been sent to Nucera, “having served over 13 months, having destroyed his life” and little more would be gained by ordering him to spend three more months in prison. His lawyer said he would be released Wednesday or Thursday, at the latest.

“A police chief lying to the FBI is a serious matter,” said Kugler. “There’s no way around it.”

Nucera, 66, listened to the hearing by telephone from Kentucky. Citing concerns about his own safety if he traveled to New Jersey, Nucera got permission from Kugler earlier this month to remotely attend the resentencing.

“I’m hanging in there,” Nucera said, in response to Kugler’s questions.

Nucera’s daughter, Christine, tearfully asked the judge to release her father. Her mother and brother Frank III, a Bordentown Township police lieutenant, were in the courtroom.

“He is that rock to all of us,” she said.

“I’m pleased with the result,” defense lawyer Rocco Cipparone said. Kugler ordered Nucera to serve two years of supervised release after 90 days’ house arrest with electronic monitoring, and a dusk-to-dawn curfew.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Lorber argued unsuccessfully that Kugler should again impose a 28-month sentence, essentially keeping Nucera behind bars until September. She asked the court to consider “the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant.”

In 2017, Nucera was accused of the 2016 hate-crime assault in the predominantly white community of about 11,000 just south of Trenton. Authorities said the longtime chief had a history of racist behavior and talked of sending police dogs to intimidate Black spectators at high school basketball games.

During his trial, prosecutors played profanity-laced excerpts for the jury from 81 secret recordings made by fellow officers in which Nucera could be heard using a racial slur. In one, Nucera says, “These [N-word] are like ISIS, they have no value. They should line them all up and mow ‘em down. I’d like to be on the firing line; I could do it.”

A federal jury in October 2019 convicted Nucera of lying when he told the FBI he did not strike Timothy Stroye at a Bordentown hotel.

In a 2017 interview with The Inquirer, Stroye recounted his encounter with Nucera and the officers. Two had their hands on their guns, he said, though neither drew a weapon. Stroye also told police that he couldn’t identify the person who struck him. He said he recalled hearing someone say “chief” during the episode.

Stroye didn’t testify during the trial. He died in 2021.

Kugler declared a mistrial in the case for a second time against Nucera in 2021 after jurors deadlocked on the two most serious civil rights charges against him. If convicted on those charges, Nucera could have faced as long as 10 years in prison on each count.

Prosecutors announced in January 2022 that they would not seek to try him a third time. A 34-year veteran, Nucera resigned from the 25-member police department after learning he was under investigation. His annual pension of $105,992 was frozen pending the outcome of his legal case.

Cipparone appealed Nucera’s conviction on the lying charge, arguing in part that white jurors alleged they were pressured by Black jurors to reach a verdict and they gave in to “white guilt.”

An appeals court panel ruled that affidavits from four white jurors following a contentious verdict failed to meet legal standards required to show that jurors voted to convict based on racial animus or stereotypes.

Cipparone said an appeal has been made to the full appeals court on the matter.