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Indictment: Woman Spit In Little Ferry Police Officer's Mouth

LITTLE FERRY, N.J. -- A former Hackensack woman who was found to have acted in self-defense when she stabbed a former friend was indicted by a grand jury on charges of hitting and spitting at Little Ferry police when they tried to stop her from soliciting on the street without a permit.

Nilajah Sumter

Nilajah Sumter

Photo Credit: Mary K. Miraglia

Nilajah Sumter, who was soliciting for an alternative energy company, had to be pepper-sprayed after she spit in an officer's mouth while wrestling with police during the Aug. 16 incident, authorities said.

She'd also been "extremely violent” in the radio car, damaging the front seat partition by kicking it, Police Chief Ralph Verdi said.

One of the officers was hospitalized after Sumter spit in his mouth, Verdi said.

After being taken to Bergen Regional Medical Center, she was transferred to the Bergen County Jail.

Sumter, 35, has been free since posting $30,000 five days later. She's charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, resisting arrest and obstruction.

Jurors in Hackensack last April found that the 5-foot, 105 pound Sumter acted in self-defense when she stabbed a former female friend who burst into her South Hackensack apartment to dispute a hospital bill for an emergency room visit.

Sumter told the jury that she was frightened and didn’t know what to do when the woman confronted her in December 2013.

She grabbed the knife out of fear, she said, leaving the woman with superficial chest and hand wounds.

Jurors found her not guilty of four counts — two of assaulting the woman and two weapons offenses — after an hour of deliberations.

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