NJ State Trooper Charged With Pulling Woman Over, Following Her Home To Hit On Her

Michael Patterson, 28, of Bayonne first stopped the female motorist for an unspecified offense on the New Jersey Turnpike on Jan. 28, state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said.

After letting her go with a warning, Paterson “conducted a second, unwarranted stop of her vehicle a few minutes later when she exited the Turnpike at Exit 11….in order to make unwanted advances on the woman,” Grewal said.

Patterson “put the victim in fear by following her to her home in his patrol vehicle,” the attorney general said.

He also “disabled the Digital In-Vehicle Recorder (DIVR) in his vehicle to prevent his conduct from being recorded during this second stop,” Grewal said.

A Piscataway native, Patterson was the starting center fielder for the New Jersey City University baseball team in 2012 and 2013.

He made international headlines two years ago when he pulled over a man who turned out to be a retired police officer who delivered him when Patterson was born in 1991.

The state Office of Public Integrity and Accountability charged him on Friday with violating the woman’s civil rights, stalking and tampering with public records following an initial investigation by the NJSP Office of Professional Standards and follow-up by the OPIA’s Corruption Bureau, Grewal said.

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