Lodi Schools Chief Arrested On Assault Charges At Jersey Shore

Lodi Schools Supt. Douglas Petty punched a woman in the face and then fought with a man who came to her aid on a Seaside Heights street in the middle of the night, authorities said.

Lodi Schools Supt. Douglas J. Petty
Photo Credit: *MUGSHOT*

Lodi Schools Supt. Douglas Petty (left) checks his phone during special Board of Education meeting Wednesday night, Aug. 31.
Photo Credit: *LODI LIVE*

Jerry DeMarco

08/31/2022 6:30 p.m.

A Heights police officer reported seeing Petty, 46, of Morris Plains, punch the woman in the head with a closed fist near the corner of Sumner Avenue and Boulevard shortly before 1:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 25.

A man approached and got into a fistfight with Petty, the officer wrote in a complaint on file in Superior Court in Toms River.

The victim -- whose name was withheld -- had an undisclosed relationship with the schools chief.

Police took Petty into custody and charged him with "purposely, knowingly or recklessly causing bodily injury to another" -- basically simple assault.

Then they sent him to the Ocean County Jail.

Records show he was ordered released by a Superior Court judge later that day pending a scheduled Sept. 14 first appearance in Municipal Court in Seaside Heights.

Petty, who left as principal of a public school in Newark to become Lodi's schools chief in November 2019, has declined comment.

The topic didn't come up at Wednesday's Lodi Board of Education meeting, which was live-streamed.

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