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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

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.

Lodi Schools Supt. Douglas Petty (left) checks his phone during special Board of Education meeting Wednesday night, Aug. 31.

Photo Credit: LODI LIVE

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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