Judge clears N.J. state police officer of sex assault of recruit

A New Jersey State Police sergeant accused of sexually harassing a recruit from Camden County has been cleared by an administrative law judge.

Judge Donald Stein found no evidence that Sgt. Christine Shallcross verbally harassed Trooper Alexis Hayes at the Police Academy in 2005 or kissed her at graduation.

But the judge ordered Shallcross suspended without pay for drawing on recruits' faces with markers and for driving a police vehicle after drinking.

Shallcross' attorney, George Daggett, said that the suspension was for 75 days and that he planned to appeal it.

"We're very pleased the judge saw through the false testimony of Alexis Hayes. . . . She has a civil suit that she's trying to make money on," Daggett said.

Hayes, of Berlin Borough, filed a federal lawsuit in Camden in December against the state police and several officers who she says harassed and sexually assaulted her. She also accuses the state police of hazing and of failing to properly investigate her complaints.

Her attorney, William Buckman, said that after Hayes came forward, she suffered retaliation. He said that she was falsely charged with drunken driving in January, and that when a judge dismissed the charge in July, she was charged with assaulting a Berlin police officer.

She has been suspended without pay since January on the two charges.

Berlin Police Chief Bob Carrara said the assault charge was not retaliation because his officers were not involved with Hayes' dispute with the state police. He said she resisted arrest and assaulted an officer who was responding to a domestic-violence call.

Meanwhile, the rape charges that Hayes filed against State Police Lt. Thomas King also were dismissed. She filed a complaint with Pittsburgh authorities months after she said King had sexually assaulted her in April 2009 while she and a contingent of 49 officers attended the funeral of three slain officers.