The mayor of Atlantic City, already accused of abusing his teenage daughterHe now faces a new charge that he asked him to lie about how he suffered a head injury.

Marty Small Sr., 50, was charged Monday with witness tampering involving the girl, whom he and his wife, La’Quetta, superintendent of schools in the coastal New Jersey gambling town, were accused. previously accused of assault and abuse.

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The Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office said Marty Small, a Democrat, asked his daughter to “twist” a statement he had given investigators about alleged abuse he had committed against her at times in December and January.

Specifically, the mayor is accused of asking his daughter to falsely say that she suffered a head injury when she tripped and fell in her room.

Small’s attorney, Edwin Jacobs, called the latest charge “pure nonsense,” adding that Small asked his daughter to tell the truth about what happened.

“When a parent encourages a child to be accurate and truthful in his or her statements to investigators, that parent is not manipulating a witness,” he said Wednesday. “That father is doing what a good and responsible father should do. And that is precisely what Marty Small has done.”

Jacobs called the charge “yet another effort by the prosecution to question my client’s paternity and corrupt his relationship with his daughter.”

The attorney did not say whether the teen still lives at home with her parents. Last month, Small said he was doing so.

Prosecutors allege that Small asked his daughter to contradict her earlier claim of being abused, knowing he was about to be charged with the original charge of child abuse. The alleged request was made two days before a grand jury indicted Marty and La’Quetta Small.

They say both parents beat and emotionally abused the girl, who was 15 or 16 years old, at times last winter. The couple denies the accusations.

Prosecutors said that on Jan. 13, Marty Small hit his daughter several times in the head with a broom, causing her to lose consciousness. Ten days earlier, they said, Small argued with his daughter, grabbing her by the head, throwing her to the floor and threatening to throw her down the stairs. The mayor is also accused of hitting his daughter on the legs, causing bruises.

La’Quetta Small, 47, is accused of hitting her daughter several times in the chest, leaving bruises. She is also accused of dragging her daughter by her hair and hitting her with a belt on her shoulders, leaving marks.

the couple pleaded not guilty to last month’s original charges. Marty Small has a court date for the witness tampering charge set for December 3.

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