LaPlaca expected to plead guilty to child endangerment charge

Lumberton Committeewoman Gina LaPlaca is expected to plead guilty on Monday to a child endangerment charge on Monday, charges that stem from a 2025 drunk-driving incident with her young child in the car, the New Jersey Globe has learned. 

The plea to a fourth-degree count of child endangerment and abuse will lead to three years of supervised probation under the state’s pretrial program. The terms of probation are expected to include continued inpatient treatment, regular attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, an interlocutory device to start her car, and potentially other terms dictated by the state Department of Children and Families.

The deal allows her to keep her office. She will also plead guilty to DUI, which had been pending before municipal court.

In March 2025, police arrested LaPlaca, then the mayor of Lumberton, after a hit-and-run on St. Patrick’s Day in nearby Mount Laurel. Police found her blood alcohol content was nearly four times the legal limit and that her young child was in her blue BMW during the incident. Police found open alcoholic containers inside her damaged vehicle.

A Burlington County grand jury indicted LaPlaca on a child endangerment charge late last year.

The court initially declined LaPlaca’s request for PTI, but appears to have reversed after arguments from her attorney.

Prominent Democrats, including former Gov. Phil Murphy and Assemblywoman Andrea Katz (D-Chesterfield), had called on LaPlaca to step down from office to focus on recovery. After her arrest, LaPlaca went to an inpatient alcohol rehabilitation facility and resumed her local mayoral responsibilities.

If she violates her expected plea deal, she will be arrested and sentenced to second-degree child endangerment and abuse, which comes with a presumption of incarceration.

LaPlaca’s term concludes at the end of the year. Her onetime running mate, Mayor Terrance Benson, is running with former Committeewoman Kendra Hatfield in June’s Democratic primary; LaPlaca is still set to run, even as she undergoes treatment.

A former Assembly staffer and lobbyist, LaPlaca was the Democratic nominee for State Assembly in the 8th district in 2019.