Atlantic City mayor acquitted on all counts

A jury has found Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small, Sr. not guilty on four counts after being accused of hitting his teenage daughter and then telling her to lie to investigators.

The acquittal means that Small can take the oath of office next month for a full four-year term as mayor.

The jury had deliberated for 2 ½ days.

Small was indicted in September 2024 on child abuse charges after an investigation by the prosecutor’s office resulted in allegations that he physically and emotionally abused his teenage daughter.

He was later indicted for witness tampering for allegedly telling his daughter to lie about how she sustained injuries,

Prosecutors say Small “hit his daughter multiple times in the head with a broom, causing her to lose consciousness” and “during an argument with his daughter, continuously threatened to hurt her by ‘earth slamming’ her down the stairs, grabbing her head and throwing her to the ground, and smacking the weave out of her head.”

Small allegedly asked his juvenile daughter to do him a favor and “twist up” what she had previously told police, with prosecutors suggesting the mayor told her to revise her story and say her head was injured when she tripped and fell in her bedroom.

His daughter, now seventeen, testified against her father.

Small became mayor in 2019 following Frank Gilliam’s resignation after admitting to stealing nearly $100,000 from a youth basketball program.  He won the Democratic primary with 62% of the vote against Bob McDevitt, the former president of Unite Here Local 54, the casino workers union, and coasted to a general election win despite the indictment