Jason Carty was arrested after his estranged wife, Gina LaPlaca, told Lumberton police he had tried to strangle her during the early morning hours of May 28.
The incident occurred five days before LaPlaca lost the Democratic primary for re-election to the Lumberton Township Committee.
In a social media post two days later, she said Carty “literally tried to kill me.”
But two weeks later, LaPlaca recanted her story. She told the Burlington County Prosecutor’s office that she and Carty “got into a verbal argument.”
“I was under the influence, and behaving erratically, which provoked the argument. I called the police to intervene, and in my irrational state, alleged that the argument had turned physical and that my husband assaulted me,” she said.
LaPlaca admitted to making a false statement to a police officer.
“At no point was my life or personal safety in danger, and no physical harm came to me. My husband did not make any intentional or aggressive physical contact with me, and the charges against him do not reflect the truth of what happened that date,” stated LaPlaca, an attorney. “My statements to the police were mistaken, and I wish the charges to be dropped in their entirety.”
The charges against Carty, a Rancocas Valley Regional School District school board member, have not been dropped. He is scheduled to appear in court on August 19 for a pre-indictment conference.
This weekend, the split between LaPlaca and Carty became public again when the two sparred in competing posts.
“When you pressed charges on me, DYFS had to open an investigation, and the Superior Court gave me custody of (our four-year-old son),” Carty wrote. “What say you?”
On the date of Carty’s arrest, a local police officer reported that he smelled alcohol on LaPlaca’s breath and felt she had been drinking. LaPlaca denied that.
“My husband was the one drinking, not me,” she said in her social media post. “I am on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, and this incident happened at 6:45 AM when, frankly, I’m not at my best. Never been a morning person.”
LaPlaca alleged that Carty “purposely taunts my sobriety by coming home drunk and putting alcohol in front of me.”
Over the weekend, in dueling Facebook posts, Carty accused LaPlaca of being drunk.
“You relapsed yet again and couldn’t even stay sober for months,” he stated.
LaPlaca, whose sworn statement to the Burlington County Prosecutor’s office admitted that she was under the influence when she made her allegations against Carty, denied on Facebook that she was drinking again.
“I am sober. Stone cold sober,” she wrote. One of the ‘benefits’ of being a recovering alcoholic is that someone can just say you’re drinking again and the whole world believes them and justifies their actions.”
“Your husband, the father of your child, a man you have supported financially, emotionally, and all the ways a wife should, comes into your house unannounced, calls you an ‘ugly slut,’ pushes you on the ground and tries to choke you,” LaPlaca stated in her online post. “Then demands you make a ‘public statement’ about how innocent he is. That is my life, folks. I’m done hiding it or lying about it.”
Carty said LaPlaca was “drunk again and posting this.” He had previously accused her of receiving alcohol deliveries by DoorDash.
“Always more to the story,” he said this weekend. “An alcoholic who was fired from her job for sleeping with an employee then drove drunk with her small child in the car.”
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 admission into the state’s Pre-Trial Intervention (PTI) program, but appears to have reversed after arguments from her attorney.
The plea to a fourth-degree count of child endangerment and abuse led to three years of supervised probation under the state’s pretrial program. The terms of probation included continued treatment, regular attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and other terms dictated by the state Department of Children and Families.
Her sobriety is a key element to her completion of the PTI program, which would allow her to eventually have the criminal plea removed.
LaPlaca lost her driver’s license for ninety days, but Superior Court Judge Craig Ambrose gave her credit for installing an interlocutory device to start her car – and her suspension was reduced to just twelve days. Earlier this month, LaPlaca was cited for driving with a revoked license; she has denied those charges.
The judge hearing the Carty case is Philip Haines, a former state senator, Burlington County freeholder, and county clerk.