An Atlantic City man will remain in jail after he allegedly assaulted a stranger 10 days after he was released from jail pending sentencing in another case.
Timothy Squindo, 32, is accused of striking a man in the head with a pipe on May 25, on the Boardwalk near Resorts Casino Hotel.
Police were called to the area and received a description that matched Squindo, according to the affidavit read at his detention hearing Tuesday.
He told the arresting officers they needed to wait for his family to arrive, Assistant Prosecutor Harlee Stein said.
When the officers tried to arrest him, Squindo jumped off the Boardwalk onto the beach, where he fell and continued to resist arrest, according to the report.
The incident happened 10 days after Squindo was released from an earlier case in Atlantic City.
On Dec. 31, Squindo was arrested after he threatened a CRDA ambassador with a metal object on the Boardwalk at New York Avenue, according to information released at his detention hearing in January.
Squindo, who was an addict living homeless in the city, was trying to help a homeless woman who the ambassador was allegedly harassing, attorney Stephen Funk told the judge at the January detention hearing.
"We don’t want to detain people like that," Judge William Miller said in January. "It's heart-wrenching to detain people who have come upon tough times.
"At the same time, uncontrolled and escalating criminality has to be abated for the protection of the community," the judge added.
He then said that if Squindo got a bed letter, his custody could be transferred to inpatient treatment.
"It's the best I can do," Miller said at the time. "I don't think he needs jail. I think he needs help."
But it doesn't seem Squindo ever got a bed.
Instead, he pleaded to the earlier case, and was released by Judge Donna Taylor on May 15, pending sentencing. It was not clear what the sentence was.
He got a job at a landscaping company that he was expecting to start within a few weeks of his latest arrest, Funk said.
Squindo has a "significant untreated drug problem, Funk told Judge Pam D'Arcy at this week's detention hearing.
His recent criminal history includes about a dozen shoplifting charges out of Ventnor, spanning two years from March 2020 through March 17, 2022, court records show.
Squindo then spent nearly five months in the Atlantic County Justice Facility before his release last month.
He has at least four failures to appear for court in the last year.
Squindo's public safety assessment, which helps determine whether a defendant is held under bail reform, is at the highest level for both danger to the community and likelihood to reoffend with an additional flag for new criminal activity.
He had the same score in January, when Miller ordered him held.
D'Arcy reached the same decision at this week's detention hearing.
Squindo previously served a year sentence in 2018, in relation to a 2017 case out of Ocean County in which he was charged with giving obscene material to a person younger than 18, court records show.
He has previous addresses in Manahawkin and Little Egg Harbor Township.
