Marty and La'Quetta Small talk before their arraignment.
Marty and La’Quetta Small were just concerned parents desperate to protect their daughter from a “juvenile delinquent” who turned the once straight-A, well-behaved student into a defiant teen at risk of needing to repeat the school year, attorneys for the couple argued Tuesday.
Defense attorneys for Atlantic City’s mayor and schools superintendent argued several motions, including asking the judge to suppress recordings of arguments captured by the then-16-year-old girl’s boyfriend, claiming they violate the wiretap statute.
The attorneys also argued to dismiss the cases against their clients.
The couple was criminally charged a year ago for allegedly assaulting the then-16-year-old girl. Both were indicted on a charge of child endangerment in September.
The mayor faces additional charges of aggravated assault and terroristic threats for allegations that include the girl being beaten unconscious with a broom. The repeated mentioning of those charges during the grand jury unfairly led to the second-degree endangerment indictment against Dr. La’Quetta Small, her attorney told the judge.
“There’s no way my client isn’t tainted,” Michael Schreiber said.
But it’s Dr. Small’s own actions that are the issue, the state argued.
“This defendant allowed her husband — the mayor of Atlantic City — to inflict harm on her daughter causing her to pass out and get a head injury,” Assistant Prosecutor Elizabeth Fisher told the judge.
She said it was clear Dr. Small was there that day, as the victim said she woke up to her parents and brother “splashing her in the face with water trying to get her to wake up.”
The alleged attack was Jan. 13, 2024, just 10 days after Marty Small allegedly said, “Please, I’m gonna earth slam her down the steps. I’m sick of her mouth,” during the mayor’s defense attorney categorized as “30 minutes of bickering involving the whole family all the result of (the teen) acting in outright defiance of her parents’ instructions.”
Jordan Barbone argued that the mayor’s words were “fleeting anger” in an attempt to get his daughter to listen, and were not what lawmakers intended when crafting the terroristic threats statute.
He also claimed that the state “cherry-picked” portions of the argument that included the Smalls’ son and La’Quetta Small’s mother to make it seem as if the mayor had let loose a litany of threats toward his daughter.
Comments including “Don’t make me hurt you,” “I’ll smack the weave out of your head,” “Come past this line and I’m going to grab you by the head and throw you,” and the earth-slam comment “are not communications coming one after the other,” Barbone said.
The recording of that argument, along with other recordings the state has, should not even be admissible attorneys for both Smalls argued.
The audio is from recordings the girl’s boyfriend made while they were on the phone.
The state argued that the girl’s insistence that her boyfriend stay on the phone muted, texts to him to confirm he could hear what was happening and her putting the phone facedown to avoid her parents seeing a call was ongoing all proved her consent.
“Listening is entirely different than recording,” Barbone said.
The Smalls’ daughter took back her allegations about her parents in several interviews with investigators. The defense argues that was because she did, indeed, make up the allegations out of anger for them trying to keep her from her boyfriend. But the state says it was out of fear.
“She did not want to tell law enforcement,” Fisher said. “She did not want to tell DCPP (the Division of Child Protection and Permanency) the abuse she endured, and it was only until she was confronted with those recordings she had to disclose. The evidence was in front of her. She couldn’t hide it anymore.”
Schreiber echoed the sentiment Marty Small has taken in that this was a private family issue, not a criminal one. He also accused the case of being politically motivated.
"How much is the government going to jump into people’s lives and tell them how they can and cannot raise their child?” he asked.
“This defendant wants everything that happens in his house to stay inside his house,” Fisher said. “Probably 95 percent of child abuse happens inside the house. It doesn’t mean it gets to stay inside the house. In Mr. Small’s world, yes it does.”
She also noted that the Small told the girl numerous times: “Go ahead. You tell them. What’s going to happen to me? What’s going to happen to me?”
“When you’re 16 and your father is the mayor of Atlantic City and he says that to you, you believe it and you are silenced,” Fisher said. “This wasn’t just a defiant child. There’s a point where she is helpless in this situation.”
Tuesday’s arguments also gave insight into how Mayor Small was indicted on an additional charge of witness tampering.
It was sparked by the couple’s October arraignment, when the victim was brought to court after she was allegedly told she was going shopping.
“She didn’t know until she saw the cameras outside and her father’s attorneys,” Fisher said.
The girl did not come into the courthouse, but could be seen in the back of the vehicle as they drove away following that proceeding.
No decisions were made Tuesday, as Judge Bernard DeLury allowed more information to be filed concerning both the wiretap argument and motion to dismiss for Dr. Small.
Those must be in by May 19. They will be back in court on the wiretap June 16.
The next court date will be May 2, when the state's motion to join the witness tampering charge to be tried with the rest of the charges is heard. A motion to sever the cases was moved until after the May 19 date.
Schreiber also wants the most up-to-date DCPP records, which previously were only released to August.
Those records from Aug. 1 to present will be viewed in private tentatively set for April 28.
The dates indicate that the DCPP case involving the Smalls remains open.
