8 Yrs NJSP in Assaults on Sheriff's Officers

PRESS RELEASE
May 18, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Bernie Weisenfeld- PIO
Phone: (856) 384-5617; Pager (856) 251-4736
Re.: 8 yrs NJSP in assaults on sheriff’s officers

Brian O. Ojeniyi (DOB 11/10/74), of 941 Morton St., Camden was sentenced today (5/18) to eight years in New Jersey state prison for his conviction on assaulting four Gloucester County sheriff’s officers in the Gloucester County Justice Center in Woodbury on June 15, 2009.

Ojeniyi was found guilty in a June 2010 jury trial of injuring the officers when he tried to run from a courtroom after learning a warrant had been issued for his arrest because he’d arrived late for a court appearance on a narcotics distribution charge.

One of the officers, Thomas Whitaker, was injured severely enough to threaten his continued employment, he testified. The struggle to detain Ojeniyi moved from a third-floor courtroom, down a stairway to just outside the courthouse entrance.

Superior Court Judge John Waters imposed the eight-year prison term for aggravated assault on Whitaker. He added four concurrent four-year terms for assault on the other officers and one count of resisting arrest. Also concurrent was a three-year term for Ojeniyi’s admitted cocaine possession in Deptford on June 1, 2008. Waters ordered that Ojeniyi be ineligible for parole for four years and awarded him 715 days off his sentence for time spent in county jail before trial.

Trial Chief Mary Pyffer of the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office sought an extended term for Ojeniyi based on his record of four prior criminal convictions, reflecting what she said was “defendant’s firmly ingrained proclivity toward illegal behavior.” His lawyer asked the judge to consider that Ojeniyi completed college after an earlier prison term in order to better himself.