By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
ROBBINSVILLE Suspended police Sgt. Mark Lee, who has been charged with assaulting a disabled woman, her 4-year-old son, and five fellow officers who tried to arrest him, has had his bail review in Superior Court postponed.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Sumners set Sgt. Lee’s bail at $250,000 more than a week ago, with no 10 percent option, and ordered him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The police officer has been in custody since his Sept. 17 arrest at Project Freedom, a residential community on Hutchinson Road for disabled people.
Sgt. Lee, 44, of Milltown, is being held in the Ann Klein Forensic Center in West Trenton, a maximum-security state psychiatric facility for prisoners and county inmates, Mercer County officials said Tuesday.
Casey DeBlasio, a spokeswoman for the Mercer County prosecutor’s office, said a bail review hearing, which is routinely scheduled whenever a defendant remains in custody and has not posted bail, had been scheduled for Friday, but was later postponed. A new date has not been set yet, she said.
Charles Sciarra, the lawyer representing Sgt. Lee, did not return a message before The Messenger-Press went to print.
The prosecutor’s office, which is handling the criminal investigation, has said the 18-year police veteran showed up at the victims’ home while on duty and followed the 45-year-old mother, who uses a wheelchair, and her child into the bathroom where a struggle took place. The victims were able to make their way into a bedroom and with a caretaker and call police, the prosecutor’s office said.
The officer then broke into the bedroom, knocked the woman out of her wheelchair and assaulted her again, the prosecutor’s office said. When police arrived, the officers took Sgt. Lee into custody, but he kicked out the rear window of the patrol car and jumped out, the prosecutor’s office said. The other officers gave chase, subdued him after a struggle and took him back into custody.
Sgt. Lee has been charged with two counts of aggravated assault, one count of endangering the welfare of a child, five counts of aggravated assault upon a police officer and one count each of burglary, harassment and criminal mischief, according to the prosecutor’s office.
According to the criminal complaint, obtained through an Open Public Records Act request, the aggravated assault charges were filed against Sgt. Lee because the victim was choked and the child was “slammed” into a shower bench. The harassment charge stems from Sgt. Lee “forcibly kissing” the victim “twice on the face,” according to the criminal complaint.
The complaint also states Sgt. Lee caused injuries to Robbinsville police Lt. Michael Polaski, Sgt. Christopher Nitti, Sgt. Vincent Estelle, Patrolman Shawn Bruton and Patrolman Robert Quinn by “fighting” with the officers.
The criminal mischief charge stems from Sgt. Lee kicking out the rear passenger window of a township police car, the complaint said.
Sgt. Lee had not been dispatched to the victim’s home on a police call and it has not been determined why he was there, Mayor Dave Fried said last week. The officer had no prior history of erratic behavior, he said.
The prosecutor’s office is handling the criminal investigation to avoid a conflict of interest for the Robbinsville Police Department.
Sgt. Lee has been suspended without pay from his $113,833 position, township officials said.

