SOUTH AMBOY – A former South Amboy police officer was sentenced to five years in the Middlesex County’s drug court program for stealing money and narcotics from the city’s evidence collection.
Matthew Barcheski, 41, appeared before Judge Robert Jones on May 17 in state Superior Court, New Brunswick, represented by attorney Jeffrey Ziegelheim. Barcheski pleaded guilty to charges of theft of about $3,000 from evidence and drugs, as well as charges of tampering with public records and official misconduct. Each of his charges were third degree offenses.
Barcheski was facing a three-year sentence in a state prison and would have been eligible for parole nine months into his sentence, but he asked to be placed into the drug court program to get over his drug addiction, according to information provided in court. The court’s records state Barcheski suffered a number of injuries during his time as a U.S. Marine and a police officer and state he was prescribed pain relief drugs and narcotics multiple times.
Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Christine D’Elia said she was pursuing jail time for Barcheski due to his breach of public trust and said this was a crime that happened over a period of years, not just once.
“To say this is one of the most difficult things I have had to do in my 30 years of practice is probably an understatement,” Ziegelheim said. “Standing before the court is an individual who epitomizes what we as a society consider to be a fall from grace. This is a man who had it all. He was at the top of his career and his profession. Because of those incidents where he was required and needed to take opioids for the pain he suffers to this day, he lost it all.”
Jones mentioned to Ziegelheim and Barcheski that since the drug court program is five years, it could be considered a more severe punishment.
Ziegelheim said, “If he goes to state prison for a day, a week, a month or nine months, that puts a stamp on him. It doesn’t get him the help he needs. Since he was a police officer, he will be a target and the facility might be populated by people he may have arrested.”
In the end, Jones sentenced Barcheski to the five-year drug court program with an alternative sentence of three years in state prison is he does not comply with the program.
The program includes that Barcheski maintains full-time employment or education, is arrest free, is drug/alcohol free, is firearm free, participates in an appropriate in-patient or out-patient program, follows a 10 p.m. curfew and reports that he is home daily at night, schedules random drug testing, attends three support meetings per week, forfeits being a public employee, and pays $15,860 in restitution to South Amboy.
Barcheski is expected to begin his treatment in Mercer County, where he lives.