BYLINE: Sue Epstein/The Star-Ledger
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Piscataway, NJ
Piscataway police officer pleaded guilty to stealing an undetermined amount of cocaine while working as the departments evidence officer. Star-Ledger file
PISCATAWAY — A 22-year veteran of the Piscataway Police Department will spend at least two years in state prison for stealing cocaine from the department’s evidence vault when he was the evidence officer.
Albert Annuzzi, 47, was sentenced today by Superior Court Judge Bradley Ferencz, sitting in New Brunswick, to three years in prison and ordered to serve two before he is eligible for parole.
Annuzzi pleaded guilty last month to third-degree official misconduct after reaching a plea agreement with the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office. He told Ferencz in January that he took the cocaine for personal use while he served as evidence officer from January 2010 until his arrest in April 2011.
Ferencz ordered that he be banned from holding any public job in New Jersey and forfeit his pension.
The judge agreed at the request of Annuzzi’s attorney, John Roberts of Chatham, that the former police officer should be held in protective custody in prison because of his previous job.
"This is a tragedy," Roberts said after the sentencing.
Annuzzi, of Matawan, was suspended from his job after his arrest, but remained free on bail until today.
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