Bayville Corrections Officer Stole State Ammo, Sold It: AG

BERKELEY, NJ — A New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) officer from Bayville is accused of stealing state-owned ammo and selling it for hundreds of thousands of dollars of profit, the Attorney General's Office said.

Timothy Morris, 56, was a NJDOC lieutenant and also served as its Range Master, Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said. He has been suspended from this role pending the investigation and has been charged with official misconduct, theft and structuring financial transactions.

These charges stem from an investigation by the Office of Public Integrity & Accountability (OPIA), New Jersey State Police and NJDOC's Special Investigations Division.

In his capacity as Range Master, Morris was in charge of managing the agency's firing ranges for its officers, including ordering ammunition and maintaining inventory of it, Platkin said. He has served in this role since 2008.

Morris was responsible for ordering and maintaining ammo at the four NJDOC gun ranges: Annandale in Hunterdon County (Northern Region), Browns Mills in Burlington County, (Central Region), Maurice River in Cumberland County (Southern Region), and the Corrections Staff Training Academy in Sea Girt, in Monmouth County, as well as the ammunition at Special Operations Group Headquarters in Trenton, in Mercer County.

However, since at least January 2019, Morris has been ordering extra ammo and selling it on the secondary market for cash and check payments made directly to himself from a gun supply store, Platkin said. Authorities allege that Morris has made more than $475,000 in this years-long scheme, at the expense of the State.

Additionally, authorities say Morris structured his payments and transactions he entered into at banks through sales of taxpayer-funded ammunition in order to avoid bank reporting requirements, which otherwise may have flagged the deposits. As alleged, Morris cashed multiple checks at banks in a series of transactions designed to evade the $10,000 bank reporting requirement and other suspicious activity reporting requirements.

“As the allegations in this case show, corruption is an expensive drain on public resources and victimizes taxpayers. My office refuses to accept that as business as usual,” said Platkin. “The defendant allegedly abused his law enforcement position to steal from the public, and he tried to conceal it with financial transactions designed to fly under the radar.”