Woman Gets $250K After NJ Trooper Stole Intimate Video In Traffic Stop

UNION COUNTY, NJ — The New Jersey Turnpike Authority announced it will pay $250K to settle a lawsuit filed against a former State Trooper from Union County after he downloaded a sexually explicit video from a woman's cell phone during a traffic stop, according to the NJTA.

The former trooper, Marquice Prather, of Linden pulled over a woman on the Garden State Parkway in July of 2016 and accessed an intimate video on the woman's phone and copied it to his own phone. The NJTA announced Tuesday that the board of commissioners unanimously approved a settlement for Garcia's lawsuit.

During the traffic stop, because the woman did not have her insurance card with her, she asked to show her phone to Prather, which had an application with her insurance information on it. Unbeknownst to the woman, Prather found an explicit video on the phone and downloaded it to his own phone, according to Turnpike documents.

The video on Prather's phone was revealed because of an audit and investigation undertaken by the State Police's Internal Affairs Investigative Bureau beginning in Nov. of 2016.

During that investigation, State Police officers interviewed the woman over the phone and told her Prather made a copy of the video. She then filed a lawsuit almost a year later, demanding $750K from the NJTA.

According to NJ.com, Prather lost his job after he pleaded guilty in 2017 to stopping other women drivers to ask them out. In the criminal case, he also admitted to looking through women's phones, and authorities said he reproduced images and videos.

He was fined and received three years' probation.

The woman eventually reduced her demand of $750K to $250K, after recently settlement conferences and discussions. The NJTA agreed to pay $250K after outside counsel confirmed it was a reasonable amount given the nature of the case and the predicted future cost of defense and potential appeals.

The case is still being heard in Middlesex County, according to court records.