Bayville Ex-Corrections Officer Indicted For Stealing, Selling Ammo: Officials

BAYVILLE, NJ — A former NJ Department of Corrections (NJDOC) officer was indicted on charges of stealing ammo and selling it on the secondary market.

Timothy Morris, 57, was a NJDOC lieutenant and also served as its range master, Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said. A grand jury returned a 24-count indictment against Morris, who oversaw the agency’s shooting ranges and allegedly stole ammunition from his employer, only to sell it for hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal profit.

Morris served as range master since 2008 until the time of his arrest in March 2025. He "used his position to submit orders for surplus ammunition, with the intent of selling it on the secondary market to several buyers, in exchange for cash and checks made directly to himself," Davenport said.

“This defendant was a law enforcement officer entrusted with the power to use taxpayer resources to run firing ranges for nearly two decades. As alleged in the indictment, he exploited that position of public trust for his own personal benefit,” Davenport said. “This type of behavior not only depletes public funds, but it also erodes the public’s trust in government. Our office will always work to ensure that people who hold positions of public trust take that privilege and responsibility seriously and we would hold them accountable when they do not.”

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. 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. He also did not pay state income tax.

The indictment charges him with 24 counts including the following:

• Official Misconduct (second degree)
• Theft by Unlawful Taking (second degree)
• Financial Facilitation of Criminal Activity (second degree)
• 11 counts of Financial Facilitation of Criminal Activity (third degree)
• Five counts of Failure to Pay or Turn over Taxes (third degree)
• Five counts of filing or preparing a fraudulent return (third degree)