UPDATE: Brick Police Officer Indicted in Social-Media Stalking of Ex-Girlfriend

A Brick Township police officer has been indicted on charges of stalking and official misconduct after he was accused of harassing his former girlfriend through social media, Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato said Friday morning.

Justin A. Delaney, 33, of Brick, has been suspended without pay by the township police department, which fully cooperated in the investigation, the prosecutor said. The indictment returned by an Ocean County grand jury on Wednesday alleges that between November 2012 and May 2013, Delaney used various social media, including Instagram and Facebook, to publish harassing, annoying, humiliating and alarming messages about a former girlfriend, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office.

Investigators were able to link the various social media accounts to Internet Protocol addresses that were registered to Delaney. Delaney is also alleged to have used a prepaid cellular telephone to make harassing and offensive text messages and phone calls to the victim.

The indictment also alleges that Delaney used a password he obtained in his official capacity as a law enforcement officer to access a law enforcement investigative data base without authorization and improperly accessed the data base after the victim asked Delaney for his assistance in trying to determine the source of the harassing telephone calls and text messages, Della Fave said.

Delaney allegedly accessed the data base and provided the purported results of that inquiry to the victim, and created the false impression that the cellular telephone at issue was untraceable. Subsequent investigation assisted by the Ocean County High Tech Crime Unit revealed that Delaney was the person who procured the prepaid cellular telephone which was used to make the offensive and disturbing communications, Della Fave said.

Delaney is currently free on $30,000 bail, no 10 percent. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison on the official misconduct charge and up to 18 months on the stalking charge, Della Fave said.

(Greater Media photo)