16-Year-Old Pepper Sprayed, Strip Searched In NJ Jail, Lawsuit Says

TRENTON, NJ — Mercer County held a 16-year-old boy in its adult jail twice in 2024, even after state officials warned the county that the practice broke the law, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

During those stays, the teen was strip searched, pepper sprayed while naked and held near adult inmates, the complaint says. The story was first reported by NJ Monitor.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in state Superior Court in Mercer County on behalf of a plaintiff identified as “W.H.” He turned 18 in September, according to the complaint.

It names Mercer County, County Executive Dan Benson and Mercer County Correction Center Warden Timothy Friel as defendants. Benson and Friel are sued in their official capacities.

The suit also names Judge Rodney Thompson, the presiding judge of the Family Part in Mercer County, who signed the orders sending the teen to the jail. The plaintiff is seeking only a court declaration against Thompson, not damages.

“This is a case about Defendants’ clear constitutional violations inflicted on some of our most vulnerable members of society: children in our youth justice system,” the complaint says.

What the lawsuit says happened

W.H. was 15 when he was arrested in August 2024 and charged under the state’s youth justice code, according to the complaint. Thompson released him to Mercer House, a youth shelter.

The suit says he left the shelter without permission in September 2024 and was arrested again on Oct. 1. Thompson ordered him detained that day. The suit says the judge did not say on the record where W.H. would be held, but the signed order read: “Juvenile remanded to Mercer County Correctional [sic] Center.”

He spent about two weeks in the adult jail before returning to Mercer House, according to the complaint.

On Nov. 14, 2024, after what the suit describes as “an altercation at Mercer House,” W.H. was sent back to the jail. Thompson’s order that day cited “multiple detention alternative violations” and again sent the teen to the county correction center.

Both times, the complaint says, W.H. didn’t learn he was going to an adult jail until he arrived, and he was never told why.

The suit says jail officers classified him as a child but strip searched him each time he was admitted. During the November admission, officers ordered him to spread his legs and cough while naked, with at least four male officers present, according to the complaint.

When he refused, officers pepper sprayed him, the suit says.

“As a result of the officers pepper spraying Plaintiff, pepper spray got in Plaintiff’s eyes, got in Plaintiff’s mouth, and ran down to Plaintiff’s genitals,” the complaint says. It says he kept feeling a burning sensation for one to two days, despite medical treatment.

The lawsuit also says the teen was held alone in a cell that had no mattress or pillow on his first night back in November. He could see and hear adult inmates as they were moved through the unit, and he got “intimidating looks” from them.

According to the lawsuit, another child was being held in the same unit during his first stay.

After about two weeks, W.H. was moved to the Middlesex County Juvenile Detention Center, according to the suit. He was later sent to a youth detention center in Essex County and was released to a family member in February 2025.

State told the county to stop

The state’s Juvenile Justice Commission, now called the Youth Justice Commission, had already warned the county, the lawsuit says.

On Sept. 24, 2024, a week before W.H.’s first stay, the commission wrote to the jail’s warden at the time, Charles Ellis, saying that housing youth in the adult jail violated state law.

On Nov. 20, 2024, while W.H. was in the jail for the second time, the commission’s executive director, Jennifer LeBaron, wrote to Benson.

“It has come to our attention that Mercer County has allowed youth under the age of 18 charged with delinquency and remanded to secure youth detention to be placed in the Mercer County Correction Center,” the letter says.

The letter acknowledges “challenges impacting the ability to readily secure a detention placement for youth.” But it says the county must “immediately cease the housing of youth in the Correction Center, remove youth from the facility, and work to find appropriate juvenile detention placements using its Shared Services Agreements with other counties.”

Thompson was among those copied on the letter.

The lawsuit says the county was holding W.H. when the letter arrived and did not “immediately cease” holding him there.

New Jersey’s juvenile code says a juvenile being held on a charge “shall not be placed in any prison, jail or lockup.” Federal law also bars holding youth charged with delinquency anywhere they have sight or sound contact with adult inmates.

The suit makes four claims: that holding the teen in an adult jail violated his due process rights, that it amounted to punishment before he was convicted of anything, that it was cruel and unusual punishment under the state constitution, and that the county had an unconstitutional “policy, practice, and custom” of jailing children with adults.

It asks the court to bar the county from holding children in any adult jail it runs, and to award damages, attorneys’ fees and costs. The plaintiff has requested a jury trial.

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