Man Sentenced In Heroin-Impaired Crash That Killed Watchung Police Officer

An Ocean County man was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison for vehicular homicide in a June 2014 crash that killed a Brick Township man who had just begun working as a Watchung police officer.

Jason Wolek, 39, of Jackson, received the eight-year sentence as part of a plea bargain, according to a report in the Asbury Park Press. He must serve 85 percent of the term before he can be eligible for parole under the state’s No Early Release Act, said Superior Court Judge Linda Baxter, who sentenced Wolek.

Christopher Hoffman was killed June 7, 2014, four days before his birthday, when authorities say Wolek made a left turn in front of Hoffman’s motorcycle and collided with it. Wolek pled guilty June 4, and admitted to being high on heroin at the time of the crash, which happened on East Veterans Highway in Jackson.

According to the Asbury Park Press report, Deanna Hoffman asked Baxter to sentence Wolek to life in prison for causing her son’s death. She said Christopher Hoffman was riding his motorcycle home from National Guard service at Fort Dix and planned to go out to dinner with his girlfriend that night to celebrate his birthday.

“I will never ever say that my son was killed in an accident, because it was murder,” Deanna Hoffman said, according to the report.

At the time of the crash, Wolek was on probation, and his license was suspended because of prior incidents of driving with a suspended license and for non-payment of an insurance charge and child support. He had a long criminal record as well, according to the report.

Wolek has been held in the Ocean County Jail since his arrest June 8, 2014, according to jail records.

Hoffman, who began working for the Watchung Police Department a month before he was killed, was a graduate of the Ocean County Police Academy and had worked as a Class II Special Officer in Seaside Heights prior to getting hired in Watchung.

Hoffman, who had moved to Brick in 2005, also served in the Air Force, according to his obituary.