Security guard admits official misconduct in sex assault case
TRENTON » A security officer at Ann Klein Forensic Center accused of sexually assaulting a female patient at the state-run mental health facility has pleaded guilty to official misconduct and will serve at least five years behind bars.
Kenneth Glover, 38, of Hamilton, was originally charged with two counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault and related offenses on allegations he vaginally penetrated the victim by force on two separate occasions earlier this year. A grand jury indicted him on the heavy charges in June, but Glover last month reached a plea agreement that calls for most charges to be dismissed.
Glover pleaded guilty Oct. 10 to a single count of second-degree official misconduct on a promise that prosecutors will dispose of his sexual assault and invasion of privacy charges at his upcoming sentencing hearing next month, according to court records.
New Jersey State Police Trooper Jason L. Lapham arrested Glover March 7 at the Trenton-based forensic center. A Superior Court judge during a March 16 detention hearing described the sexual assault charges as being “very serious” and ordered Glover to be jailed without bail on pretrial detention.
Authorities in March hammered Glover with two counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault against a physically helpless victim, two counts of second-degree sexual assault for having supervisory or disciplinary power over the victim, one count of second-degree official misconduct and one count of third-degree invasion of privacy on allegations Glover recorded a sex act using his cellphone to take photographs without the victim’s consent.
At the March 16 detention hearing, Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Laura Kotarba said Glover gave a statement admitting to having sexual relations with the victim in early March but a public defender countered by saying, “Mr. Glover essentially indicates that this person who was at Ann Klein Forensic Center lured him into the room and initiated these acts.”
The state-run Ann Klein Forensic Center serves 199 clients who have been determined by the courts to be “not guilty by reason of insanity” or “incompetent to stand trial” or who require special security measures due to the nature of their illness, according to the state Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services.
Glover worked as a senior medical security officer at Ann Klein Forensic Center from August 2013 until he was suspended without pay in March. His employment status could not immediately be verified, but it was expected he would be fired if the New Jersey Department of Human Services had not already terminated him.
State records show Glover’s annual salary was about $45,000 but earned over $66,000 in overtime pay last year to collect total compensation of nearly $112,000 in 2016. Glover was a married father of six children and had no prior criminal history. Under state law, he must forfeit all of his pension benefits as a public employee guilty of a workplace-related crime of moral turpitude.
Glover could be sentenced to as low as five years of incarceration or as much as 10 years behind bars for his official misconduct, assuming a judge levies a sentence proportionate with a second-degree crime rather than something more lenient. He is being represented by private defense attorney Mark Fury and is scheduled to be sentenced 9 a.m. Dec. 8 before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Bingham II.