LONG BRANCH -- The suspension of five officers after an investigation found they failed to adequately patrol the town is an "embarrassment," the mayor said.

"I'm aggravated for a couple different reasons," Mayor Adam Schneider said. "It's an embarrassment for the town. I know virtually all of them, and all of them know better. They were taking advantage of being on the midnight shift, and they were derelict in their operations."

The five officers -- and three supervisors -- are currently serving suspensions without pay, said the township's public safety director, Jason Roebuck. The suspensions range from 10 days to 45 days depending on the officer.

Roebuck said the officers, all of whom worked the midnight shift, were punished after an internal investigation found they "failed to patrol their zones adequately."

In most cases, the officers were found to be idling in their patrol vehicles for much longer than necessary, Roebuck said.

"They were doing it for too long, there wasn't good enough reason in our eyes to say that you were sitting for that long," he said.

Contrary to other reports, the officers were not sleeping on the job, Roebuck said.

The investigation, which concluded earlier this year, started after someone sent the department an anonymous letter with several allegations against the officers. One of those allegations was that an officer was punching in and then going to work another job; another claimed an officer was driving a limo while he was supposed to be on patrol.

Roebuck said most of the allegations were found to be not true.

The officers were told on Jan. 21 that they would be disciplined, Roebuck said. All of the officers complied with the punishment.

"We realize that ... working a midnight shift that you're probably not going to drive for eight hours straight," Roebuck said. "Some of them pushed the limit of that into things that we found untenable. Some of them pushed it pretty far, some of them didn't push it as far."

Roebuck said he could not release the names of the officers who were suspended.

Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.