FREEHOLD - A man who wore the uniform of an Asbury Park police officer for 16½ years is headed to state prison for 10 years without the possibility of release on parole for what a judge said was some of the most egregious behavior a sworn officer could engage in.

Superior Court Judge Joseph W. Oxley sentenced former officer Keith German, 48, of Tinton Falls, to two consecutive five-year prison terms for two counts of official conduct, one related to tipping off gang members to confidential police information, and the other related to his on-duty stalking of a woman who had rebuffed him.

The fact that German, convicted with two gang members in the "Operation Dead End" case, was a police officer helping known gangsters in a small community plagued with crime made his actions "more egregious," Oxley said.

But Oxley said German committed the most egregious act a law-enforcement could possibly engage in by wearing the uniform to stalk a woman, Dorothy Howard, and directing people to circulate fliers falsely saying she was HIV positive. The stalking took place in late 2013, when people were getting shot in Asbury Park "all too frequently," the judge said.

"I find it particularly egregious and troublesome, the fact he was going in a uniform, in a marked unit, all over Asbury Park, stalking and harassing Miss Howard," Oxley said.

No mention was made during the sentencing of the fact that German absconded for two weeks while his trial was underway during the summer. Authorities captured him in North Carolina and returned him to New Jersey for the remainder of the four-month trial.

During the sentencing, Howard sat in the courtroom's front row, smiling, as German sat in the jury box, with his back kept to her.

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"I don't know what, if any, peace this can give to Miss Howard," Oxley said of the sentence, adding how difficult it must have been for the woman to come to court and testify about the ordeal German had put her through.

"He tried as hard as he could to break me," Howard said outside the courtroom, after the sentencing.

People still ask her all the time if she is HIV positive, and she has to try to convince them otherwise, she said.

"I'm just happy that it's over, and he got what he deserves," Howard said of German. "That's where he deserves to be – with the criminals."

At the hearing, Joseph Cummings, an assistant Monmouth County prosecutor, said German had "a fascination" with Howard and did implausible, ridiculous things to get her to notice him, including offering her $200 because he lost a bet on who could have sex with her.

"When he couldn't get the eye of Dorothy Howard, he took things further," Cummings said, explaining he enlisted a long list of people to help him spread rumors and circulate fliers saying she was HIV positive, even though he knew she wasn't. He knew that because he had followed Howard when she went to get an HIV test, Cummings said.

Cummings and Matthew Bogner, an assistant Monmouth County prosecutor, argued at trial that German fed gangsters confidential police information and even tipped them off to the "Operation Dead End" wiretap investigation into their gang activity in exchange for their help in stalking and disparaging Howard.



German's attorney, Robert Ward, disputed that German had tipped off gangs to the "Dead End" investigation and said he only used the word "wiretap" once in passing in a lengthy conversation with a gang member about Howard.

Ward said that while German's actions were "foolish, ill-advised and obtuse at best," as an officer, he mentored and helped people in the community.



"He was helping people at the gyms, helping people at the PBA basketball tournaments," Ward said. "That's who he is."

But testimony at the trial revealed that on a day when gangsters were plotting to shoot a rival in Asbury Park, German, while on duty, was repeatedly calling James Fair, a leader of a set of the Bloods in the city, directing him to hang the disparaging fliers about Howard in local businesses.

"It is a fact, you took an oath, you took a sacred oath to protect the people and residents of Asbury Park," Oxley told German. "It is one of the smallest of 53 municipalities in Monmouth County, yet it is plagued year in and year out with unspeakable acts and crimes in that small resort community."

German told court employees interviewing him prior to his sentencing that he was targeted in the investigation because he is black, Cummings said.

Oxley said race played no role in German's predicament, but rather, "It was the breach of that most sacred of trusts."

The judge imposed a third five-year term without the possibility of parole on German for a third count of official misconduct, and ordered that term to run concurrent with the others terms.

Oxley also ordered German to permanently forfeit any possibility of ever holding public office.

Minutes earlier, German stood before Oxley in a mustard-colored jumpsuit, his back to spectators in the courtroom gallery.

"Do you have anything you want to tell the court before I impose sentence?" the judge asked him.

"No, sir," German replied.

"Nothing?" the judge asked, incredulously.



German remained silent.

German was convicted Sept. 27 of the three counts of official misconduct and five other crimes related to stalking Howard and helping gang members avoid detection and apprehension. The other charges he was convicted of were harassment, conspiracy to commit stalking, hindering the apprehension of gang members, unlawfully accessing the police database to help gang members and computer theft related to that unlawful access. The sentences Oxley imposed for official misconduct also covered those other crimes.

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"This sentence sends a strong message that there will be zero tolerance for cops who commit crimes," Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni said afterward in a prepared statement.

"It only takes one bad cop to adversely affect the reputation of so many who do the job with honor and integrity," the prosecutor said. "For these reasons, the public should be reassured that we will continue to prosecute crooked cops to the fullest extent of the law."

German was one of 53 people charged in the "Dead End" investigation targeting gang-related street crime in Asbury Park in 2013 and early 2014. He stood trial beginning June 6 with Fair, 29, of Asbury Park, and Haneef Walker, 25, a member of the Crips in Asbury Park. Both gangsters were convicted of numerous crimes. Walker faces sentencing Wednesday, followed by Fair on Thursday.

The remaining "Dead End" defendants pleaded guilty.

Despite German's claims that he was targeted in the investigation because of his race, Cummings said investigators weren't looking for him, but instead "stumbled upon'' his criminal activity when they picked up his conversations with gang members on wiretapped telephone calls.

Cummings called it "comical'' that German was playing the race card, especially since he was heard in the intercepted phone calls frequently using racial slurs and saying he was "tired of dealing with black people," and was "close to joining the Klan."

Cummings said race played no part in German's prosecution.

"He sits here for one reason, because he earned it," Cummings said. "He's a criminal."

The "Dead End" investigation began in the summer of 2013 and lasted 14 months in an effort to stem violent street crime and gun offenses in Asbury Park.

In addition to uncovering a wide variety of crimes, from organized shoplifting to gun violence, the investigation also revealed coordinated efforts of gang members, including random gunfire, to distract police from their activities and conduct counter-surveillance on police, with Germans' assistance.

The probe got its name from the two dead end streets in Asbury Park, Dewitt Avenue and a section of Jersey Street in the Washington Village public housing complex, where the gangsters would congregate.



Kathleen Hopkins: 732-643-4202; khopkins@app.com