HARDYSTON — The off-duty veteran police officer should have known better, authorities say, when he walked into a Sussex County bar with two known associates of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang.

That was Anthony Gerardi Jr.’s first mistake, they said.

His second, authorities allege, was lying to officers who were called to Tony’s Restaurant and Pizza Bar in Hardyston after a nasty brawl that January night that left one patron seriously injured.

After a two-month investigation, Gerardi, a 24-year veteran of the Fairfield police force, was arrested Friday on charges of official misconduct, hindering prosecution and failing to perform his duty as a public servant.

“That night, Gerardi had the choice to be a police officer or solidify his association with the Hells Angels,” Sussex County First Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Mueller said yesterday. “He made the wrong choice.”

Authorities say the 48-year-old Gerardi identified himself as an officer that night and then gave Hardyston police false information, saying he didn’t know who had struck the patron in the head with a beer mug. Gerardi also denied his two companions, Sean Sweeney, a Hells Angels member, and Bernard Krynicki, a recruit, had anything to do with it, authorities said.

But video surveillance cameras that captured the Jan. 12 melee indicated something different, authorities said. The off-duty officer saw everything.

“He was only two feet away from them,” Mueller said. “He had a front-row seat.”

Gerardi went to the Route 94 bar with Krynicki and Sweeney, whose girlfriend was celebrating her birthday that night. Later, Krynicki had words with a patron, then hit him in the head with a beer mug from behind, prosecutors said, and Sweeney, wearing a Hells Angels cap, then tried to punch the patron’s wife.

When police arrived, Gerardi gave them false information “in an effort to protect both Krynicki and Sweeney from prosecution,” the prosecutor’s office said in a news release.

Krynicki, 45, of North Arlington, and Sweeney, 42, of Hamburg, were arrested two weeks after the incident and charged with aggravated assault and weapons offenses. Krynicki posted bail, while Sweeney was released on a summons.

Gerardi, who faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted on the top charge, has been released on his own recognizance. He could not be reached for comment Monday. Fairfield police announced the arrest but referred all questions to Mueller’s office.

A corporal in the Essex County department’s 29-member patrol division, Gerardi has been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the criminal case and any administrative charges that may follow, according to a statement on the Fairfield Police Department’s website. Gerardi is eligible for retirement next March. A conviction could cost him his job, along with an annual retirement pension of about $61,600, records show.

Related coverage:

• Off-duty N.J. cop charged with giving false information to police following bar fight involving Hells Angels member

