A New Jersey state trooper is accused of trying to cover up that he pulled over women during traffic stops just to ask them out on dates.

Marquice Prather, 37, of Linden, New Jersey, was arrested Friday on charges of third-degree tampering with public records or information and fourth-degree falsifying or tampering with records. He was suspended without pay and released without bail.

Prather's attorney said he will plead not guilty.

State police began looking into the three-year veteran after several women complained about his conduct. Investigators found that Prather showed a pattern of stopping women between the ages of 20 and 35 to ask them to go on dates or for their phone numbers.

Investigators said Prather would turn off his wireless microphone during the stops and falsely report it had malfunctioned. They also said he manipulated data to conceal that he was targeting a high number of women drivers.

The trooper joined the police force in 2013 and makes an annual salary of $60,749, state payroll records showed. He was assigned to the division's Holmdel barracks, which patrols the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey.

A conviction on the third-degree charge carries a sentence of three to five years in state prison and a fine of up to $15,000, and fourth-degree carries a sentence of up to 18 months in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

Simon Dumenco Simon Dumenco has written for a wide variety of publications including Advertising Age, Allure, The Awl, Condé Nast Traveler, Details, Esquire, Glamour, New York Magazine, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Travel+Leisure and T: The New York Times Style Magazine, as well as publications around the world including Courrier Japon (Japan), GQ Korea and Russian Vogue.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io