Summer Jam 2015 at MetLife Stadium

State Police patrol inside the gates at MetLife Stadium in this file photo. (William Perlman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

TRENTON -- A New Jersey state trooper was indicted by a grand jury last fall, almost a year after he allegedly attacked a New York man with a beer bottle during a dispute outside MetLife stadium, NJ Advance Media has learned.

The trooper, Steven Hodge, remains suspended without pay after the off-duty incident, which happened following a New York Giants game and left 26-year-old Nicholas Guidi with a broken nose and other injuries.

Guidi's attorneys now claim in a lawsuit against the State Police that Hodge's fellow troopers whitewashed the 2014 attack by painting Guidi as drunken and violent in a police report and arresting him on a bogus charge that was later thrown out.

The attorneys, Brian Schiller and Josh McMahon, also claim prosecutors dragged their feet while investigating the case against Hodge, ultimately filing minor charges that could allow the trooper to get off without serving jail time.

A Nov. 18, 2014 photo of Nicholas Guidi, showing the injuries he suffered after allegedly being attacked with a beer bottle by an off-duty state trooper.

Law enforcement officials did not announce the charges brought against Hodge or his indictment, a copy of which was obtained by NJ Advance Media when a reporter inquired with prosecutors on Tuesday.

State Police spokesman Capt. Stephen Jones confirmed that Hodge was suspended on Nov. 9, 2015, 10 days after his indictment.

Jones said an internal affairs investigation was "immediately opened" by the division when Guidi claimed he was attacked by Hodge. That investigation is now on hold pending the outcome of the criminal case, Jones said.

Robert Ebberup, Hodge's criminal defense attorney, denied the allegations.

"My client is not guilty and I'm supremely confident that is going to be the result (in this case)," Ebberup said. He declined to comment further.

A spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, which oversees the State Police and represents its members in civil cases, declined to comment on the lawsuit. Lawyers for the state have disputed Guidi's claims in court filings.

A spokeswoman for the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, which investigated the case and brought the charges against Hodge, confirmed Hodge was indicted but did not respond to additional messages seeking comment.

MELEE AT METLIFE

The alleged attack happened outside the stadium following the Giants' 16-10 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Nov. 16, 2014, records show.

Guidi, a 49ers fan from Holbrook, N.Y., was celebrating the win inside a car with his brother and friends on their way out of the stadium parking lot when he got into an argument with Hodge and his brother, according to Schiller and McMahon, who said there were multiple witnesses to the altercation.

They claim that after the argument, Hodge and his brother walked back to their car, but that Steven Hodge, who they said was visibly intoxicated, returned to Guidi's vehicle with a beer bottle.

They claim that Hodge, who had just joined the force in August of that year, flashed his badge and identified himself as a trooper before striking Guidi in the face with the bottle.

Hodge then allegedly ran back to his vehicle while Guidi and several others chased after him, Guidi's attorneys said. Someone called 911 and several uniformed state troopers responded to the scene, records show.

A police report written by one of the troopers, Christopher Madia, tells a different story.

Madia wrote in the report, a copy of which was obtained by NJ Advance Media, that he responded to a call about a fight in progress and arrived to find Guidi "bleeding, yelling, belligerent and out of control."

The trooper wrote he also encountered "two calm white males" -- referring to Hodge and his brother -- who told him Guidi had "smeared his bloody face on the hood of their pickup truck."

The smear marks, the trooper wrote, "looked intentional, not from some incidental contact but as if they had been painted on the hood of the truck."

Madia arrested Guidi for disorderly conduct, and wrote that Guidi continued to disobey instructions and "began to kick the windows and head butt the windows" after being cuffed and placed in the back of a troop car.

Madia wrote that Guidi was "heavily intoxicated" and that Guidi's brother "even stated to me at that time that his brother was out of control and he was not surprised that I arrested him."

Guidi's lawyers dispute much of the trooper's account. They claim Madia failed to interview eyewitnesses and omitted in his report the fact that Hodge had identified himself as a trooper.

"Instead of (Hodge) being locked up on scene for attacking someone, the victim of that violence was arrested, and Trooper Madia essentially covered it up," McMahon said in an interview.

Reached by telephone, Madia declined to comment.

THIRD-DEGREE CHARGES

McMahon said his client suffered a broken nose and a concussion from the attack, which has left his face permanently scarred and has cost him thousands of dollars in medical bills.

The disorderly conduct charge against Guidi, filed in East Rutherford municipal court, was dismissed on August 19, 2015, court records show.

Schiller and McMahon, both former assistant Union County prosecutors now running a private practice in Westfield, said it took the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office another two months to indict Hodge.

In an October letter to then-Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli, the attorneys expressed concern over the "competence and length of the purported criminal investigation," which was being conducted by the county's Confidential Investigations Unit.

That same day, a grand jury handed up an indictment against Hodge for third-degree aggravated assault and third degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, records show. Third degree charges in New Jersey often come with a presumption of non-custodial sentences, meaning the offender can avoid jail time.

The indictment does not provide any details about the incident other than specifying that Hodge allegedly wielded a bottle as a weapon in the assault.

Guidi's attorneys wrote in their letter to the prosecutor that the evidence in the case warrants more serious charges, including second-degree aggravated assault -- which would require Hodge to serve time behind bars -- and other charges including conspiracy, filing a false report, official misconduct and obstruction of justice.

But, they said the prosecutor's office has been "completely uncooperative."

"It's crystal clear: A trooper is being given special treatment that any other citizen in this state would not receive," McMahon said.

Neither the prosecutor's office or the state Attorney General's Office would say whether they were considering additional charges.

According to public payroll records, Hodge was paid about $60,000 in the year between the alleged attack and his suspension.

Court records show Hodge has an April 18 status conference before Judge Margaret Foti at Superior Court in Bergen County.

The lawsuit, which alleges authorities deprived Guidi of his civil rights and maliciously prosecuted him, was filed in December.

In a February brief, lawyers from the Attorney General's Office sought to have the civil suit dismissed. They argued that even if the allegations were true, Hodge was "acting outside the scope of his employment" as a trooper because he was off duty.

They also wrote that the state of New Jersey and the State Police -- which were named as defendants along with Hodge, Madia and a third trooper who was on the scene, Corey Guarcello -- were immune from the suit under state law.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.