A man pulled over an alleged traffic violation in March 2017 is attempting to sue the New Jersey State Police and three troopers after he says he was "violated so many times" during a search of his genital area along the side of the road.

The up-close-and-personal body search came as two troopers were attempting to locate marijuana on a driver who, they claimed, smelled like pot, according to court papers and body camera video footage obtained.

The driver, who said he was passing through Southampton Township in Burlington County on his way to work, was stopped by Trooper Joseph Drew for trailing the vehicle in front of him too closely.

The March 8, 2017, incident was described in detail in a notice of claim under the Tort Claims Act filed on Jan. 22. The claim, however, was filed after the 90-day statute of limitations, likely making it too late for the motorist to sue a government body in state Superior Court. He can still file a civil rights lawsuit in federal court.

The search was captured on a trooper's body-worn camera, which was recently obtained and posted online Monday by John Paff, a government records watchdog. Paff was alerted to it after the driver's attorney, Arthur Lang, filed the notice of claim on Jan. 22.

The motorist is named in the court papers, but NJ Advance Media is withholding his identification because he wasn't charged with a crime and his citation was dropped.

The driver's face was blurred in the video footage by the State Police before it was given to Paff.

Lang, the attorney, said he wasn't prepared to discuss the case and declined to comment.

The bizarre traffic stop started, the court documents say, after the trooper asked the driver, "Do you have a medical marijuana card?"

"No why?" the motorist responded, according to the notice.

The driver says he was then pulled out of his vehicle, handcuffed, and placed in the back of a police cruiser. A passenger in the car was also cuffed and placed in the police vehicle.

"Trooper Drew was asking me to give him the marijuana or whatever he thought I had to make everything easier," the notice states. "I told Trooper Drew several times that I had no drugs and I did not know what he was talking about."

Drew searched the car but didn't find anything, the notice claims.

He then searched the driver's waistband.

"Try not to rape me, alright," the driver can be heard saying in the video.

Drew responds, "We don't do that."

Still, nothing was found.

That's when the latex gloves came out.

Drew took the driver to the front of his police cruiser after the driver requested the search be done in the view of the dashboard camera. The trooper then searched his genital area, the video shows.

The driver can be heard shouting as the trooper searches him.

"You better hope this is legal," he screams. "Did you find it? Did you find it? Yo, you guys are really ridiculous."

A second trooper, Andrew Whitmore, was also present at the scene. The footage obtained by Paff through a public records request is from Whitmore's body-worn camera. Whitmore is also named in the tort notice. The third trooper the driver is attempting to sue is unnamed.

The trooper eventually takes the handcuffs off the driver and walks him back to his vehicle. The same is done with the passenger.

Whitmore can be seen searching the back of the police cruiser to make sure nothing was dropped in the car.

He can be heard saying to Drew, "Either he had some strong a** weed just a minute ago before you stopped him or ..."

Whitmore's hand can be seen raising in the corner of the video as if he was shrugging his shoulders.

Drew wrote the driver a ticket for tailgating but it was dismissed in municipal court, according to an attorney who represented the driver in that court, John Sanders.

The driver writes in his tort claim that Drew, the trooper, requested the ticket be dismissed.

The driver says he met with members of the State Police's Internal Affairs Unit on Jan. 21.

A State Police spokesman, Sgt. Jeff Flynn, confirmed an internal investigation into the incident is ongoing. The troopers remain on active duty, Flynn said.

He declined to comment on whether the troopers complied with State Police policy, citing the ongoing investigation.

Editor's Note: This story was updated to include information from a State Police spokesman. It also clarified that the video footage was given to Paff with the driver's face blurred.

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

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