A former Long Branch police officer who had pleaded guilty to groping a woman was sentenced to one year of probation and will be barred from public employment, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office announced Friday.

Patrick Joyce Jr., 36, had originally been charged with criminal sexual contact and harassment after a Feb. 1 incident at Jack’s Goal Line Stand, a Long Branch sports bar that hosted a party that evening to celebrate new and promoted cops.

A 21-year-old woman accused a drunken Joyce of putting his hands down her pants and “grabbing and fondling her naked buttocks” before trying to shove a hand down the front of her pants, according to public documents.

Joyce admitted to touching the woman “offensively” and pleaded guilty in April to the lesser charge of harassment.

Patrick D Joyce Jr, 35, a 12-year veteran of the Long Branch Police Department was sentenced to one year of probation and stripped of his job and future public jobs in NJ after admitting he offensively touched a woman at a police promotions party in February. — Monmouth Prosecutor (@MonCoProsecutor) June 7, 2019

The incident triggered a blistering statement from Chief of Police Jason Roebuck, who said Joyce had “defied the public trust and harmed the reputation of our department.” Joyce was initially suspended from his $121,232 job before he agreed to step down.

The woman, whose name is being withheld because of the nature of the crime, accused the city and the police department of negligence in monitoring Joyce both before and during the incident, and announced plans to sue for more than $1 million.

Joyce joined the city payroll in 2004, according to public records, and amassed a troubling record over the next dozen years as a cop. While on-duty throughout a recent five-year period, he reported using his baton, his fists and other types of force more than almost any other officer in the state, according to The Force Report, the most comprehensive statewide database of police force in the U.S.

In 2010 he was charged with aggravated assault, and later pleaded guilty to simple assault, after an off-duty fight outside a Neptune Township nightclub.

Joyce did not immediately return a request for comment.

Blake Nelson can be reached at bnelson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BCunninghamN.