NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – A Manalapan Township Police Department Patrolman was indicted on a 19-count for allegedly stalking and sending inappropriate messages and photos to two teenage girls, prosecutors announced on Thursday.
An investigation began in August after detectives received information that Kevin Ruditsky, 47, who is currently suspended, had been sending inappropriate messages and photos to one of the victims, who was 16 at the time.
The investigation found that the incident began during Manalapan Township’s 2023 National Night Out event, an annual community outreach campaign where numerous police departments countywide participated.
Ruditsky was in full uniform at the time of the event, and allowed the 16-year-old to sit in his patrol car. On that same day and in the following days, he allegedly began sending her sexually explicit messages and photos from social media, despite the victim repeatedly telling him that she was underage.
Detectives also found that several days after the National Night Out event, Ruditsky pulled the victim over while she was driving on Route 9, unlawfully handcuffed her, and attempted to kiss her while his dash camera and body-worn camera were both deactivated.
On another occasion, while on duty, he parked his marked patrol vehicle outside of the victim’s home in the middle of the night, after she had refused to provide him with her home address.
The investigation also allegedly revealed that Ruditsky sent inappropriate messages to a second victim in December 2022, when she was 17. Authorities also allege Ruditsky conducted unauthorized searches of both victims in a law enforcement database, with no valid law enforcement purpose.
“That a sworn member of law enforcement would begin to so egregiously violate the public’s trust while in uniform at an event specifically intended to strengthen trust between law enforcement and the public is, in a word, unconscionable,” Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond Santiago said in a statement in August 2023. “Swift action in addressing this conduct, culminating in the charges being announced today, was an absolute imperative.”
Ruditsky is charged with engaging in a pattern of official misconduct, nine counts of official misconduct, three counts of computer criminal activity, three counts of endangering the welfare of a child, and single counts of hindering apprehension, fourth-degree impersonating a law enforcement officer (while suspended from duty), and stalking, according to Santiago.