The Mount Olive police officer pleaded guilt to obstructing the administration of law
A Mount Olive police officer granted clemency from an obstruction of law conviction by Gov. Chris Christie during his final days in office has been hired back by his former department.
Ryan Eastridge, 33, of Oxford, has a conditional job offer to start June 30.
He has to graduate from the Morris County Police Academy, which he’s scheduled to start on July 16, Mount Olive Police Chief Stephen Beecher said Friday.
“Ryan had a lot of friends on the department and was a valued member of our force, so were happy to bring him back,” Beecher said in a phone interview.
Eastridge previously paid his own way through the police academy after deciding at the age of 15 that he wanted to work in law enforcement, then was hired by Mount Olive.
He served seven years on the department before having to resign on July 29, 2014 as a component of his guilty plea to a charge of obstruction of the administration of law enforcement.
The charge was a disorderly person’s offense and resulted in a $ 625 fine, which the ten Mount Olive Police officers who attended court with him that day helped him pay immediately. He had to forfeit his job and any future employment in law enforcement — until Christie granted him clemency this past December.
The charge had to do with Eastridge’s neighbor, who asked the officer to see if an employee at the neighbor’s landscaping company had an active warrant because the man was not showing up for work, Lee Vartan, Eastridge’s attorney said Friday.
“That information is technically not confidential,” Vartan said. “If you walk into a police department a duty officer could tell you.”
Eastridge, though, looked it up on a police database.
Ex-cop convicted of obstruction wants his job back
Eastridge should have called Warren County and told authorities that his neighbor had inquired about the fugitive and might have information about his whereabouts, Vartan said.
“He made a mistake, but it’s not something that should be criminally prosecuted,” Eastridge’s attorney said.
The warrant search resulted in the worker, who awaiting trial for sexual assault, to flee to San Diego, where he was eventually captured.
Beecher, who was a captain when the incident occurred, said he had a difference of opinion with prosecutors about Eastridge being charged criminally.
“It was a situation where I thought he should’ve been disciplined,” Beecher said Friday. “But I didn’t think should’ve risen to him having to forfeit his job.”
Eastridge was a ‘participatory and proactive” patrolman in the department, the chief said.
He has to go through the police academy again because an officer can’t be off the job for more than two years or he loses his Police Training Certificate, Beecher said.
Eastridge will be brought back near or a little higher than his salary when he left the department, because adjustments to department salaries have been made over the years. And he will be one step lower on the pay guide.
He also will lose seniority for overtime and outside details. His badge number will also change.
But his former locker, Vartan said, is still vacant at headquarters and he’ll get that back.
“It was really unprecedented how all of this happened,” Vartan said. “It was due as much to him as to everyone who supported him.”
Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AllisonPries. Find NJ.com on Facebook.