Camden Man Gets Eight Years for Officer Assault

A Camden man was sentenced to eight years in state prison Thursday for assaulting four Gloucester County sheriff’s officers in 2009.

Brian O. Ojeniyi, 36, was convicted of assaulting the officers at the Gloucester County Justice Center in Woodbury, when he tried to run from a courtroom after learning a warrant had been issued for his arrest because he’d arrived late for a court appearance on a drug distribution charge.

The officers’ struggle to detain Ojeniyi moved from a third-floor courtroom, down a stairway and ended just outside the courthouse entrance.

One of the officers, Thomas Whitaker, testified during Ojeniyi’s trial that he was injured severely enough to threaten his continued employment. Whitaker eventually missed about a year of work because of the injuries he suffered.

Superior Court Judge John Waters imposed the eight-year prison term for aggravated assault on Whitaker, and added four concurrent four-year terms for assault on the other officers and one count of resisting arrest.

Ojeniyi was also given another concurrent three-year term for his admitted cocaine possession in Deptford in 2008. Waters ordered that Ojeniyi be ineligible for parole for four years, and awarded him 715 days off his sentence for time spent in county jail before trial.

Trial Chief Mary Pyffer of the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office sought an extended term for Ojeniyi, based on his record of four prior criminal convictions, reflecting the “defendant’s firmly ingrained proclivity toward illegal behavior.”

His lawyer asked the judge to consider the fact that Ojeniyi completed college after an earlier prison term in order to better himself in deciding the prison sentence.