A police report obtained by the Daily Record has revealed startling details of the Sept. 25 aggravated assault arrest of Dover Councilman Sergio Rodriguez, alleging the victim was knocked unconscious after the Ward 2 Democrat shoved him to the ground, causing him to hit his head on a concrete wall.
The report, obtained from the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office through the Open Public Records Act, states that the first-term councilman “caused significant bodily injury” to the unnamed victim during an incident on West Dickerson Street just after 11 a.m. Rodriguez was arrested later that day.
That same day, Mayor James Dodd, who ran with Rodriguez in the 2023 election, publicly called for Rodriguez to resign. “Recent actions attributed to Councilman Rodriguez cannot be overlooked,” Dodd wrote in a statement posted on his Facebook page.
“Regrettably, today Councilman Rodriguez has exhibited behavior that is unacceptable and does not reflect the principles of leadership we strive for in our local government,” Dodd wrote.
The charges were made public, but the police report adds dramatic detail of the confrontation near the Meridian Transit Plaza. Rodriguez, it states, committed aggravated assault, a third-degree crime, by “purposefully or knowingly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life recklessly caused significant bodily injury to X.X. specifically by approaching X.X.’s from behind pulling on his shirt and shoving him onto the ground, where X.X. head hit a concrete wall, causing a laceration of the back of X.X.’s head and causing X.X. temporary loss of consciousness.”
Aggravated assault in New Jersey is a third-degree crime that calls for a prison sentence of three to five years, if convicted, and a fine of $15,000, but also “a presumption of non-incarceration.”
But Rodriguez, a local lightning rod who has posted social media videos of his confrontations with alleged public drunks on public streets, and has publicly clashed with Police Chief Jonathan Delaney, is still facing charges for a similar alleged assault on another man during a street confrontation in February. Rodriguez later issued a public apology and deleted an Instagram video he posted of the incident.
That case resulted in misdemeanor charges of simple assault and harassment, alleging he injured a man when he kicked a bottle out of his hand. The case was moved to Kinnelon Municipal Court, where a Nov. 12 hearing is scheduled.
Contacted Thursday by the Daily Record, Rodriguez declined to comment or to answer questions about the case “at this time.”
