New criminal charges in brutality that shut down NJ women’s prison

🔶 NJ prison guard faces new charges

🔶 Indictment part of Edna Mahan debacle

🔶 NJ all-women’s prison in process of closing

More charges have been leveled against one of 15 corrections officers in trouble for brutal cell extractions at the state’s only all-women prison, which is now being shut down.

An eight-count superseding indictment, voted on by a state grand jury on Nov. 17, adds charges of aggravated assault, conspiracy, official misconduct and tampering with public records against 35-year-old Sgt. Matthew Faschan, of Hackettstown.

The prior indictment against 14 other officers was returned in September 2022.

Faschan was the fourth officer to face charges, announced in February 2021, following the brutal overnight cell extractions a month earlier.

He initially faced two counts of second-degree official misconduct and one count of third-degree tampering with public records or information.

Faschan was confirmed by officials on some surveillance video from the January 2021 incident, in which inmates were forcibly removed from cells without justification, according to the state Attorney General’s Office, leaving two of the women seriously injured.

Read More: NJ releases prison video from overnight beating of female inmates 

In June 2021, Gov. Phil Murphy announced that the state would be permanently closing Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton Township.

Read More: Closing Edna Mahan NJ women’s prison is underway 

This past November, Murphy’s administration announced that the first phase of permanently shutting down the embattled women’s prison had been accomplished.

All minimum security inmates have been moved by the state Department of Corrections to a satellite unit about five miles away, which now is housing 176 inmates on an interim basis.

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