TRENTON – A Trump-loving city cop has surmounting legal problems like her ex-POTUS idol.
Tara Dzurkoc, who is out on injury leave from Trenton Police, is being investigated by the FBI for pummeling a slight Guatemalan woman in 2020, sources told The Trentonian.
The revelation comes after a weekend outing with her new cop boyfriend turned violent in Bordentown Township, leading to the pair’s arrest on petty disorderly persons charges, records show.
The victim in the FBI probe, Gloria Ramirez, had her teeth knocked out after being repeatedly punched by Dzurkoc, according to a lawsuit brought against the embattled Trenton cop. She cooperated and provided a statement about the encounter to federal special agents, The Trentonian has learned.
The woman’s attorney, Tom Mallon, said the suit is ongoing but declined to comment on the FBI probe.
It’s unclear how long federal investigators have been examining the case for possible charges, but The Trentonian learned that officers who worked with Dzurkoc on the U.S. Marshal’s New York/New Jersey Regional Task Force were summoned by the FBI for interviews.
They were asked to give accounts about what happened during the Jan. 7, 2020 incident, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the ongoing investigation.
The FBI doesn’t confirm ongoing investigations, but sources said they were “1,000 percent” certain that Dzurkoc was being targeted for the alleged beatdown of Ramirez, who had a crying 3-year-old draped on her when she was wailed on by cops.
The alleged police assault happened as members of the U.S Marshal’s New York/New Jersey Regional Task Force served a warrant on Ramirez’s son on the 1400 block of Liberty Street.
Cops took Ruyuan Reyes-Ramirez into custody without a problem. But, according to the lawsuit, the encounter went off the rails after cops started beating on Ramirez’s daughter.
Ramirez pulled out her phone and started filming, which apparently angered officers – at least one who was heard on video footage obtained by The Trentonian demanding that Ramirez turn over the phone.
The 4-foot-11-inch Ramirez, photographed by her immigration attorney with a blue and battered face and front teeth missing, was charged with aggravated assault on law enforcement, resisting and obstructing justice.
Dzurkoc claimed the woman kicked and hit her with her cell phone, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The charges were dismissed after Ramirez completed pretrial intervention, according to the lawsuit.
In the midst of a messy divorce with her husband, former PBA Local 11 president George Dzurkoc, the “Trump Train” cop hasn’t exactly maintained a low profile since going out months ago on injury leave following an on-duty crash, sources said.
She was arrested over the weekend with her beau, Mercer County sheriff officer Matt Sickler, after the couple allegedly tussled with a patron at the Best Western hotel in Bordentown Township, sources said and records confirmed.
The scrape occurred sometime after the couple was stopped by Hamilton Police earlier in the day over suspicion of a domestic flap, sources said.
The couple, pictured together at a police golfing junket earlier in the day, was uncooperative and refused to provide their names to officers, sources said.
“I heard the body camera footage is really, really bad for her,” a source said of the exchange, describing Dzurkoc as combative and profane with officers who pulled her out of the vehicle, because they thought she might have been held against her will.
Hamilton Police said no one was charged and the matter was referred over to Trenton Police internal affairs.
Dzurkoc hasn’t exactly maintained a low profile since going out on injury leave a few months after being involved in an on-duty crash, sources said.
Sickler allegedly exchanged words with the 60-year-old patron, Christopher Lopez, in the hotel lobby before the fisticuffs.
Sources said Dzurkoc also mixed it up as a desk clerk tried to intervene.
She reportedly uttered some not-so-nice words at Bordentown cops when they arrived to break up the melee, sources said.
All three combatants were charged with simple assault, records show.
Lopez, of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, was also charged with harassment for allegedly taunting Sickler, records show.
Dzurkoc was suspended with pay following her arrest, sources said.
A spokesman for Mercer County Sheriff Jack Kemler said Sickler, who makes $70,499 a year, was placed on desk duty following the incident but refused to answer further questions citing the ongoing investigation.
Dzurkoc’s name precedes her, as she has been accused in previous lawsuits of using excessive force against arrestees. One of those, involving Jamal Barlow, remains pending in federal court, records show.
She was also named in a suit from 2009 that claimed TPD officers maced and put people, including children, in chokeholds during a baby shower.
Dzurkoc allegedly called women who attended the party “sp*cs” and “Puerto Rican b**ches,” according to media reports.
In 2018, Trenton paid out $55,000 to settle another excessive force lawsuit with Theresa Discher, who also claimed Dzurkoc was among cops who dislocated her arm during a kidnapping investigation in 2016.
Dzurkoc was dubbed a sick-time GOAT after logging 367 days of off time from 2012 to 2016.
And she was one of six cops who sued TPD last year, claiming she was removed from her choice spot on the U.S. Marshal’s task force as part of a “hit job” orchestrated by close ally of former Trenton Police Director Sheilah Coley.
