In 2023, Lawrence Township Police Department reported that Officer Closson failed to maintain liability insurance on his personal vehicle, which led the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission to suspend his registration and driving privileges. Closson did not notify the department and continued to drive while suspended, and he accessed his own records through the automated traffic system to check the status. After being stopped off duty and issued a warning, Closson resigned before being served with an internal affairs complaint, which was sustained after he left.
Officer Closson failed to maintain liability insurance on his personal vehicle. Due to the lack of liability insurance, the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission suspended his registration and driving privileges. Closson failed to notify the department and continued to drive while suspended. During the suspension period, Closson accessed his own records through the automated traffic system with the purpose to check the status of his registration and driving privileges. Officer Closson was stopped while driving off-duty and was issued a warning for driving while suspended. Officer Closson soon after resigned from the department prior to being served with an IA complaint. The complaint was sustained after he resigned from the department.
Similar records
AnalysisComputed by this site from shared agency, year, charge category, and sanction outcome. Not a legal or factual equivalence.
Timothy Wallace · Lawrence Township Police Department · 2023
TerminatedSuspended 84 days
Sustained charge(s): False report
same agency · same year
Thomas Nealis · Atlantic City Police Department · 2023
No confident pension match found. This officer's record shows they resigned, retired, transferred, or otherwise separated from this agency while an internal affairs matter was pending, which can affect whether a current PFRS/SPRS record exists here. This site links a pension record to a named officer only when the name and the exact employing agency both match a New Jersey Treasury record. See methodology for how these matches are made and what is withheld.
Questions and answers
What is a summary of Joseph Closson's major discipline record?
In 2023, Lawrence Township Police Department reported that Officer Closson failed to maintain liability insurance on his personal vehicle, which led the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission to suspend his registration and driving privileges. Closson did not notify the department and continued to drive while suspended, and he accessed his own records through the automated traffic system to check the status. After being stopped off duty and issued a warning, Closson resigned before being served with an internal affairs complaint, which was sustained after he left.
What is Joseph Closson's major discipline record at Lawrence Township Police Department?
Joseph Closson has one major discipline record at Lawrence Township Police Department in the New Jersey Attorney General's 2020-2025 releases, from 2023. These are final, adjudicated actions, not allegations.
How large is Lawrence Township Police Department, the department Joseph Closson worked for?
Lawrence Township Police Department reported 61 sworn officers to the FBI for 2025. This is department-level context from the FBI's Law Enforcement Employees census, not a statement about Joseph Closson individually.
Sources
[1]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 1754. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
[2]FBI Law Enforcement Employees (LEE), New Jersey subset. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Row 8376. Derived from the public Law Enforcement Employees (LEE) / Police Employee Data dataset (1960-2025), https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. ↩