Officer record · As reported by the employing agency

Sterling Wheaten

Atlantic City Police Department · 1 record · 2023

About this data

Records on this page come from the Attorney General's major discipline releases: final, post-appeal discipline as reported by the employing agency. They are sustained charges, not allegations.
All figures are self-reported by agencies to the New Jersey Attorney General and shown as reported. Blank fields read "not reported," never "no."
Data is a yearly snapshot. Cases are not tracked across years, and major discipline appears only in the year it became final after all appeals.
In internal affairs data, allegations are not findings: many complaints end unfounded, exonerated, or not sustained.
Any compensation figure below comes from New Jersey Treasury pension data, a separate source from the discipline records. It is matched to this officer by name and employing agency at high confidence, not by certified identity.

Full caveats and definitions: methodology. To request a correction against the official record: corrections.

Major discipline · 2023^[1]

Other sanction

Rank as reported: Officer
Sustained charge(s): Indictable Offense
Separated while IA pending: No

Plain-language summary (this site, from the cited record only)

Officer Sterling Wheaten was charged under Pennsylvania statutes with Simple Assault (18 Section 2701 A2), a grade 2 misdemeanor, Strangulation (18 Section 2718 A2), a grade 2 felony, and Harassment (18 Section 2709 A2), a summary offense, the Atlantic City Police Department reported. The charges stemmed from a domestic violence investigation, and Yardley Boro Police issued an arrest warrant. The department sustained a charge of Indictable Offense. Wheaten was suspended pending the outcome of the criminal charges.

Synopsis as reported by the agency

Officer Sterling Wheaten was charged with Pennsylvania Commonwealth Criminal Statutes, Simple Assault - 18§2701§A2, a grade 2 Misdemeanor offense, Strangulation - 18§2718§A2, a grade 2 Felony offense and Harassment - 18§2709§A2, a Summary offense. It is alleged that, while off duty, Officer Wheaten was the subject of an investigation into allegations of Domestic Violence. Yardley Boro Police issued an arrest warrant for Officer Wheaten regarding a complaint in which a victim asserts that Officer Wheaten engaged them in a verbal argument, held them down and covered their face with a garment, causing said victim to struggle to breathe. Officer Wheaten was suspended pending the outcome of criminal charges.

Compensation and pension

Active member · NJ Treasury YourMoney^[2]

This site: records-based match

Base salary (pension basis): $124,240
Pension fund: Police and Firemen's Retirement System (PFRS)
Reported years of service: 17 years, 11 months

How to read this

The amount is as reported by the New Jersey Department of the Treasury in its YourMoney pension data, as of March 31, 2026. It is the pension-basis figure and may not include overtime, accrued leave, stipends, or other pay. The link between this officer and this pension record is a records-based match at high confidence (exact name and exact employing agency), not a certified identity. If it is wrong, we will remove it: corrections.

Sources

[1]New Jersey Major Discipline Data, 2020-2025. New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. Sheet "Major Discipline Data", row 1461. Snapshot retrieved 2026-07-03. ↩
[2]YourMoney Active Pension Members (PFRS/SPRS subset). New Jersey Department of the Treasury. Row 226807, snapshot as of March 31, 2026. Derived from the public YourMoney Active Pension Members dataset, https://www.yourmoney.nj.gov/. ↩