North Brunswick Police Officer Pleads Guilty in Route 130 Auto Fatality

A North Brunswick police lieutenant is facing at least three years in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to a charge of official misconduct in the death of another officer.

Lt. Keith R. Buckley, 45, admitted today that he was on duty when he drove a rented sports car at a high rate of speed and endangered the life of fellow North Brunswick Police Lt. Christopher Zerby, who was killed when the car crashed in August, 2008.

Buckley had been charged with vehicular homicide and official misconduct after authorities determined that he drove Lt. Zerby in a rental car on Route 130 in North Brunswick during work hours, before crashing into a utility pole shortly after 11 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2008. Zerby was pronounced dead at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick later that morning.

Earlier this year, the New Jersey Supreme Court barred Buckley's defense team from making what they termed an irrelevant argument over whether a jury could consider whether Lt. Zerby’s failure to wear a seat belt contributed to his death. The decision was the first time a state court ruled on whether failure to wear a seat belt is relevant to the cause of death in an auto fatality.

Under a plea agreement reached with the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, Buckley will forfeit his job and pension, and can no longer hold a public job in New Jersey.

Buckley will return to court on February 27, 2014, where he will be sentenced to  a three-year term in a New Jersey state prison with no chance of parole until he serves at least two years of the sentence.