By Emily Schopfer
FREEHOLD – A former Middletown Township Police Department sergeant has been sentenced to five years in New Jersey State Prison for crimes related to multiple forms of abusing his authority as a law enforcement officer, Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago said in an Oct. 6 statement.
At a hearing Oct. 2 before Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Jill G. O’Malley, David Ringkamp, 45, formerly of Union Beach, was sentenced on a second-degree conspiracy to commit official misconduct charge. He previously entered a plea in March 2026, Santiago said in the statement.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the investigation into Ringkamp began in December 2021 when members of the New York State Police were surveilling a gun show in Pennsylvania where they observed Millstone resident Nicholas D’Ambrosio purchasing “ghost gun” kits. “Ghost guns are untraceable makeshift firearms assembled from individual parts, which are illegal in the State of New Jersey,” the prosecutor’s office said in the statement.
After following D’Ambrosio to his Millstone vape shop, JR Vapors, New York State Police then contacted New Jersey State Police. Ringkamp and his former wife were later observed by police arriving at the vape shop, and D’Ambrosio was seen concealing the firearm parts in Ringkamp’s vehicle. After police stopped him, Ringkamp identified himself as a sergeant with the Middletown Police Department, according to the release.
After searching Ringkamp’s vehicle, police officers found “ghost-gun kits, cocaine, and dozens of methamphetamine pills,” the prosecutor’s office said. “A search of Ringkamp’s home several days later revealed additional illegal narcotics, including cocaine and anabolic steroids,” the release said. “It was subsequently discovered that Ringkamp had reached out to the New Jersey State Police after D’Ambrosio told him the police were monitoring him, identified himself as a police officer, and lied to get information about their investigation. Ringkamp also deleted text messages to hinder the investigation into both himself and D’Ambrosio, in an attempt to cover their tracks.”
Ringkamp was also charged with utilizing internal law enforcement databases to conduct searches on D’Ambrosio and other individuals on dozens of occasions over a three-year time period, in the absence of any legitimate policing purpose, the prosecutor’s office said in the statement.
D’Ambrosio was arrested in February 2024 and charged with manufacturing ghost gun parts on a 3D printer and drug offenses. He was sentenced in August 2024 to eight years in state prison, according to the release.
Ringkamp joined the Middletown Police Department in 2013 after serving in the Ocean City Police Department, where he was hired in 2012, according to a Feb. 21, 2020, post on Middletown Township’s website. “(Ringkamp) has served in the Patrol Division and has been a member of Monmouth County Regional SWAT team as well as Middletown’s Emergency Service Unit. He is also a firearms instructor, rifle instructor, and less-than-lethal munitions instructor,” the 2020 post read. He served in the U.S. Army as both an infantryman and military police officer from 2007 to 2017.
This article originally appeared in the October 29-November 4, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
