N.J. will shutter embattled public corruption office

Attorney General Jennifer Davenport will close the embattled Office of Public Integrity and Accountability and return responsibility for prosecuting public corruption to the Division of Criminal Justice, ending a controversial eight-year experiment that produced accusations of prosecutorial misconduct, years-long delays, and a string of courtroom defeats.

Davenport had pledged to conduct a thorough review of OPIA when Gov. Mikie Sherrill nominated her as attorney general and repeated that commitment during her appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year.  The decision to abolish the office represents the most consequential result of that review and gives Davenport a clean break from a structure she inherited from the previous administration.

All of OPIA’s bureaus — Corruption, Integrity, Conviction Review and Special Investigations — will become part of the Division of Criminal Justice under a sweeping reorganization by Davenport.

“Our office is committed to pursuing justice whether we are prosecuting people who commit violent crime, defraud vulnerable members of society, abuse their positions of public trust, or exploit our children. The restructuring of our criminal prosecution program will allow us to more efficiently and effectively deploy resources, share information and expertise, and collaborate across units,” said Davenport.  “With leadership from experienced, hard-working career public servants, these internal changes will have a meaningful impact on the exceptional work that takes place every day in the Department of Law and Public Safety.”

Deputy First Assistant Attorney General Martha Nye is expected to become interim director of the Division of Criminal Justice and oversee the newly consolidated operation.  Theresa Hilton, who has served in the division’s leadership since 2022 and became its director in January 2025, will move to another position.

The dismantling of OPIA ends the house former Attorney General Gurbir Grewal built in September 2018, with promises of aggressively rooting out corruption, misconduct, and abuse of public trust.

Instead, the office became much maligned for its inability to bring major cases to trial, a succession of leadership changes and failures, discovery violations, and allegations that prosecutors withheld evidence or misled grand juries to obtain indictments.

The restructuring also returns public corruption cases to the Division of Criminal Justice, where they were handled before Grewal created OPIA as a stand-alone office.  The decision amounts to a repudiation of the model Grewal established and his successors, Andrew Bruck and Matt Platkin, maintained.

OPIA’s largest and most politically consequential case was a 112-page, 13-count racketeering indictment against Democratic powerbroker George E. Norcross III and five co-defendants.

Platkin alleged that Norcross strong-armed Philadelphia developer Carl Dranoff into relinquishing development rights and a view easement connected to Camden waterfront property, allowing Norcross and his allies to obtain and later sell development rights aided by millions of dollars in state tax incentives.

Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw dismissed the entire indictment in February 2025.  A unanimous three-judge appellate panel upheld Warshaw’s decision in January, and Davenport declined to ask the New Jersey Supreme Court to reinstate the charges.

“In light of the Appellate Division’s decision, we have concluded that our prosecutorial resources would be best spent on other matters,” the Attorney General’s Office said in February.

The decision ended the threat of prosecution against Norcross and his co-defendants.  Notably, Nye is a protégé of Warshaw; she began her legal career as his law clerk.

Nye later spent five years as an assistant Monmouth County prosecutor and more than seven years as an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey.  She most recently served as the attorney-in-charge of the federal prosecutor’s Trenton office, handling a broad range of criminal cases before joining Davenport’s leadership team earlier this year.

Rebecca Schuman, a former federal prosecutor hired in June to lead OPIA’s anti-corruption efforts, will remain in charge of the Corruption Bureau when it moves to the Division of Criminal Justice.

A graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard Law School, Schuman worked as a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice and as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.  She arrived in New Jersey with a record of successful prosecutions involving bid-rigging, fraudulent political fundraising, theft of veterans’ benefits, and illegal streaming.

The Corruption Bureau will remain the lead office within the Department of Law and Public Safety for investigating and prosecuting bribery, corrupt influence, abuse of power, official misconduct, election fraud, government contract fraud, police corruption, and the theft or misuse of public resources.

But Nye and Schuman will inherit more than bureaus, prosecutors and investigators. They will also inherit unfinished cases, years of accumulated criticism and the task of restoring credibility to a public corruption operation whose biggest prosecutions too often ended with dismissed charges instead of convictions.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Wellbrock, the lead prosecutor on the Norcross case and OPIA’s operational leader for a few months, has been dropped to deputy director overseeing fatal police encounters, policy and trials, and special investigations.  Wellbrock will handle internal affairs investigations involving law enforcement.

Schuman replaced Jeffrey Manis, who was demoted to deputy insurance fraud prosecutor under Bernard Cooney in the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor.

Manis’ departure from OPIA had been underway for about two months.  As of May 15, his name had been removed from all OPIA cases already filed in court.

His standing inside the office collapsed following the failed prosecution of Rabbi Osher Eisemann, a prominent Lakewood educator who was indicted in 2017 and convicted of money laundering and corporate misconduct in 2019.

Superior Court Judge Joseph Paone overturned Eisemann’s conviction in 2022 after determining that the state possessed potentially exculpatory evidence but had failed to provide it to the defense. The Attorney General’s Office unsuccessfully appealed and then elected to retry Eisemann.

John Nicodemo, a failed dinner theater actor-turned-prosecutor, handled Eisemann’s first trial.  Nicodemo became the subject of allegations from four former state and federal prosecutors who accused him of withholding evidence from defendants or misleading grand juries.  More accusations followed.

Between the two trials, it became clear that Nicodemo withheld critical information from Eisemann’s attorney.

Nicodemo was later removed from courtroom work and assigned to a desk job at the Division of Highway Traffic Safety.

Between the two trials, it became clear that Nicodemo withheld critical information from Eisemann’s attorney.

Manis and OPIA supervisor Frank Valdinoto handled the second prosecution, but Paone dismissed the remaining charges after the state rested and the jury was excused, finding that prosecutors had failed to present evidence proving Eisemann committed a crime.

The Eisemann debacle also sidelined Manis from the Norcross prosecution. Platkin brought in Eric Gibson, a former Philadelphia assistant district attorney and federal prosecutor, to supervise Wellbrock.

Gibson resigned in April after just seven months as OPIA’s director. Deputy First Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Kormann became interim chief but quietly left state government last month to join Dughi, Hewit & Domalewski as a partner in its criminal defense and government investigations practice.

The reorganization concludes an unstable succession of OPIA leaders.

Tom Eicher, who formed the office under Grewal, retired in March 2024. Drew Skinner, a former federal prosecutor recruited from outside OPIA, succeeded him but left after eleven months. Gibson came next, followed by Kormann and Wellbrock.

The office’s problems extended far beyond Norcross and Eisemann.

In 2021, OPIA charged Saddle Brook Police Chief Robert Kugler with official misconduct and corruption for allowing police escorts for funeral processions involving a funeral home owned by his family.

The indictment came while Kugler was running as the Republican candidate for Bergen County sheriff. He was suspended as police chief but remained in the race, losing to Democratic Sheriff Anthony Cureton by a 54%-46% margin.

Superior Court Judge Marilyn Clark dismissed the indictment in November 2022, finding that Kugler had violated no law by permitting the escorts.

Clark also found that Deputy Attorney General Eric Cohen, who presented the case to the grand jury, omitted important information that could have benefited Kugler.  He is now an associate at Stone Magnanini, a North Jersey law firm.

“Presenting evidence in fair context, and presenting material exculpatory evidence is certainly required,” Clark said.

The ruling exonerated Kugler and cleared the way for him to regain his police chief post. Cohen later left the Attorney General’s Office.

In April 2025, Superior Court Judge Reema Sethi Kareer dismissed an indictment against former Phillipsburg Councilman Frank McVey, who was accused of threatening Mayor Todd Tersigni in a blackmail scheme. McVey spent years trying to pry discovery from the state, which was legally obligated to provide it but purposely and strategically withheld it.  An indictment against former Councilman Robert Fulper was also dismissed.

The OPIA decided over two years ago that it would not prosecute a Gloucester County official for the death of two dogs in his county vehicle in 2022, but opted to keep that secret until last month.

Two people familiar with the investigation confirmed that the OPIA had wrapped up its probe into the former Mantua Township committeeman, but then-OPIA director Drew Skinner decided to keep that under wraps.

Weldon Powell, a 28-year veteran of the Division of Criminal Justice, will remain as chief of detectives.  Jillian Carpenter will stay on as deputy director, overseeing bias and security, child exploitation, forfeiture, and fraud.  Derek Nececkas, who joined the DCJ in 2021 after over a decade with the Union County Prosecutor’s Office, will also remain as deputy director, handling conviction review and technology coordination. 

Lauren Bonfliglio, who served as chief of staff to Hilton, will become deputy director with jurisdiction over appeals, DNA processing, supervision of prosecutors, and the State Office of Victim Witness Advocacy.   Cassandra Montalto, a 17-year veteran of the Attorney General’s office, will be promoted to deputy director for major threats and organized crime.  

The Matt O’Donnell albatross

OPIA also spent years pursuing a small-ball corruption sting built around tax appeal attorney Matt O’Donnell, who became a cooperating witness after admitting that he used straw donors to help secure public contracts for his law firm.

O’Donnell supplied investigators with the names of about twelve politicians he believed could help prosecutors charge them with crimes.  Investigators permitted him to approach potential targets while wearing a recording device, a controversial practice known as selective integrity testing.

Five people on O’Donnell’s list were eventually charged, but the cases became bogged down for years.

While cooperating with the state, O’Donnell continued representing public bodies and billed government clients more than $4.5 million. He pleaded guilty to two charges connected to his use of straw donors in 2021 but has not been sentenced because cases generated by his cooperation remain unresolved.

A bribery case against former Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell — no relation — remains pending more than eight years after the alleged conduct.   Last week, a panel of state appellate court judges sided with O’Donnell and ordered the OPIA to turn over certain evidence they had withheld from defense attorney Leo Hurley.

Prosecutors allege that Matt O’Donnell delivered $10,000 in cash to Jason O’Donnell in a Baskin-Robbins bag during his unsuccessful 2018 campaign for Bayonne mayor, seeking a promise that his law firm would receive tax appeal work if the candidate won.

But the case has become consumed by disputes over the state’s conduct.

A judge castigated OPIA after prosecutors disclosed an internal group-chat message following years of denying that responsive communications existed.  Defense attorneys later learned that the state had destroyed cell phones used by investigators who communicated about the case despite continuing discovery demands.

An appellate court last month ordered the state to disclose internal communications concerning authorization of a key April 2018 recording at the center of the prosecution, although the judges rejected some of the defense’s broader discovery demands.

Pearl Minato, OPIA’s chief of staff from 2019 to 2022, wrote an email before Matt O’Donnell approached the former assemblyman stating that the “sole purpose” of the encounter was to generate a conversation about illegal campaign support.

The email surfaced years after the state denied it existed, feeding defense allegations that there was no evidence or open criminal file involving Jason O’Donnell before investigators sent their cooperating witness to meet him.

Minato later became director of the Division of Criminal Justice.  Gov. Phil Murphy nominated her for a Superior Court judgeship in 2023, but opposition from key senators and concerns about her OPIA tenure made confirmation unlikely.  Murphy withdrew her nomination in May 2025.

OPIA defended its record in 2024, saying it had obtained 76 indictments and made 80 accusations involving 244 defendants between 2018 and 2023. But the office did not provide a detailed breakdown of convictions, plea agreements, acquittals or dismissed charges.

The agency also maintained that complicated public corruption and white-collar cases take time and that losing some prosecutions is an inevitable part of holding powerful people accountable.

The rest of OPIA’s work will continue inside the Division of Criminal Justice.

The Integrity Bureau includes the Fatal Police Encounters unit, which independently investigates civilian deaths during encounters with law enforcement and deaths in custody under the Attorney General’s Independent Prosecutor Directive.  The directive establishes a ten-step process intended to preserve the independence of investigations into police use of force and custodial deaths.

The bureau also includes the Cold Case Network and the Conviction Review Unit, which examines innocence claims from people convicted of indictable offenses in Superior Court. Incarcerated applicants receive priority and must present objectively credible and verifiable evidence of innocence before a case receives a full reinvestigation.

The Special Investigations Bureau handles internal affairs investigations involving law enforcement personnel within the Department of Law and Public Safety and investigates allegations of serious misconduct by county prosecutors and high-ranking law enforcement officials.

It also helps oversee internal affairs policies and training across New Jersey’s law enforcement agencies.  Working with the Office of Justice Data, the bureau developed a public dashboard with statewide information on internal affairs investigations and the annual Major Discipline Report, which identifies law enforcement officers who received major discipline, the conduct involved, and the sanctions imposed.

Moving those functions into the Division of Criminal Justice restores much of the organizational structure that existed before Grewal created OPIA in 2018.