Gov. Phil Murphy will nominate Jessica Cardone, a senior assistant prosecutor in Hunterdon County, as the new Warren County Prosecutor.
Cardone will replace Anthony Picione, the controversial former deputy director of the embattled Office of Public Integrity and Accountability. She is expected to become acting prosecutor on September 30.
Supporters of her nomination say she is well-positioned to end a period of dysfunction in the Warren County Prosecutor’s office.
Picione became the acting prosecutor in April after James Pfeiffer was removed following allegations of mismanagement and malfeasance, and the state attorney general’s office took over the office.
State Sen. Douglas Steinhardt (R-Lopatcong) will support Cardone’s nomination. Before becoming a prosecutor, Cardone was an associate at Florio Perrucci Steinhardt, the senator’s law firm. She represented school boards in Camden, Monmouth, and Warren counties and specialized in special education.
The 42-year-old Cardone lives in Warren County. Earlier this year, she successfully prosecuted a man for sexually assaulting an 11-year-old child under the Jessica Lunsford Act, which requires a mandatory 25-year prison term for victims under age 13. She supervises the Special Victims, Forensics, and Megan’s Law units and investigates allegations of elder abuse and human trafficking.
Pfeiffer, a former Superior Court judge named prosector by Murphy in 2019, claims that his removal was the result of an OPIA retaliation against him for disagreeing with their legal opinion and his refusal to rubber stamp what he called “illegal activities.”
Picione has also faced severe criticism for his office’s selective integrity testing and claims of prosecutorial misconduct by him and some prosecutors he supervised, including embattled Deputy Attorney General John Nicodemo. A Superior Court Judge has ordered the state to produce Picione’s disciplinary record, if any, as part of a state prosecution.