Judge orders state to produce disciplinary files of Nicodemo, other OPIA prosecutors

The embattled Office of Public Integrity and Accountability will need to disclose the disciplinary or misconduct of five prosecutors involved in the prosecution of a former Hudson County assemblyman, including controversial Deputy Attorney General John Nicodemo.

Superior Court Judge Mitzi Galis-Menendez ordered the state to turn over the files – if any exist — during a hearing on Tuesday at the request of Leo Hurley, the attorney representing Jason O’Donnell (D-Bayonne) in a nearly five-year-old bribery indictment.

In addition to Nicodemo, the state must turn over personnel files related to Acting Warren County Prosecutor Anthony Piccone, the former deputy director of the OPIA, along with Deputy Bureau Chief Jeffrey Manis, and former Deputy Attorney General Eric Cohen.   Also on the list is Anthony J. Robinson, a former deputy attorney general who faced allegations of prosecutorial misconduct after a judge round that he suppressed evidence in a child sex abuse case in Warren County.

The new deputy attorney general assigned to prosecute O’Donnell, Frank Valdinato, pushed back on the request to produce the documents.

“If these attorneys were reprimanded, fired or anything, why wouldn’t he be entitled to that?” Galis-Menendez asked.

Hurley suggested that he was prepared to call Nicodemo and others as witnesses.

“When I put the witnesses on the witness stand that I choose, I intend to contest their credibility,” Hurley.

Cohen, who is now in private practice, and Nicodemo were the original prosecutors assigned to the O’Donnell case.

Nicodemo, who has been accused of prosecutorial misconduct in several other cases, has been reassigned to a desk job in the state Office of Highway Safety.

In July, he was called to testify at Lakewood Rabbi Osher Eisemann’s money-laundering retrial, but prosecutors sought to quash the subpoena and were pushed back on defense attorney Lee Vartan’s demand to produce Nicodemo’s disciplinary record and employment file.  Nicodemo prosecuted Eisemann’s first trial.

Eisemann was first convicted of money laundering and corporate misconduct in 2019, but in 2022, Superior Court Judge Joseph Paone vacated the conviction and set a new trial after determining that the state – specifically Nicodemo –had information that would have exonerated Eisemann that the OPIA did not share the information with the rabbi’s attorney, a Brady violation.

But the Nicodemo issue became moot after Superior Court Judge Joseph Paone directed a not guilty verdict after the state rested in the second trial, saying prosecutors failed to make their case.

Valdiniti and Manis prosecuted the second Eisemann trial.

The timeline of Galis-Menendez’s order in what is known as a Giglio file is unclear.