Following allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in a case involving a prominent Rabbi from Lakewood, another lawmaker is calling for a probe of embattled Deputy Attorney General John Nicodemo.
Assemblyman Sean Kean (R-Wall), who represents Lakewood in the legislature, wants the attorney general’s office to look at Nicodemo’s role in the prosecution of Osher Eisemann after Superior Court Judge Joseph Paone voided a 2019 conviction after determining that the prosecutor deliberately withheld evidence from the Rabbi’s defense attorney that might have resulted in an acquittal.
“They absolutely need to review it, and they need to hold people accountable,” Kean said. “It’s a major allegation, not a trivial matter.”
Eisemann’s attorney, Lee Vartan, filed a motion last Wednesday alleging Nicodemo purposely withheld crucial evidence and intentionally committed separate Brady violations that require prosecutors to disclose key information held by the government to defense counsel.
Vartan said it was the second Brady violation.
State Sen. Robert Singer (R-Lakewood) this week said he thought the attorney general’s office had a vendetta against the Lakewood Rabbi. State Sen. Joseph Cryan (D-Union) has also asked for a review.
Since his Brady violation, Nicodemo has been moved out of his role as a prosecutor – he is now working as a diversity officer, albeit at a higher salary – and Cohen departed the attorney general’s office last Friday.
In an April 2021 court hearing where Nicodemo sought to seal a list of potential targets in a state corruption probe involving cooperating witness Matthew O’Donnell, an attorney representing a former assemblyman facing bribery charges requested a certification from the attorney general’s office that all evidence had been turned over.
But the judge, Mitzi Galis-Menendez, decided she would accept Nicodemo’s word and not require any certification.
In that case, the judge acknowledged that the attorney general’s office made a mistake in court filings that disclosed the names of the potential targets. The attorney general’s office filed the motion to seal records two days after the New Jersey Globe sought copies of public court filings.
An attorney representing Holmdel in a civil lawsuit against O’Donnell accused Nicodemo of communicating about the case directly to a Superior Court judge without notifying him.
Nicodemo made an unusual end-run around court procedure by sending a letter to Judge Linda Grasso Jones by mail rather than electronically filing it. Because Nicodemo didn’t follow the procedure, the court staff uploaded it themselves three weeks later, a spokesman later told the New Jersey Globe.
Nicodemo did not immediately respond to a call to his cell phone.
