Fire Marshal’s dog died one year ago, but AG’s office still hasn’t solved the case

It’s been one year since the death of K-9 Ember, a red fox Labrador assigned to the Gloucester County Fire Marshal, but the New Jersey Attorney General’s office has been unable to crack the case.

The dog died under mysterious circumstances while in the custody of Shawn Layton, who is also a Democratic township committeeman in Mantua.  Ember was found dead in a county vehicle parked at Layton’s home  Layton’s own dog also died in the same incident.

The investigation currently belongs to the frequently hapless Office of Public Integrity and Accountability.  The agency declined to say why they have been unable to complete the investigation into the canine death after a year.

“It is not the practice of our office to comment on criminal cases,” a spokesperson said.  “It is not appropriate for our office to comment in a way that would lead people to assume the guilt or to assume the innocence of individuals who may or may not be charged.”

But the transference of the case from the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s office to the state’s public corruption unit six months ago could be a sign that the focus of the probe is not about the dog’s death but rather about the actions of government officials – including law enforcement, a police source said – following Ember’s demise.

Initially, the dog’s death was not formally reported to law enforcement, even though a large contingent of first responders dug a grave for the dogs and constructed a makeshift memorial at Layton’s home on Saturday morning.

County Commissioner Frank DiMarco told the New Jersey Globe he was notified that morning.

After Sheriff Jonathan Sammons learned of the incident on Monday, he reported it to the county prosecutor, who opened up an investigation and late exhumed the dog.

Standard procedure for outfitting K9 first responder vehicles includes an option for air conditioning to remain on while their handler is not present.  It’s unclear whether Layton’s county vehicle was outfitted correctly on a day with scorching temperatures.

The death of the three-year-old Ember, who was trained to investigate arson incidents, hit Layton hard.  He used sick and vacation days during an extended absence following the dog’s death and missed township committee meetings for three months.  His colleagues voted to retroactively grant a leave of absence after local Republicans argued that he had violated a state law that creates a vacancy when a local elected official fails to attend eight consecutive meetings without an excused absence.

The controversy around the dog became a central issue in a bid by Republicans to take control of county government, but Democrats narrowly held on to two seats up for election in 2022.

The Office of Public Integrity and Accountability has faced heavy criticism after a trial court judge – and later a panel of appellate court judges – found a deputy attorney general assigned to the unit, John Nicodemo, committed a Brady Rule violation by withholding evidence in the prosecution of a Lakewood Rabbi charged with embezzlement.

At 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.

Earlier this year, 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  court spokesperson told the New Jersey Globe.

The Office of Public Integrity and Accountability allowed O’Donnell to continue practicing law for more than two years, billing millions of dollars to public entities, even after learning that O’Donnell had committed multiple crimes.  They also appear to have failed to notify the Office of Attorney Ethics.

The unit has been unable to solve other high-profile cold cases, including racist flyers distributed anonymously during 2017 campaigns in Edison and Hoboken.