Thomas A. Eicher, the director of the sometimes controversial New Jersey Office of Public Integrity and Accountability after a series of hits and misses, has announced his retirement, ending a prosecutorial career that has spanned over three decades.
The 70-year-old Eicher announced his departure, which had been anticipated for several months, at a staff meeting this morning, the New Jersey Globe has confirmed.
Also stepping down is Assistant Attorney General Anthony Picione, the OPIA deputy director. The number three in the unit, Peter W. Lee, retired in January.
It will be up to Attorney General Matt Platkin to name a new OPIA head and reshape the office created more than five years ago by his predecessor, Gurbir Grewal.
Then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie hired Eicher as a federal prosecutor in 2003. He prosecuted a number of public corruption cases, including those of real estate developer Charles Kushner, Rene Abreu, a politically connected West New York businessman, Atlantic City Council President Craig Callaway, Atlantic City Councilman Ramon Rosario, Camden City Councilman Ali Sloan-El, and Marci Plotkin, a former chief financial officer for the Kushner Companies.
Under Eicher’s leadership, the OPIA conducted a much-heralded investigation into allegations of misconduct and racism in the Clark Police Department and charged Mayor Sal Bonaccorso with official misconduct in an unrelated charge discovered during the probe.
Last week, Superior Court Judge Joseph Paone refused to dismiss an indictment against a prominent Lakewood Rabbi, Osher Eisemann. Paone found that Nicodemo withheld evidence during the first trial; a new trial is set for January.
But Eicher has also faced severe criticism for his office’s selective integrity testing and claims of prosecutorial misconduct by some who work for him, including embattled Deputy Attorney General John Nicodemo. Nicodemo is no longer a line prosecutor; he’s working for the traffic safety department. Another former OPIA prosecutor who faced some disapproval, Eric Cohen, no longer works for the state.
An itsy-bitsy corruption sting operation on Eicher’s watch led to criminal charges against five relatively minor officials connected to a shadowy government witness, former municipal tax appeals attorney Matthew O’Donnell. More than four years later, four of the five prosecutions remain pending.
An itsy-bitsy corruption sting operation on Eicher’s watch led to criminal charges against five relatively minor officials connected to a shadowy government witness, former municipal tax appeals attorney Matthew O’Donnell. More than four years later, four of the five prosecutions remain pending.
O’Donnell pled guilty in 2021 to using straw donors to obtain public contracts for his law firm, O’Donnell McCord.
Since entering into a plea agreement, O’Donnell has billed government bodies for tax appeal work—sometimes precluding other firms from obtaining the work—and represented the State of New Jersey in court as a municipal prosecutor.
Attorneys say O’Donnell billed public entities over $4.5 million while serving as a cooperating witness.
While O’Donnell had initially agreed to a seven-year state prison term, a revised plea agreement he signed on October 25, 2021, appears to have acknowledged more criminal acts beginning about five weeks after his first plea and eight months after he began cooperating with prosecutors.
OPIA faced claims that they interfered with the Bergen County sheriff’s race in 2021 after they indicted Robert Kugler, the GOP candidate and Saddle Brook police chief alleging that he detailed police escorts for funeral processions to cemeteries involving a local funeral home he owns. The indictment came just as ballots were being mailed.
Superior Court Judge Marilyn Clark dismissed the charges against Kugler the following year after finding that Cohen, who prosecuted Kugler, left out critical information that might have benefited the suspended police chief to the grand jury that indicted him.
“Tom Eicher has served with dedication and honor in one of the most influential roles in New Jersey government. He joined the State after three decades of service to this country, during which time he mentored a generation of prosecutors and never shied away from holding wrongdoers to account, no matter how powerful they were,” Platkin said. “With the State, Tom assumed a role that enabled him to have a transformative, positive impact on the law enforcement profession, and to strengthen the public’s trust in government institutions, particularly the criminal justice system. He maximized that potential – working tirelessly in the pursuit of justice and serving as a trusted advisor to me and my predecessors.”