Ruotolo named Director of Criminal Justice

Acting Union County Prosecutor Lyndsay Ruotolo will become the new director of the state Division of Criminal Justice on July 12, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said on Thursday.

Ruotolo will replace Veronica Allende. Grewal announced that Gov. Phil Murphy intends to nominate her to a Superior Court judgeship.

Ruotolo is the daughter of the late Andrew Ruotolo, who also served as a federal prosecutor before Gov. Jim Florio named him Union County Prosecutor in 1991.  He died four years later at age 42 of esophageal cancer.

In April 2019, Grewal pulled Acting Prosecutor Michael Monahan and replaced him with First Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Davenport days after the prosecutor’s office took control of the internal affairs functions of the Elizabeth Police Department.

Ruotolo worked in the prosecutor’s office for four years before joining the U.S. Attorney’s office in 2018.  Prior to that, she as a litigation associate at McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter in Morristown.

She received a degree in drama and theater from New York University and worked for the American Ballet Theater for two years before starting at NYU Law School.

Ruotolo’s mother, Mary, was elected to the Union County Board of Freeholders in 1998 and re-elected in 2001.  She did not seek re-election to a third term in 2004.