Citing a judge’s recent decision to toss indictments against fourteen corrections officers charged with beating prisoners at a state-run women’s prison, Senate President Nicholas Scutari wants an independent monitor to watch over the embattled state Office of Public Integrity and Accountability.
“It is clear from the track record of the office that greater oversight and accountability are needed,” said Scutari. “The credibility of law enforcement is at stake. The public needs to have confidence in the ability of the office to carry out its responsibilities fairly, effectively, and with adherence to the law. An independent monitor will help restore trust in the OPIA.”
The decision of Judge Christopher Gerringer to dismiss the indictments against prison guards who allegedly forced inmates from their cells and assaulted them was a stunning rebuke to the troubled arm of the state’s anti-corruption unit that has faced a constant flow of failures and allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.
State Sen. Joseph Cryan (D-Union) called for an independent inspector general last year.
Earlier this month, New Jersey NAACP President Richard T. Smith, New Jersey AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech, and Bishop Jethro James, the president of the Newark-North Jersey Committee of Black Churchmen filed an appeal in the Superior Court of New Jersey’s Appellate Division claiming Attorney General Matt Platkin refused to answer repeated requests for the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee the embattled Office of Public Integrity and Accountability.
The court filing cites several failures: in the case of Rabbi Osher Eisemann, convicted in 2019, a Superior Court judge found prosecutors had withheld exculpatory evidence and on retrial, the charges were dismissed entirely at the close of the State’s case; In 2022, a judge dismissed charges against Saddle Brook Police Chief Robert Kugler after finding OPIA had misled the grand jury by failing to disclose that police escorts for funeral homes were a common county practice; charges later that year against a former state corrections officer evaporated when OPIA admitted it had failed to record its own interview with the defendant, as required by state law; and in April 2025, the office conceded in court filings that it had destroyed state-issued cell phones containing text messages in a long-running corruption probe involving ex-Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell. Those phones, the plaintiffs argue, might have contained crucial evidence.
The big fish was the prosecution of South Jersey Democratic leader George E. Norcross III and others on a 112-page racketeering indictment. Seven months later, Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw also dismissed all of the charges.
