| Trenton
– Attorney General Stuart Rabner and
Criminal Justice Division Director Gregory
A. Paw announced a reorganization of the
Division of Criminal Justice to put greater
emphasis on pursuing public corruption cases
and fighting the growing menace of gang
violence.
The
reorganization consolidates twenty-one units
within the division into seven. In particular,
fourteen smaller trial units are being consolidated
into three major crime-fighting groups:
corruption, gangs/organized crime, and major
white collar crimes. Three other units,
the Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor
(OIFP), Appeals, and Prosecutors Supervision,
will continue in their current form. A new
seventh unit, Fiscal Oversight for SCC matters,
will absorb much of the Office of Government
Integrity; OGI will be brought directly
into criminal justice and will continue
to pre-qualify vendors who work for the
New Jersey Schools Construction Corporation.
Rabner
and Paw also named Gladys Rodriguez, a deputy
first assistant prosecutor in Camden County,
as a new deputy director of the criminal
justice division. Rodriguez, who was an
assistant prosecutor in Camden County for
20 years, joins Assistant Attorney General
Boris Moczula as a division deputy director.
Assistant Attorney General Patricia Prezioso
will serve as the executive assistant to
the division director.
Moczula
and Rodriguez will split oversight responsibilities
over all of the units except OIFP, which
reports directly to Paw. That Office, headed
by Assistant Attorney General Greta Gooden-Brown,
continues as a major section with the criminal
justice division.
"This
reorganization focuses greater resources
on our top priorities: public corruption
and gangs and provides greater flexibility
to address these complex, labor-intensive
cases," Attorney General Rabner said.
"The people of New Jersey demand and
deserve a government free of corruption,
and with that goal in mind we have nearly
tripled the number of deputy attorneys general
from seven to 20 who will concentrate their
efforts on public corruption.”
In
addition, we need to address the growing
problem of gang violence to make our streets
safer from gangs that traffic in guns and
drugs and terrorize our communities,"
Rabner added. "The attorneys in this
section will be closely involved in the
expansion of Operation CeaseFire to as many
as 14 municipalities in our state.’’
AWe
have a great pool of talent within the Division
of Criminal Justice," Paw said. "This
reorganization will take advantage of that
talent."
The
expanded public corruption section will
be headed by Deputy Attorney General Lewis
Korngut. The gangs/organized crime section,
which will be headed by Deputy Attorney
General John Quelch, will also be responsible
for prosecuting narcotics and gun crimes.
Deputy Attorneys General Debra Conrad and
Mark Eliades will be the deputy chiefs in
the gangs/organized crime section.
The
reorganized major crimes section consolidates
eight different sections that have been
dealing with white collar and financial
crimes, including the environmental crimes
bureau, computer crimes, money laundering,
and labor offenses. The section chief will
be Deputy Attorney General Tina Polites;
the deputy chief will be Deputy Attorney
General Rodger Wolf.
Assistant
Attorney General Jessica Oppenheim will
continue as head of the prosecutors= section;
the anti-bias crime unit will become part
of this section. Deputy Attorney General
Hester Agudosi will be the deputy chief.
Assistant
Attorney General Mark Cronin will head the
appellate section; Deputy Attorney General
Paul Heinzel will be the deputy chief.
Assistant
Attorney General Tracy Thompson, who was
OGI's acting director, will head the new
fiscal oversight section for SCC matters.
Deputy
chiefs in the Office of Insurance Fraud
Prosecutor are Deputy Attorneys General
Norma Evans and John Smith.
Chief
State Investigator Paul S. Morris will continue
to oversee all criminal and civil investigators
within the criminal justice division. Those
resources are also being realigned.
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