Attorney General Jennifer Davenport dissolves the standalone anti-corruption unit created in 2018 and returns its prosecutors to the Division of Criminal Justice after judges repeatedly tossed indictments for discovery violations and prosecutorial mismanagement.

New Jersey will abolish the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability on September 13, dissolving the separate anti-corruption prosecution office that former Attorney General Gurbir Grewal created in 2018 and returning its detectives, prosecutors and investigators to the Division of Criminal Justice.

Attorney General Jennifer Davenport served as Grewal's First Assistant Attorney General when the office formed. The Office of Justice Data, a transparency unit within Davenport's Department of Law and Public Safety, lists September 13 as the closing date. Davenport did not issue a formal press release; she provided a statement to the New Jersey Globe.

In 2018, Grewal promised aggressive pursuit of corruption, misconduct and abuse of public trust when he recruited former federal prosecutor Thomas Eicher to lead the new unit. Between 2018 and 2023, the office secured 76 indictments covering 244 defendants, by its own count. It released no granular data on how many ended in conviction, plea, acquittal or dismissal. Eicher retired in March 2024, beginning a revolving door that saw Drew Skinner depart after eleven months, Eric Gibson resign after seven months and Nicholas Kormann serve as interim chief from April to August 2026 before leaving for private practice. Andrew Wellbrock led operations for several months before Davenport abolished the office.

The office's highest-profile prosecution charged Democratic powerbroker George E. Norcross III and five co-defendants with racketeering, filing a 112-page indictment with thirteen counts. Prosecutors alleged Norcross muscled a Philadelphia developer off Camden waterfront property, then leveraged state tax incentives to profit from the land. Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw threw out the entire filing in February 2025. A unanimous three-judge appellate panel backed Warshaw in January 2026. Davenport then declined to ask the New Jersey Supreme Court to reinstate the charges, ending the prosecution.

The Attorney General's Office said in February that "in light of the Appellate Division's decision, we have concluded that our prosecutorial resources would be best spent on other matters."

Courts dismantled OPIA's work across multiple jurisdictions, court records show. In 2022, Paone threw out Eisemann's 2019 money-laundering conviction after finding prosecutors sat on evidence that could have cleared him. The state failed to prove guilt at retrial, and Paone voided the remaining counts once the state finished its case.

Clark tossed the 2021 indictment against Kugler in late 2022, ruling that funeral escorts broke no law and that prosecutor Eric Cohen had kept exculpatory material from the grand jury. Kareer dismissed indictments against former Phillipsburg Councilman Frank McVey and former Councilman Robert Fulper in April 2025 after the state withheld discovery for years.

The most sweeping dismissal came in October 2025, when Garrenger quashed with prejudice the indictments against 14 corrections officers at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. Garrenger cited four years of prosecutorial mismanagement, negligence and a constitutionally vague indictment. He ruled that compelling the defendants to endure additional months while the state corrected its errors would compound a speedy trial violation against officers who had stayed off the job without pay since their arrest. Defense attorney Michael Rubas called the case "another example of OPIA prosecuting matters that should never have been brought in the first instance."

The pattern of discovery violations extended beyond Edna Mahan. In the pending bribery case against former Assemblyman Jason O'Donnell, an appellate panel ordered the office in July 2026 to turn over evidence it had withheld for years. The alleged conduct dates to O'Donnell's unsuccessful 2018 campaign for Bayonne mayor. The state destroyed investigators' cell phones mid-probe, defense attorneys learned, even as discovery demands continued.

A 2019 email from then-chief of staff Pearl Minato surfaced only after the state denied its existence. The message stated that the "sole purpose" of sending a cooperating witness to the former assemblyman was to generate a conversation about illegal campaign support. Defense attorneys later argued no open criminal file involving Jason O'Donnell existed before investigators dispatched their cooperating witness.

Matt O'Donnell, the tax-appeal attorney who became a cooperating witness after admitting he used straw donors to secure public contracts, identified 11 targets. He gave investigators those names. The state then sent him out wired to approach them. He billed government clients more than $4.5 million while cooperating. The former assemblyman's case remains pending.

Davenport defended the reorganization in a statement to the New Jersey Globe. "Our office is committed to pursuing justice whether we are prosecuting people who commit violent crime, defraud vulnerable members of society, abuse their positions of public trust, or exploit our children. The restructuring of our criminal prosecution program will allow us to more efficiently and effectively deploy resources, share information and expertise, and collaborate across units," she said.

The reorganization moves OPIA's four bureaus — Corruption, Integrity, Special Investigations and Conviction Review — into the Division of Criminal Justice. Deputy First Assistant Attorney General Martha Nye, a former federal prosecutor and Monmouth County assistant prosecutor who began her career as a law clerk for Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw, will become interim DCJ director. Assistant Attorney General Andrew Wellbrock, who supervised the Norcross prosecution, will serve as deputy director overseeing fatal police encounters and special investigations, and will handle internal affairs investigations.

Rebecca Schuman will stay on as Corruption Bureau chief; Davenport hired her in June to lead OPIA's anti-corruption work. Theresa Hilton, who led the Division of Criminal Justice since January 2025, will move to another position, the New Jersey Globe reported. Public corruption cases return to the Division of Criminal Justice for the first time since 2018.

The NAACP, AFL-CIO and three individuals filed an appeal in the Superior Court of New Jersey's Appellate Division in October 2025, seeking review of then-Attorney General Matthew Platkin's refusal to appoint an independent monitor for OPIA, court filings show. The office's abolition may render that specific remedy moot while leaving the broader question of independent oversight unresolved, since DCJ reports to the same attorney general as OPIA did.

Senate President Nicholas Scutari called for an independent monitor in October 2025, and Senator Joe Cryan introduced legislation in 2023 setting a 180-day time limit on OPIA investigations. Neither measure advanced before Davenport abolished the office.

The Special Investigations Bureau, which investigates county prosecutors and high-ranking law enforcement officials, will now operate within DCJ. How that division will balance investigations of elected county prosecutors against its existing caseload is unclear.

OPIA will cease operations on September 13.

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Sources

• New Jersey Office of Attorney General, "Year in Review 2018" (2018)

• New Jersey Office of Attorney General, Office of Justice Data, OPIA closing metadata (September 2026)

• Hudson County View, "Appellate court rules state owes wiretap evidence in O'Donnell's Bayonne bribery case" (July 30, 2026)

• Insider NJ, "Gibson to Lead the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability" (September 15, 2025)

• Insider NJ, "Saddle Brook police chief charged with official misconduct" (March 8, 2021)

• New Jersey Globe, "Matt O'Donnell settles lawsuit with Holmdel" (December 17, 2023)

• New Jersey Globe, "Matt O'Donnell was a cooperating witness for more than two years, sources say" (December 21, 2019)

• New Jersey Globe, "N.J. will shutter embattled public corruption office" (September 3, 2026)

• New Jersey Globe, "OPIA director who supervised Norcross probe is stepping down" (April 9, 2026)

• New Jersey Globe, "Refusal by Attorney General to appoint OPIA monitor challenged in court" (October 1, 2025)

• New Jersey Monitor, "NJ's attorney general mulling fate of embattled anti-corruption watchdog" (April 9, 2026)

• New Jersey Monitor, "NJ Senate president calls for oversight of state anti-corruption unit" (October 10, 2025)

• New Jersey Monitor, "New bill would set time limit on state watchdog's lengthy investigations" (June 14, 2023)

• New Jersey Monitor, article on Edna Mahan indictment dismissal (October 3, 2025)

• NJ 101.5, "Edna Mahan charges dismissed" (October 8, 2025)

• NJ Spotlight News, "Judge dismisses indictments against Edna Mahan corrections officers" (October 3, 2025)