Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni, a Navy Reserve JAG Lt. Commander, will be deployed to Afghanistan, according to a report on Middletown Patch. He is to report for 9 month tour on active duty in August for combat zone training and will be sent overseas in September.
Gramiccioni joined the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office in February of 2011 as First Assistant Prosecutor after a 9 year stint in the U.S. Attorney’s Office where he was part of Chris Christie’s team of federal prosecutors. Word in the legal community was that Gramiccioni was Christie’s first choice to replace Luis Valentin as prosecutor in 2010, but the Wall Township resident was 18 months short of the residency requirement. Long time 1st Assistant Prosecutor Peter E. Warshaw, Jr was named prosecutor. Once Gramiccioni met the residency requirements to be prosecutor, Warshaw was nominated to the Superior Court Bench and Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa appointed Gramiccioni Acting Prosecutor pending confirmation of his nomination by the State Senate.
In Afghanistan Gramiccioni will be assisting with setting up legal procedures and helping to establish a Western-like judicial system for detainees. He told Patch that he will monitor events at the office from the war zone, but that Richard E. Incremona, first assistant prosecutor and Kevin Clark, deputy first assistant prosecutor, would be running the day-to-day operation of the office.
TRENTON–Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa announced today that more than 1,500guns were turned in by Monmouth County residents during a state-sponsored gun buyback event held at churches in Asbury Park and Keansburg this past weekend.
According to Chiesa, county residents turned in a total of 1,581 guns – including 15 assault weapons –during the two-day buyback held at the Shiloh Community Fellowship Ministry in Asbury Park and the Saint Ann Catholic Church in Keansburg.
The number of guns obtained in Monmouth County brings to 7,092 the total number of firearms collected so far as a result of four state-led gun buybacks. A buyback held in Camden County last December yielded 1,137 guns, and a buyback in Mercer County in January brought in another 2,604 firearms. A February buyback held in Essex County resulted in the collection of another 1,770 guns.
Attorney General Chiesa said this past weekend’s strong turn-out by Monmouth County residents demonstrates continued support of the State-led buyback initiative by citizens concerned about gun violence and eager to help rid their communities of dangerous firearms.
Prosecutor: The Brookdale investigation is ongoing
Curley calls for resignation of Trustees
Former Brookdale Community College President Peter Burnham, 68, pleaded guilty to one count of third degree theft by deception and two counts of second degree official misconduct today before Judge Thomas F. Scully in Monmouth County Court, according to Acting Monmouth County Prosectuor Christopher Gramiccioni.
In a plea agreement, Burnham accepted a five year prison term. During the first two years he will be ineligible for parole. Gramiccioni said the parole leniency is in consideration for Burnham’s cooperation with the investigation into Brookdale which is ongoing. The prosecutor said he expects Burnham, who was released on his own recognisance today, will serve two years after he is sentenced on September 21st.
Gramiccioni said the Brookdale investigation has been going on for the last 15 months. He declined to say who else at the college is being investigated.
Burnham admitted using college credit cards for more than $24,000 in personal expenses and to defrauding Brookdale and the federal government of $20,398 in funds intended for his son’s college tuition. Both Brookdale and the federal government paid the young Burnham’s tuition at Monmouth University. Monmouth later cut a refund check to Burnham for $20,398. He kept the money.
Freeholder Director John Curley, the “whistle blower” on the Brookdale scandal, today called upon those members of the college’s Board of Trustees who served during Burnham’s tenure as president to immediately resign.
Curley said that two Trustees have been replaced sense Burnham’s resignation. He wants all but the two replacements to resign today. Curley first shed light on Burnham’s spending irregularities in a statement issued to MMM in February of 2011.
Maybe they were decoys during a shop lifting investigation.
The Asbury Park Press is reporting that a detective in the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office was involved in a head-on collision at 10:32 PM on Friday December 23. Det. James Powers was driving a county owned vehicle. He was determined to be at fault in the accident. He wasn’t given a summons by the Wall Township police officer on the scene. His kids were in the car.
The Press article seems to take issue with the fact that no summons was issued. I don’t have a problem with that.
But it appears that Powers was engaged in personal use of a county owned vehicle.
Joan Marini of Wall was the driver of the 2011 Lexus that Powers hit head-on. According to the app report, she sustained minor injuries and was taken to the hospital. She has a lawyer who told her not to make public comments about the accident.
Litigation to follow. The deeper the pockets of the owner of the vehicle at fault in a motor vehicle accident, the more serious and long term are the injuries.
Here’s another 2012 prediction; Marini will get paid. Her lawyer will get paid. The lawyers defending the county will get paid. Powers will be named in the suit but the same lawyers that defend the county will defend him. Monmouth County taxpayers will get the bill.
Powers is the son of former Freeholder Director Thomas J. Powers.
Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni, a Navy Reserve JAG Lt. Commander, will be deployed to Afghanistan, according to a report on Middletown Patch. He is to report for 9 month tour on active duty in August for combat zone training and will be sent overseas in September.