Senator renews call for investigation into office that prosecutes public corruption

Sen. Joe Cryan said he has questions about whether prosecutors with the Attorney General's Office are “rushing to judgment.” (Edwin J. Torres/NJ Governor’s Office)

A state lawmaker is again calling for an outside review of a department in the state Attorney General’s Office after prosecutors this week asked a judge to dismiss their indictment of a Paterson police officer who had been accused of shooting an unarmed man.

Sen. Joe Cryan said he has questions about whether prosecutors with the office are “rushing to judgment.”

“We have an attorney general searching for headlines instead of facts,” said Cryan (D-Union). “It’s about the work. I think that New Jersey deserves better than this embarrassment.”

The news of the Paterson case — prosecutors said they found new evidence that was not presented to the grand jury that indicted the officer — follows several high-profile fumbles from the office of public integrity and accountability, which was created in 2018 and investigates public corruption. In 2022 judges dismissed the office’s indictments of a Lakewood rabbi and the Saddle Brook police chief , saying prosecutors in both cases withheld evidence.

Cryan suggested other lawmakers have not joined his call for a probe because they don’t want to take on an office where “they have the badge and they have the subpoena power.”

“I think our citizens deserve better than the actions of this office,” Cryan said. “When you allow the rights to be destroyed for some, you allow it to be destroyed for all.”

In a statement, Attorney General Matt Platkin said his office “did the right thing” when they discovered new evidence in the Paterson case, adding that the public integrity and accountability office “is not deterred from doing justice when powerful people attack it.”

“Its career prosecutors are not deterred from doing justice even when they know politicians will critique them. As I have said before: we will never back down from doing what’s right, even when doing what’s right is hard,” Platkin said.

The office’s case against the Paterson police officer, Jerry Moravek, Platkin announced at a press conference in February 2023 . He said Moravek violated the state’s use of force policies by twice shooting at an unarmed man, hitting him once in the back and leaving him paralyzed. Moravek was charged with aggravated assault and official misconduct.

On Monday, prosecutors said in a letter to the judge overseeing the case that they found evidence that had been in the possession of the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office showing the shooting victim, Khalif Cooper, had a gun on him on either the morning of the shooting or the night before. The Attorney General’s Office learned about this evidence for the first time in June 2024, the letter says.

The letter asks the judge to dismiss the indictment “in fairness to the defendant.” Mike Symons, a spokesman for the attorney general, said the office wants to ensure a new grand jury that hears the case has all available evidence.

“ It is the state’s intention to complete a reinvestigation based on the new evidence and re-present our case to a grand jury. Our aim is not to win, but to do justice. Our motion seeking to dismiss the indictment without prejudice allows the state to do just that,” he said.

Morvaek’s lawyer, Charles Sciarra, defended his client.

“Police Officer Jerry Moravek was on the scene arresting one guy with a gun when shots were fired a block away. His oath is to protect and serve. He ran to the shots. He ran to the danger. He encountered a suspect running away with a gun and the newly found evidence proves it,” he said.

Moravek has said he found a gun near the scene where he shot Cooper, but the Attorney General’s Office claimed when it charged Moravek that no DNA or fingerprint evidence linked that firearm to Cooper.

The Attorney General’s Office’s Monday letter says the new evidence does not “directly negate” the defendant’s guilt. Cooper’s “mere possession of a gun” does not make it lawful for cops to shoot him in the back while he was “running away and not pointing a weapon at anyone.”

Cooper is suing Paterson for $50 million in federal court .

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