Hudson County Prosecutors Office history

On April 13, 1857, less than a month after Union County was created from what had been part of Essex County, John J. Chetwood was named the first Union County Prosecutor.

Robert Stockton Green was appointed to serve as the second Union County Prosecutor on December 12, 1861.

William Jay Magie was appointed to serve as the fourth Union County Prosecutor on April 3, 1866.

Fay served as Prosecutor with distinction for two terms and died in September 1891.

Nicholas C. J. English was appointed to serve as the eighth Union County Prosecutor in 1898, after previously serving as counsel for the City of Elizabeth and the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company.

Charles Addison Swift became the ninth Union County Prosecutor in 1908, having previously served as counsel for the City of Elizabeth, a member of the Elizabeth Board of Education, and a judge in Elizabeth District Court.

In 1917, while still in his first and only term, Stein convened about 20 local businessmen and professionals to a meeting at which the Rotary Club of Elizabeth was established.

He served two five-year terms as Prosecutor and died in 1939 following 64 years of membership with the Union County Bar Association.

Donald H. McLean was appointed as the 13th confirmed Union County Prosecutor in April 1944 and served dual roles until the end of that year, when he finished his sixth term as a member of the New Jersey delegation in the United States House of Representatives.

Russell Morss was appointed as the 15th Union County Prosecutor in 1953 following seven years of service as an Assistant Prosecutor.

Stine’s tenure as Prosecutor was marked by the investigation and prosecution of cases regarding narcotics trafficking and welfare, insurance, and election/campaign fraud, but he was arguably best known for his prosecution of the Parks-Maxey double-murder case in 1961.

In 1970, the prosecutor and all assistants to the prosecutor became full time employees of the people of Hudson County.

McGrath was appointed back to the Superior Court bench in October 1976, after which First Assistant Prosecutor Michael Evans served as Acting Prosecutor for a brief time before John H. Stamler took office the next year.

A career prosecutor, having joined the Union County Prosecutor’s Office in 1984, Mr.

The Academy was renamed in Stamler’s honor when the facility held its grand opening in 1991.

The Prosecutor’s Office Law Library was posthumously named after Kaplowitz following his death in 1994, with then-Prosecutor Andrew K. Ruotolo crediting him for having “brought this office into modern times.”

Thomas Manahan was sworn into office as the 22nd Union County Prosecutor on July 2, 1997, returning to the place where he started his career as an Assistant Prosecutor serving as deputy supervisor of the Major Crimes Unit and supervisor of the Special Enforcement Unit.

Grace H. Park was sworn in as Acting Prosecutor of Union County on June 17, 2013.

Michael A. Monahan was sworn in as Acting Prosecutor of Union County on January 31, 2018.

Lyndsay V. Ruotolo was sworn in as acting Union County Prosecutor on July 18, 2019.