Middlesex County to Get a New Prosecutor

Middlesex County may soon have a new prosecutor.

Gov. Chris Christie announced his intention Thursday to nominate Andrew C. Carey, an federal prosecutor in New Jersey and assistant district attorney in New York, to the county prosecutor's position. 

Upon Senate confirmation, Carey would replace Bruce J. Kaplan, the Middlesex County Prosecutor who was first appointed in 2002 by former Gov. James McGreevey and reappointed to a second five-year term by Gov. Jon Corzine in 2008. 

Kaplan’s term expired on January 14, 2013, and he remains in a holdover position. 

The nomination of Carey will be formally made by Christie before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s next scheduled meeting.

A clerk in the Senate Judiciary office said that the committee will probably not be meeting before May, so any vote on Carey's nomination will not be before then.

Carey, a New Providence resident who will be relocating his family to Middlesex County, is an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark, where he serves as chief of the narcotics unit and Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. 

Christie himself was a U.S. Attorney for New Jersey during the Bush administration.

Carey has been an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Newark since 2005 and presently serves under U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.  Before that, Carey served in various capacities as an Assistant District Attorney in the New York District Attorney’s Office.  In his last position, he served as Deputy Bureau Chief of the Trial Bureau, where he trained and instructed other ADAs and members of federal and state law enforcement on law and policy, while also prosecuting members of narcotics and money-laundering organizations. 

Carey received his bachelor of arts degree from the American University in Washington, where he graduated magna cum laude.  He earned his law degree at the Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.