Somerset County Prosecutor John McDonald targets illegal guns – My Central Jersey

SOMERVILLE – One of the top priorities for John McDonald, Somerset County’s new prosecutor, is to get guns off the street.

It’s part of the transition he envisions for the prosecutor’s office by sharpening the focus on victim crimes, such as sexual assault, domestic violence and child pornography, and shifting away from drug possession cases, he said. The office’s energy will be refocused on violent crimes and firearms.

In just his first weeks on the job, McDonald, who had served five years as a judge in the Family Division of Superior Court, has reached out to the community for help in the war against guns.

On National Night Out in Franklin, he met with the local members of Moms Demand Action, a national grassroots movement advocating public safety measures that can protect people from gun violence and educate people about gun safety.

“They’re just wonderful people,” he said to MyCentralJersey.com last week in his first interview since taking office.

McDonald said the Homeland Security slogan, “if you see something, say something,” should also apply to those who know about illegal guns.

“We want to get the word out,” he said, adding that getting guns off the streets can prevent “so much tragedy.”

Earlier:John McDonald confirmed as new Somerset County prosecutor

Another one of McDonald’s goals is establish trust between the county’s growing Hispanic population and law enforcement.

The prosecutor, as Somerset County’s top law enforcement official, has also met with all the county’s police chiefs. He also said that he appreciates the support that the county commissioners have showed both to the prosecutor’s office and the judiciary.

‘We’re lawyers first’

For more than three decades, McDonald said one of his jobs as a lawyer was to talk. But as a judge and now prosecutor he now listens and every day, he prays for the patience to listen to people

With McDonald becoming prosecutor, Michael Rogers, who retired from Superior Court this year, became executive chief assistant prosecutor. Together, they’re a dynamic legal duo.

They met on their first day at Seton Hall Law School on Sept. 1, 1976, and they’ve been best friends ever since.

After law school, they started their own law firm in Somerville in 1980 and remained partners until 2017 when they were both nominated to the bench.

Universally respected both for their professionalism, both in their legal knowledge and their unstinting politeness and decency in dealing with attorneys and clients in both their private practice and their years on the bench, McDonald and Rogers approach their new roles with a simple philosophy.

“We’re lawyers first,” Rogers said.

And unlike many in their positions, at this point in their lives and careers, they have no egos to feed or other ambitions except to do their jobs as best as possible and make sure that Somerset County residents feel safe and secure.

That means they’re not going to be racing to crime scenes, McDonald said, adding that he is confident that the office’s professionals will do their jobs.

McDonald put Annemarie Mueller, the new first assistant prosecutor, in the spotlight last week at a press conference to announce the arrest of a Raritan Borough man for sexual assaults in parks in Bridgewater and Franklin.

One of McDonalds’s first decisions was the appointment of Mueller who has been in the prosecutor’s office for 11 years and has focused on seeking justice for the victims of sexual violence.

Mueller will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the office and will supervise 24 assistant prosecutors.

Decades in law

McDonald, who had a reputation as one of the state’s top defense lawyers, said he is comfortable working with the assistant prosecutors who were once his adversaries in the courtroom, praising their professionalism and collegiality.

Born in the Bronx, McDonald has been a resident of Watchung since 1984. He has been married 46 years to Bernadette DeCastro, a Superior Court judge.

Rogers, who was born and raised in Newark, is a Hunterdon County resident where he and his wife of 47 years have a 17-acre farm. At a local farmers market, he said, “we sell what we don’t eat.”

McDonald replaces Michael Robertson who resigned near the end of his term in late January to become a partner in an Essex County law firm. Robertson is also serving as Bridgewater’s special counsel on police matters.

McDonald is a past president of the Somerset County Bar Association and served as president of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He served on the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Judicial and Prosecutorial Appointments Committee and was also a member of the District XIII Ethics Committee. McDonald has been active in the Seton Hall Law School Inn of Court. He also received the 2012 Somerset County Professional Lawyer of the Year Award.

In his five years on the Superior Court bench, Rogers served in the Civil, Family and Criminal divisions. Before becoming a judge, Rogers was also a defense lawyer and served as attorney for both the Somerville and Holland school boards.

Email: mdeak@mycentraljersey.com

Mike Deak is a reporter for mycentraljersey.com. To get unlimited access to his articles on Somerset and Hunterdon counties, please subscribe or activate your digital account