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Two former Superior Court judges who now serve in the state Appellate Divsion, Jonathan Harris and Ellen Koblitz, returned to the county courthouse to swear in three of the appointees.
Koblitz told the crowd of nearly 200 attendees that one of them — her most recent law clerk, Anthony Talarico — is going to work for her very first, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli.
First Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor John Higgins (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
Harris, meanwhile, mentored new Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Gary Donatello, whose father, Gregory was a Woodcliff Lake police officer for 14 years and a prosecutor’s detective for seven.
The other new prosecutors are Lee Schaer and Matthew Fitzpatrick.
Schaer, whose husband and baby daughter helped swear her in, called it “the best first day of work ever” and said the welcome she received has her dreaming of a long and productive career.
Molinelli said his new recruits were selected from more than 700 applicants in a rigorous screening process.
The only organizations that can compete with his in terms of talent acquisition, he said, are the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Newark and southern district offices of the New Jersey attorney general.
First Assistant Prosecutor John Higgins called the appointments “the absolute best part of this job.” Hiring talented individuals, he said, is what makes the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office “the finest organization I have ever been associated with.”
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STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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