The embattled New Jersey Office of Public Integrity and Accountability is pushing back on an apparently false statement by Gloucester County Counsel Eric Campo that a criminal investigation into the 2022 death of a dog assigned to Fire Marshal Shawn Layton has been closed.
“The state attorney general’s office has closed the investigation into the death of Gloucester County fire marshal’s K9 with no charges,” Campo said in a statement he released to NJ.com. “Gloucester County was informed by the state attorney general’s office that the case is closed, and no charges have been or will be filed.”
But the four-year-old probe has not been formally closed, and could still result in criminal charges until the statute of limitations expires in August 2029, the New Jersey Globe has learned.
The OPIA, which has faced challenges to its integrity and accountability in recent years, declined to comment on the investigation, including refusing to suggest that Campo was truthful.
The dog died under mysterious circumstances while in the custody of Layton, who was also a Democratic township committeeman in Mantua.
Christopher Konawel, one of two Republican county commissioners in Gloucester, said plenty of issues remain unresolved.
“When K-9 Ember died, the only reason the former prosecutor, and later the AG, found out was that Republicans discovered it, took the information to former Sheriff Sammons, who then took it to the former prosecutor,” said Konawel. “We solved the alleged crime before the former prosecutor knew it happened. Still, they couldn’t solve the mystery and had to kick it to the state.”
Ember was found dead in a county vehicle parked at Layton’s home. Layton’s own dog also died in the same incident.
Standard procedure for outfitting K9 first responder vehicles includes an option for air conditioning to remain on while their handler is not present. It’s unclear whether Layton’s county vehicle was outfitted correctly on a day with scorching temperatures. The county had contracted with a company owned by Layton’s brother to install the air conditioning system.
Initially, the dog’s death was not formally reported to law enforcement, even though a large contingent of first responders dug a grave for the dog and constructed a makeshift memorial at Layton’s home on Saturday morning.
The death of the three-year-old K-9 Ember, who was trained to investigate arson incidents, hit Layton hard. He used sick and vacation days during an extended absence following the dog’s death and missed Mantua Township Committee meetings for three months. His colleagues voted to retroactively grant a leave of absence after local Republicans argued that he had violated a state law that creates a vacancy when a local elected official fails to attend eight consecutive meetings without an excused absence.
Layton did not seek re-election to his township committee seat. Since then, he has been promoted to fire marshal and was a paid staffer on former Senate President Steve Sweeney’s 2025 gubernatorial campaign. Sweeney is now the county administrator.
Campo and Layton did not respond to calls to their county office seeking comment.
Assistant Attorney General Eric Gibson, who ran the OPIA, stepped down in July.
A former federal prosecutor from Philadelphia, Gibson joined the attorney general’s office in late October 2024 to supervise the state’s prosecution of Democratic powerbroker George E. Norcross and others in what looked at the time to be the most politically consequential state public corruption case in New Jersey history.
Gibson was brought in to supervise another Assistant Attorney General, Andrew Wellbrock, the lead prosecutor in the Norcross case.
But four months later, Mercer County Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw dismissed the charges in the 112-page indictment against Norcross and his co-defendants. Gibson lost a bid to convince state appellate court judges to overturn Warshaw’s ruling and reinstate their indictments.
Thomas Eicher, who formed the office in 2018 and retired in March 2024, was succeeded by Drew Skinner. Skinner bailed last September after just eleven months to become the deputy commissioner and general counsel of the Office of the New York City Chief Medical Examiner.
Harsh criticisms of the OPIA – along with Eicher, deputy director Anthony Picione, and the number three lawyer, Peter W. Lee, also departed.
The initial hiring of Gibson sidelined the other OPIA co-director, Jeffrey Manis, from the Norcross case. Manis tried the state’s case against Osher Eisemann, a popular Lakewood Rabbi. Superior Court Judge Joseph Paone dismissed the indictment in August after the state rested its case, finding that prosecutors failed to prove allegations of money laundering and official misconduct.
In 2022, a Superior Court Judge dismissed an indictment after finding that Saddle Brook Police Chief Robert Kugler didn’t violate any law by permitting police escorts for funeral processions to cemeteries involving a local funeral home he owns.
The judge, Marilyn Clark, found that Deputy Attorney General Eric Cohen had left out key information that might have benefited the suspended police chief, to the grand jury that indicted him. Kugler was the Republican nominee for Bergen County Sheriff at the time of his indictment.
Cohen is no longer with the attorney general’s office.
In April 2025, Superior Court Judge Reema Sethi Kareer dismissed an indictment against former Phillipsburg Councilman Frank McVey, who was accused of threatening Mayor Todd Tersigni in a blackmail scheme. McVey spent years trying to pry discovery from the state, which was legally obligated to provide it but purposely and strategically withheld it.
Because then-Warren County Prosecutor James Pfeiffer once represented Tersigni in a private legal matter, a judge disqualified the entire prosecutor’s office from participating in the case against McVey. That included Anthony J. Robinson, the first assistant prosecutor and a former top lawyer at the OPIA. The allegations forced McVey to drop out of the mayoral race and lose his council seat.
At least five former state and federal prosecutors have accused Deputy Attorney General John Nicodemo of misconduct, alleging that he withheld evidence from defense attorneys and lied to grand juries. Nicodemo, a cartoonish failed dinner-theater actor, is no longer a line prosecutor and now holds a desk job at the Division of Highway Traffic Safety, albeit at his old salary.
Voter fraud charges against Paterson Councilman Alex Mendez from the 2020 municipal election were dismissed in May 2026.
