It was February 5, 2019. The trial of the revered SCHI founder, Rabbi Osher Eisemann, had begun just moments before, and Deputy Attorney General John Nicodemo stood up to make his opening statement to the just-seated jury.

“Let me ask you a question,” was Nicodemo’s opening bid. “Have you ever stood on the bank of a lake on a day when it’s a calm, windless day and the water is calm? Just look at the surface of the water. It looks like everything is fine. It sort of looks like glass,” the state prosecutor said metaphorically. “You know, maybe you see a little ripple, or a duck or a pretty boat. But for the most part it looks fine. Even the people in the boat, if there’s somebody on the boat, it looks fine to them, too, because, see, they’re up on the surface where you are.”

“But,” Nicodemo continued, getting to his point, “when you dive down below the surface things oftentimes look quite different. You see things you cannot see from the surface, from above. And the deeper you dive the more you see.” He went on to gloss about how on the outside, everything looked great at SCHI, but the state did a deep dive into its finances and found criminal activity.

But it has not been smooth sailing for Nicodemo. His prosecution unraveled throughout the trial, and the jury vindicated Rabbi Eisemann on seven of the nine charges, including the most severe. In the years since, the remaining two convictions were dismissed as well, after Superior Court Judge Joseph Paone ruled that Nicodemo committed a Brady violation when he failed to turn over exculpatory evidence in the Eisemann case – a decision affirmed by the state’s Appellate Division and recently upheld by the state’s Supreme Court.

The last few months have been especially rough for Deputy Attorney General John Nicodemo. After losing his appeal to clear himself of the Brady violation, he was accused of even more misconduct, and the allegations are much more serious this time.

Last month, Eisemann defense attorney Lee Vartan filed an additional brief, alleging that the Brady violation was intentional, as well as outlining proof of an additional Brady violation, which was also intentional. In the wake of the ruling upholding the Brady violations and the new allegations, Nicodemo has come under fire from both the public and from elected officials.

“They need to hold people accountable – it’s a major allegation, not a trivial matter,” New Jersey Assemblyman Sean Kean told the New Jersey Globe.

“It’s like a vendetta,” State Senator Bob Singer asserted during an interview with the Asbury Park Press.

Since the ruling on the Eisemann case, a slew of other similar allegations arose, and in the last week alone, three former prosecutors submitted court briefs claiming that Nicodemo hid evidence from grand juries as he sought indictments against three different New Jersey residents. These, among other blistering allegations, have led to an increased outcry calling for accountability.

“This ongoing unethical behavior is a pattern, and someone needs to be held accountable,” State Senator Joseph Cryan posted to his social media account.

Nicodemo no longer prosecutes cases, but is still employed by the Attorney General’s office. In fact, a report in the New Jersey Globe reveals that he serves as a diversity officer, and has received twelve raises in the last six years. His salary jumped from $74,508 in 2017 to $145,053, a 94.7% increase. That includes two raises in 2020, two in 2021, three in 2022, and two in 2023, according to records released by the attorney general’s office, cited in the Globe report.

“People know he’s a problem, a big problem,” a Department of Law and Public Safety official told the New Jersey Globe on condition of anonymity. “so they put him in a room with nothing to do.”

But is Deputy AG John Nicodemo a lone bad actor? Or is he just a frontman for something more sinister?

Though no formal complaints have been filed yet against anyone other than Nicodemo, a number of recent reports, both on social media and in legacy media, seem to point to a deeper problem.

In an expose posted by the New Jersey Globe on Friday, journalist David Wildstein reports that in one of the Nicodemo cases of alleged misconduct, there are indications that communications between Nicodemo and Deputy Attorney General Anthony Picione were wrongfully hidden.

Anthony Picione is the second-in-command at the AG’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, also known as the OPIA. The OPIA, under Director Thomas Eicher and Deputy Director Anthony Picione, was founded in 2018 to purportedly root out corruption from government institutions and from people in power. Ironically, the office has been the target of many claims of misconduct over the years, with allegations that it was engaging in the same type of conduct it was created to fix.

The possible implication of Picione was reiterated on Friday on X, in a post from David Wildstein. A member of the public posted speculation that Nicodemo seems to have some sort of internal agreement to protect him until 2024, when he would be vested in the state’s pension system. Wildstein responded, “I think the name to watch for [is] Picione.”

Interestingly, at the Appellate hearing in which Nicodemo’s Brady violation was defended, Picione was in attendance. The attendance of such a high-ranking official at the hearing may indicate that he had some intimate involvement in the case. Picione was joined by Deputy Attorney General Anthony Robinson, a co-violator of the Brady Act during the Eisemann trial.

The State’s case in Eisemann charged both Rabbi Osher Eisemann, as well as the Foundation for Children with Hidden Intelligence, known as the SCHI Foundation. Nicodemo led the prosecution against Rabbi Eisemann, while Robinson was tasked with prosecuting the Foundation. The Brady information pertained to both defendants, though the complete acquittal of the Foundation at trial made Robinson’s failure to reveal the information irrelevant.

Neither Nicodemo nor Robinson are on the Eisemann case anymore. After changing hands twice, the case is now being led by Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Manis, reportedly a supervisor at the OPIA, who recently took over as lead prosecutor. Despite the numerous claims of misconduct by his predecessors, there is no indication that Manis plans to stop pushing forward with the case, and is currently defending against the new alleged Brady violations.

So are any high-ups to blame for the prosecutorial misconduct? It’s hard to know for sure, but the responsibility for the department’s actions definitely lay in the hands of the big brass.

“The lack of action from leadership certainly implies the New Jersey’s Office of the Attorney General’s approval,” Senator Cryan recently posted on X. “It’s an underreported scandal.”

Attorney General Matt Platkin has recused himself from the case, citing a conflict of interest. Recusal, however, does not absolve him of the duty of eliminating corruption among his underlings. To date, Platkin has not publicly addressed this case or the now-affirmed Brady violations involved. Also silent was First Assistant Attorney General Lyndsay Ruotolo, who acquired jurisdiction over it with Platkin’s recusal.

In the words of Senator Cryan, “[Matt Platkin], show some leadership and drop this travesty. Then clean house at the unethical, at best, OPIA. Time to lead. Time to clean house.”

To borrow the analogy from John Nicodemo, maybe it’s time for a deep dive, to uncover what’s lurking beneath the surface at the OPIA?