Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino today announced the appointment of Ann M. Luvera as Acting Union County Prosecutor.
According to officials, Luvera was sworn into office on Sunday, December 31, 2017. She replaces Thomas K. Isenhour, who served as Acting County Prosecutor since September 2017 and left office Sunday upon his retirement from the Office after more than three decades of service.
“Ann Luvera has an outstanding track record of leadership in the Union County Prosecutor’s Office, where she has overseen the Office’s most significant units and has supervised and personally prosecuted numerous high-profile cases,” said Attorney General Porrino. “She launched the county’s Homicide Task Force and developed new protocols and training for law enforcement for the proper handling of child abuse death cases. I’m confident she will continue to be a strong leader who will look out for victims and guard the safety of all residents as the county’s top law enforcement officer.”
“Having served this Office in so many different capacities over the years, it is a genuine honor to now serve as acting Union County Prosecutor,” Luvera said. “The men and women who carry out the Office’s daily work are consummate professionals who exhibit a firm commitment to public service and justice, and I am proud to have the opportunity to lead them.”
Acting Prosecutor Luvera joined the Union County Prosecutor’s Office as an Assistant Prosecutor in 1990, after serving two years as a Deputy Attorney General in the Appellate Section of the Division of Criminal Justice, within the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. With the exception of a few years in private practice in the late 1990s, Luvera has been a career prosecutor for the Union County Prosecutor’s Office, holding numerous leadership positions, including First Assistant Prosecutor, Deputy First Assistant Prosecutor, Trial Supervisor and Supervisor of the Homicide Task Force and Special Prosecutions Units.
In those roles, Ms. Luvera helped manage the roughly 150 attorneys and detectives employed by the Prosecutor’s Office and advised the County Prosecutor on matters including high-profile police-involved shootings, government corruption, and criminal homicides.
Some of the high-profile prosecutions that Ms. Luvera has handled for the Union County Prosecutor’s Office include the following cases:
* State v. Rahimi: Federal prosecutors in Manhattan convicted Ahmad Khan Rahimi in October 2017 of the terrorist attack on September 17, 2016 in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City, where two powerful homemade bombs were detonated, wounding bystanders. Rahimi also allegedly planted a bomb that exploded earlier that day without injuries at a charity race in Seaside Park and six pipe bombs that were found the following day in a backpack at a train station in Elizabeth, Luvera worked with federal authorities to coordinate the investigation, and she obtained a grand jury indictment that brought pending state charges against Rahimi, including charges that he attempted to murder five police officers during a shootout in Linden.
* State v. Bond, Lewis, Harris, Torres: Luvera successfully prosecuted four men and supervised the investigation in this complex 2008 case involving the kidnapping, robbery, and murder of a woman who was shot and left in her burning car after an attempted robbery of her boyfriend.
* State v. Plank: Luvera successfully prosecuted Union County’s first strict liability for drug-induced death case, obtaining a jury verdict in 2013 against Plank, who sold the heroin that killed a young couple in Springfield.
* State v. Castagna, et al.: Luvera served as lead prosecutor in the successful prosecution of seven defendants, including an off-duty Elizabeth police officer, for the beating death of an African-American man and the cover-up of the crime in 1999. The high-profile case raised novel and complicated issues related to cause of death and accomplice liability, leading to extensive appellate litigation and published Appellate Division and Supreme Court opinions.
In addition, Luvera received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Michigan in 1983, and received her Juris Doctor Degree from Boston University School of Law in 1987. She has received an Attorney General Excellence Award for Victims’ Justice and a County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey Award for Outstanding Career Advocacy.