A New Jersey police lieutenant swiped cocaine and fentanyl from the county prosecutor’s evidence room — then tried to return the drugs in “substantially different” condition after higher-ups began asking questions about what he was doing, state authorities alleged Tuesday.
Kevin T. Matthew, 47, of Cedar Grove, also allegedly made a “series of cash deposits” at several banks on different days to avoid the financial institutions’ federal requirement to report transactions of more than $10,000, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.
Matthew also allegedly had two razor blades in his office at the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office that later tested positive for cocaine, state prosecutors said.
“As alleged, the defendant’s conduct constitutes a shocking and brazen disregard of the law by a high-ranking officer who was sworn to uphold the law,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement.
The attorney general’s probe into the veteran cop was first revealed by The Post last month.
Matthew has since been charged by the AG with a litany of offenses, including second-degree official misconduct, tampering with public records, structuring financial transactions, drug possession and paraphernalia possession.
A member of the Prosecutor’s Office’s Special Victims Unit, Matthew allegedly signed out the drugs between October 2022 and November 2023 — even though he didn’t have any reason to do so, Platkin said.
Matthew — who has been on leave from the BCPO since Nov. 3 — was also allegedly caught on camera coming and going from the office’s Paramus headquarters carrying bags big enough to carry the narcotics he’d signed out.
When he brought the drugs back, they looked much different than when he signed them out, Platkin said. But he tried to pass them off as being in the same condition.
“Serving in law enforcement is a position of public trust,” Platkin said. “If officers illegally break that trust, we will hold them accountable.”
