He prosecuted sex abuse at N.J.’s women’s prison. Now he’s working for the Catholic Church.

By S.p. Sullivan
Star Ledger
April 14, 2019

https://bit.ly/2ImOzRE

Hunterdon County Prosecutor Anthony P. Kearns, seen here in 2017, has stepped down from the post after nine years. Photo by Andre Malok

Anthony Kearns spent nine years as the top law enforcement official in Hunterdon County, a place that has for several years seen the lowest overall crime rate in the state.

But the problems that plague society do not abide county lines, Kearns says.

“Anything that happens anywhere else can happen here, and we have to be ready for it and have the skillset to address it,” he said.

Murders and suspicious deaths require expert investigations. The opioid crisis is increasing taking lives in every corner of the state.

And then there’s New Jersey’s only women’s prison, which sits on a rolling swath of land in Clinton and Union Townships. Over the last three years, Kearns’ office has been investigating claims of sexual abuse of inmates by staff at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility.

The inquiry has led to criminal charges against eight staff members. Five were convicted and one acquitted so far. The other two await trials.

Kearns, who stepped down from his post on Friday, told NJ Advance Media he considers the ongoing investigation into sex abuse at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women “unfinished business.”

But he said the prosecutors and staff he leaves behind are up to the task, and state authorities are taking steps to curb the abuse. Kearns’ first assistant prosecutor, Michael J. Williams, will serve as acting prosecutor until Gov. Phil Murphy names a successor.

In an interview with NJ Advance Media, Kearns looked back on the untraditional path that brought him from addiction counseling to the law and, now, the Catholic Church, an institution still grappling with its own legacy of sexual abuse.

After leaving the prosecutor post, Kearns, 52, will serve as chancellor of the Diocese of Metuchen.

His said his new role is at the intersection where “civil parts of our society and our church meet,” overseeing Catholic Charities and the screening of employees and volunteers who interact with children, as well as advising Bishop James F. Checchio.

“It’s not lost on me, either," Kearns said of the similarities between efforts to stem abuse in the church and behind bars.

"I think some members of the episcopacy, the bishops, the clergy in yesteryear, saw the institution of the church as the end itself," Kearns said, lamenting decades of coverups and resistance.

A devout Catholic, Kearns insists Bishop Checchio and other New Jersey church leaders are now committed to reform, pointing to the church's cooperation in an ongoing grand jury investigation being run by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal's office.

Institutional change can take time, he said.

"You can look at Edna Mahan," Kearns said. "We have the state of New Jersey, this bureaucracy, and these inmates are being sexually abused and it’s taking forever to fix. We have to take pause as a society, as New Jersey, and say, 'this can’t happen.'

“These women have perpetrated some offense that has caused them to be incarcerated, but they deserve the same protections and the same dignity that every other person deserves.”

State officials for years were reluctant to discuss problems at the prison publicly, but have recently opened up about reforms. Kearns said he recently met with Grewal and acting Corrections Commissioner Marcus Hicks to discuss next steps.

Corrections officials have also detailed improvements at the prison, including an overhauled camera system, better training and more avenues for inmates to report abuse. Meanwhile, Hunterdon prosecutors are still making cases, including an arrest earlier this month.

The inquiry taxed resources at the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office, but it was hardly their only job, Kearns said. He pointed to several high-profile murder investigations – infrequent in the rural northern county, but still among the gravest cases prosecutors handle.

He also spoke of his office’s work combatting the opioid addiction crisis, a problem Kearns had faced during his time doing substance abuse counseling in Baltimore in the early 1990s.

“It affects the inner city as well as the suburban areas, and both are devastated as a result of it,” he said, highlighting programs in his office and county prosecutor’s offices around the state aimed at steering heroin users towards treatment instead of prison.

Kearns was sent off by his staff and members of the law enforcement community in a “walk-out” ceremony on Friday. Appointed in 2010, he is the longest-serving Hunterdon prosecutor in modern history.

“When I announced to my office (that I was retiring), it was harder than I thought it was going to be,” he said. “I had to swallow hard a couple times.”

Moving from law to the church does not daunt the former prosecutor, he said. Raised above his family funeral home in Whitehouse, he was confronted at an early age with the most difficult philosophical questions priests and prosecutors alike face.

“Death and dying is much like the law: It matters not your age, your nationality, your creed, your socioeconomic status," he said. "We’re all going to die, and we all need to adhere to the rule of law.”