Grewal is 1st South Asian American to hold position in New Jersey.
AB Wire
New Jersey Go. Chris Christie has appointed a Glen Rock resident, Gurbir Grewal, who has prosecuted major white-collar crimes for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, as acting Bergen County prosecutor, on Monday.
Grewal, who was nominated by Christie two years ago, will take over for John L. Molinelli, who ended his 14-year tenure as the county’s top law enforcement official last Thursday, said state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, according to North Jersey.com.
Grewal, 42, joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2010 and serves as chief of the Economic Crimes Unit in Newark. In October, he represented the government in a case in which the president of a New Jersey-based textile company was sentenced to three years in prison for defrauding investors of $4 million.
Molinelli’s second term expired in 2013 but he stayed on as a holdover. Grewal was nominated by Christie in 2013, but the state Senate never scheduled a hearing on the appointment.
Before Grewal takes office in Bergen County, Hoffman will swear him in as an assistant attorney general, the report said.
Molinelli has said he was not given a reason why he was not reappointed but critics noted a letter Bergen County freeholders sent to the governor following a boisterous meeting in September. At issue was a case involving a Teaneck dermatologist who was accused of sexually assaulting female patients. Molinelli decided to twice grant pretrial intervention and sidestep prosecution of Dr. Gangaram Ragi, saying this year that there were problems with the strength of the prosecution’s case. Rather than take it to trial, he said the decision was made to move it to the Pretrial Intervention program and restrict the doctor’s license so he could not longer treat female patients, NorthJersey.com reported.
A friend who has known Grewal since his childhood in Fairfield described him as “a very intelligent, thoughtful person and the type of person who treats others with respect and compassion.”
“Anything he takes on professionally, he approaches very seriously,” Ravinder S. Bhalla, who is also Hoboken City Council president, was quoted as saying in the report.
Grewal, who is married and a father of three, would become the first South Asian prosecutor in the state and the first person of the Sikh religion to occupy the office.
Grewal, who speaks Punjabi and Hindi, comes from one of the fastest growing segments of New Jersey’s population. The number of people of Indian descent in the state increased 73 percent during the 2000s. In Bergen, that number grew by 40 percent to 24,973 by 2010 or 2.8 percent of Bergen County’s overall population.