A New Jersey police officer accused of stealing drugs held as evidence also made $600,000 in unexplained bank deposits, authorities said Wednesday.
Kevin Matthew, a lieutenant in the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, was indicted Wednesday on 50 charges after first being arrested and suspended in 2023.
“This alleged conduct was a betrayal of this officer’s colleagues, his agency, his community and his oath, and the grand jury’s findings reflect the severity of this alleged behavior,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a press release.
Matthew, 48, is accused of removing narcotics, including cocaine, heroin and fentanyl, from an evidence locker in the county prosecutor’s office at least nine separate times between January 2019 and November 2023.
Each time the evidence was returned, it had been tampered with in some way, according to the attorney general.
Matthew was not connected to the prosecutor’s narcotics investigations, but was a member of the special victims unit.
Across the nearly five years Matthew is accused of stealing evidence, he made a series of cash bank deposits totaling $600,000, investigators said. The deposits “are not derived from or traceable to his salary and compensation as a sworn law enforcement officer,” the AG’s office said.
The multiple charges against Matthew range from the first to fourth degree. The most serious — financial facilitation of criminal activity and possession with intent to distribute a controlled dangerous substance — carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
