Acting Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri.
Acting Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri’s journey to the top of law enforcement started in a classroom at Steinert High School, and has led him back to the town where he grew up.
On March 1, the Hamilton resident was named as acting prosecutor after the retirement of Joseph L. Bocchini, Jr. Prior to his appointment, Onofri had served as Bocchini’s First Assistant Prosecutor since August 2012.
Onofri said his main goal as acting prosecutor is to continue building on the recent successes of the Mercer County prosecutor’s office, including those achieved with the Mercer County Homicide Task Force, the Mercer County Shooting Response Team and the Narcan program, which provided every law enforcement agency in the county with Narcan, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Onofri played a crucial role in each of those projects during his tenure as First Assistant Prosecutor, having spearheaded both the Homicide Task Force and the Shooting Response Team.
Onofri said he thought up the idea for the Homicide Task Force after two Trenton police officers were shot during a domestic dispute on Aug. 15, 2013.
“Because of that I knew we had to change to change our way of doing business,” Onofri said. “I asked the prosecutor if I could start approaching police chiefs about forming a task force to investigate homicide incidents throughout the county and the prosecutor let me run with it.”
Today, the task force boasts members from the Trenton, West Windsor and Lawrence Police Departments and the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office.
“It’s a true county force,” Onofri said. “It greatly expanded the resources we’ve had to investigate homicide and, on top of that, solve rates have dramatically improved.”
Onofri organized the Shooting Response Team after he noticed an increase in violent incidents involving weapons occurring in Trenton in the summer of 2014.
“You have to get to shootings quickly or else evidence, leads, witnesses—they go cold,” Onofri said.
With Bocchini’s permission, Onofri again reached out to all of the police departments in the county, and Princeton, Robbinsville and Lawrence assigned officers to the force, as did the New Jersey State Police. Onofri noted that, since the formation of the task force, solve rates in shooting incidents have increased from 15 percent to 54 percent.
Onofri was raised in Hamilton by his grandparents, and is a graduate of Steinert High School. He said he was always interested in law, but his interest was cemented when he took Doug Martin’s GALRE (Government and Law Related Experiences) class at Steinert.
After graduating from Steinert in 1983, Onofri received his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and the Eagleton Institute of Politics and went on to receive his law degree from the Villanova University School of Law. His first job after graduating from law school was with the Princeton-based firm McCarthy and Schatzman. Before joining the prosecutor’s office in May 1998, he also served as municipal prosecutor in the city of Trenton and as deputy county counsel under former Mercer County Executive Bob Prunetti.
After law school, Onofri returned to Hamilton where he has been living ever since. He resides with his wife, Beth, and their daughter, Phyllis, who is a nurse at Capital Health.
“I just love Hamilton,” he said. “It’s a great community. All of the amenities and services that are offered in Hamilton made it natural to want to go back and raise a family.”
He is involved with several organizations around town including serving on the board of directors of the Hamilton Police Athletic League, where he runs the scholarship committee, and Hamilton Post 31 baseball. He is also a member of the Mercer County Bar Association.
Doris M. Galuchie, who stepped into Onofri’s role as First Assistant Prosecutor when he became Acting Prosecutor, believes that Onofri will excel in his new role.
“Having worked with Angelo Onofri for 19 years, I know that he has the moral decency, the legal acumen, the passion for law enforcement, and the commitment to his community that will undoubtedly cause him to fulfill his role as Acting Mercer County Prosecutor with honor and distinction,” she said. “I am extremely happy for my friend and colleague, and I cannot think of a person more deserving of this appointment.”
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