Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill has tapped Shirley Emehelu, a former federal and state prosecutor who served as a top aide to Attorney General Matt Platkin, as the next New Jersey State Comptroller, a post the State Senate tried to substantially weaken earlier this year.
Emehelu, a 47-year-old Montclair resident, will succeed Kevin Walsh.
Emehelu was considered a possible candidate for attorney general before Sherrill picked Jennifer Davenport for the post; she had unsuccessfully sought appointment as a U.S. Federal Magistrate Judge last year.
A Yale Law School graduate and law clerk to a federal judge in Virginia, Emehelu spent six years in private practice before becoming an Assistant U.S. Attorney in 2010. She spent almost two years as chief of the Asset Recovery Money Laundering Unit before leaving in 2019 for a three-year stint in private practice. Platkin named her Executive Assistant Attorney General in 2022, and she remained there for 2 ½ years.
Sherrill and Emehelu were federal prosecutors together, both hired by U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.
If confirmed by the Senate, Emehelu will become the third State Comptroller since the post was created under Gov. Jon Corzine in 2008. The first comptroller, Matt Boxer, was named by Corzine and retained by Christie for most of his first term. Marc Larkins held the post on an acting basis from 2013 to 2015, when Phil Degnan took over. Degnan, who the Senate confirmed, stayed during the first two years of Gov. Phil Murphy’s term. Murphy named Walsh in 2020, but the Senate refused to confirm him; he spent his entire tenure as acting state comptroller.
Emehelu will need signoff from four Democratic senators from Essex County before she advances to the Senate Judiciary Committee. She is expected to take office soon after Sherrill is sworn in as acting state comptroller.
The day after Thanksgiving, Senate President Nicholas Scutari proposed legislation that would transfer most of the comptroller’s duties to the bipartisan State Commission of Investigation. Under that plan, the comptroller would have retained its auditing and Medicaid-fraud units, but not its investigative unit. The plan drew intense criticism from Platkin and U.S. Senator Andy Kim. Sherrill did not take a firm position on the bill.
While a Senate committee approved the measure, Scutari announced that he was pulling the bill and would advance a plan to create a State Inspector General in the next legislative session.
