CHIEF TALK: Episode #29
Camelia M. Valdes
Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia M. Valdes is the first Latina County prosecutor in the state and the first lead prosecutor of Dominican ancestry in the United States.
As the chief law enforcement official in Passaic County, Valdes is responsible for the management of approximately 185 assistant prosecutors, detectives, victim advocates and support staff, a $20 million office budget and the oversight of 16 municipal police departments, the police departments of William Paterson and Montclair State Universities and the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department.
Valdes is a career prosecutor. She served as a Municipal Prosecutor in the City of Newark, a Deputy Attorney General in the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, an Assistant Governor’s Counsel to Governor Christine Todd Whitman and Acting Governor Donald T. DiFrancesco, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark. Her experience has ranged from investigating and prosecuting municipal offenses to complex federal crimes that included human trafficking, health care fraud, financial offenses, and violent crimes.
Born to Dominican parents in the Bronx and raised in Newark, Valdes is a product of the Newark Public Schools. She received her undergraduate degree in sociology from Seton Hall University in 1993, her law degree from Rutgers Law School-Newark in 1996 and her LL.M. in Trial Advocacy from Temple University School of Law in May 2001. As the proud mother of two teenage daughters with autism, Isabela and Elsa, Valdes endeavors to raise awareness about autism.
