The powerful chair of the New Jersey State Senate Judiciary Committee was named in a lawsuit filed this week by a woman who claims he was instrumental in her wrongful imprisonment.

Sen. Nicholas Scutari was the Linden town prosecutor when Yasmine Coello, of Roselle Park, was accused of harassment by the ex-girlfriend of a man Coello was dating.  The suit claims that the judge, Louis DiLeo, held a trial without Coello's defense attorney, and because Scutari was absent, another attorney was brought in as prosecutor.

Coello claims that the fill-in prosecutor was the private attorney for the woman who was charging her with harassment. Coello was given a 30-day jail sentence, and the federal suit alleges her constitutional rights were violated. Scutari is named in the suit, the complaint argues, because his absence allowed a rogue judge to operate as "prosecutor, judge and jury."

"These improper practices led to the wrongful conviction, illegal sentencing and incarceration of numerous other individuals appearing before this court, including Coello," the complaint says. The lawsuit lists several other cases in which others were sent to jail on flimsy charges without proper legal representation. 

Scutari is chairman of the Union County Democratic Committee and is embroiled in a political fight with the mayor of Linden. He chalked up the complaint to that dispute and said he hasn't been the prosecutor in Linden for many years. But Mayor Derek Armstead told WNYC that Scutari was the prosecutor from 2003 until January 2018.

Armstead has written at least two letters to U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito requesting an investigation into Scutari's work as prosecutor. The mayor includes in his letter a detailed investigation into days that Scutari was missing from his job from 2014 to 2018, and calculates that it cost Linden $147,493.93 in salary, payroll taxes, and pension benefits. 

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Scutari presides over the confirmation of state judges and prosecutors.