WAYNE J. FORREST
SOMERSET COUNTY PROSECUTOR

Prosecutor Forrest was administered the oath of office for his first term as the Somerset County Prosecutor on December 19, 1997. On July 3, 2003 he was sworn-in to a second term as Prosecutor. Mr. Forrest is a career law enforcement officer, having served as a uniform police officer, criminal investigator, State Deputy Attorney General, and now as the Somerset County Prosecutor. He attended Washington & Jefferson College where he received a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science in 1975. After graduation from college, he received a commission as a Lieutenant in the United States Army, Infantry, and became a U.S. Paratrooper. He later served as a military police officer and a criminal investigations supervisor with the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. While serving in the military police, he earned a Masters Degree from Webster University in Administration of Justice. In 1979, Mr. Forrest joined the New Jersey Attorney General's Office as a State Investigator with the Division of Criminal Justice. While working at the Attorney General's Office, he attended Seton Hall University School of Law where he earned his law degree. In 1984 he became a Deputy Attorney General with the Attorney General's Division of Criminal Justice. As a Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Forrest has handled a number of significant and high profile prosecutions, including major conspiracy and wire-tap cases, narcotics cases, murder cases, complex white collar crime cases and many others. Since becoming Somerset County Prosecutor, his office has become among the top in the State for its clearance and solve rate, maintaining the lowest backlog of pre-indictment cases and a consistently high conviction rate.


Mr. Forrest is a member of the State and County Bar Associations, the New Jersey County Prosecutors Association, the National District Attorneys' Association, and is certified by the New Jersey Supreme Court as a certified criminal trial attorney. Mr. Forrest is also a member of the New Jersey Association of Criminal Justice Educators and is an adjunct professor of criminal law at Raritan Valley Community College where he has established and fully funds a Criminal Justice Scholarship for students at the college.