Suspended State Official Charged In Drunken Head-On Lacey Crash: Cops

LACEY, NJ — A top-ranking Department of Corrections official who has been suspended since last year and under criminal investigation was charged in an August head-on collision in Lacey, according to a new report.

Tracey Shimonis-Kaminski, 46, was under the influence of alcohol and Xanax when her 2021 Land Rover crossed the center line of Lacey Road and struck a 2005 Mazda Tribute being driven by a 77-year-old Whiting resident, police previously said.

The impact was so great that the Land Rover burst into flames and the elderly woman had to be airlifted to Jersey Shore University Medical Center.

Shimonis-Kaminski was not identified as the driver at the time, nor was she charged until Oct. 4, according to a criminal complaint obtained by New Jersey Monitor. It was not clear why the charges came two months after the crash.

Shimonis-Kaminski, once the Department of Corrections' deputy commissioner, was suspended with pay from her job in April 2022 and banned from all correctional facilities pending an investigation by the state Attorney General's Office of Public Integrity & Accountability, as reported by NJ Advance Media at the time. The office investigates public corruption and misconduct, though the exact nature of Shimonis-Kaminski's investigation remains unclear.

As deputy commissioner, Shimonis-Kaminski ran the division of operations, which oversees the day-to-day operations of the state's prisons where about 10,000 people are incarcerated, among other things.

She remains suspended with pay, according to New Jersey Monitor.