TRENTON – Exactly one year before she was forced to resign, Tiffany Williams Brewer saw the 55-year-old New Jersey State Commission of Investigation as a house that was due for a makeover.
In a plan she labeled “SCI 2.0,” she said the house needed a new exterior, with curb appeal to attract more public attention to the state’s leading independent watchdog agency, according to minutes from a January 2024 commissioners’ meeting.
A new HVAC system would represent a more welcoming culture, and new windows would provide a fresh view of the outside world.
Williams Brewer tried to implement her own vision of what an independent watchdog agency should look like during her three years there – two as SCI’s chair, six months as interim executive director and four days as its CEO.
But the vision was never fully realized.
On Jan. 10, 2025, Williams Brewer resigned amid what she referred to as “the unwarranted scrutiny of my personal life, particularly my residency, and the mischaracterization of my academic pursuits. The situation “undermine(d) the integrity of the SCI’s critical mission and create(d) and environment incompatible with my vision for its future,” she said.
Her abrupt exit came just 24 hours after an Asbury Park Press investigation reported that she had declared a Maryland home as her principal residence and continued working a full-time job in another state.
The house of SCI was in shambles.
In the aftermath of the darkest period in the SCI’s history, a new Asbury Park Press investigation sheds light on how its leaders oversaw the once-premier investigative agency’s downfall.
The scandal resulting in Williams Brewer’s resignation was noteworthy, in part, because it came at an agency whose reputation was considered above reproach. SCI was founded precisely to hold other public officials to account…
“There’s an expectation that when you have significant changes in a public organization, the public should be able to find out about it,” said Marc Pfeiffer, associate director of the Bloustein Local Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.