Father Joe Ciconne: From Bergen County Sheriff to Priest

A Sheriff Who Became a Priest

Brent Cassity opened this episode with a question that sits at the center of Nightmare Success: “What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?” For Father Joe Ciconne, that fear played out in public. He had been a police officer, a college professor, and sheriff of Bergen County, New Jersey, the largest county in the state. Then came an investigation over campaign fundraising, a conviction, and resignation from the office he had fought to win.

Ciconne now introduces himself carefully. “Even though I am a Catholic priest, we are old Catholic,” he told Brent, explaining that he is not Roman Catholic but part of a progressive old Catholic tradition. He described his ministry in plain terms: “We call our church really, just like you refer to your listeners, as the Church of Second Chances.” That phrase is not branding for him. It is a direct response to what happened after his own fall.

Raised Around Uniforms and Rules

Ciconne grew up close to New York City, “a mile away from the George Washington Bridge,” in a middle-class New Jersey family. His father, Joe, had been a painter before becoming a police officer at 27. His mother, Katherine, known as Kitty, had met his father in junior high school. “Dad was the captain of the basketball team,” Ciconne said, “my mom Katherine or Kitty as everyone called her was the head cheerleader.”

His father was also a former United States Marine, and home life reflected that discipline. Ciconne said he was sent to Sacred Heart, a Polish Roman Catholic school in North Bergen, at age four after his baby sister was born. “There I truly fell in love with God,” he said. The Catholic school uniform came first. The police uniform came next. “At 19 years old when I took that Catholic school uniform off I followed in my dad’s footsteps and I put on a police uniform,” he said.

The decision to become a cop was not simple imitation. Ciconne admitted he was “slightly rebellious” as a teenager and wanted to do the work differently than his father. “I become a cop not to be like Dad,” he said. “I literally recall as a teenager saying, I’m going to be a cop to show you how to do it the right way, to be kind and to be gentle and to help people.”

Learning Police Work Under His Father

Ciconne’s first years in law enforcement were spent under his father’s command in Cliffside Park, New Jersey. That arrangement could have brought protection, but he said it brought the opposite. His father warned him that the job would not be easy and that there would be no favoritism. “I got yelled at, Brent, every single day,” Ciconne said. “No matter what I did.”

He later took the civil service test for Fairview, New Jersey, finished number one, and built much of his police career there. His work expanded beyond patrol. He became an acting lieutenant, ran the detective bureau, led the DARE program, served as an elected official on the Fairview Board of Education, and worked full time as a professor at Berkeley College teaching criminal justice and sociology.

By his own account, he was living at the top of his professional life. “Life could not have been better,” Ciconne said. Brent summarized the scope of what came next: Ciconne would go on to become sheriff of Bergen County, overseeing more than 500 law enforcement officers and a $41 million budget.

The Long-Shot Election

The opening came when New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman appointed Bergen County Sheriff Jack Terhune to lead the state Department of Corrections. That created a special election. Ciconne said the Bergen County Democratic chairman called him and laid out the odds plainly. “A Democrat has not won in Bergen County in 25 years,” Ciconne recalled him saying. “You’re probably not going to win it. It would be a miracle if you won.”

Ciconne did not say yes immediately. He called his father in Florida, and his father told him to get on a plane. “Can’t, I’m working,” Ciconne remembered saying. His father’s answer was direct: “Yes you can. Get on a plane. Use a credit card.” Ciconne flew down, and they discussed the race face to face because, as Ciconne put it, his father “never would do anything on the phone.”

The campaign that was supposed to be unwinnable put Ciconne into one of the most visible law enforcement posts in New Jersey. According to the episode description, he began making changes that angered the old political order. That period, which looked like the summit of a career built on police work, teaching, and public service, became the setup for the collapse that followed.

Conviction, Shame, and No Place to Hide

The case that ended Ciconne’s time as sheriff centered on illegal campaign fundraising. He was investigated, convicted, and forced to resign. Brent noted that when a case like that is covered by major outlets, including The New York Times, “there’s nowhere to hide.” For a man whose identity had been built around law enforcement, public office, and authority, the fall was not private.

Ciconne’s story fits the hardest kind of second-chance conversation because he had once been the person wearing the badge. He had commanded officers, managed a large public budget, and taught criminal justice. After the conviction, he carried a different label, the one in the episode title: ex-felon.

Building a Church for Second Chances

Ciconne rebuilt his life through ministry, becoming an old Catholic priest. He told Brent his church rejects the idea that communion is only for people who have stayed inside the lines. “Anyone is welcome,” he said. “Everyone is welcome.” He said the people most hurt by exclusion are often women who have been divorced or who have had an abortion, and he rejected that kind of rejection.

His ministry now centers on people who have fallen, failed, or been pushed outside religious and civic life. Ciconne’s own credibility comes from having occupied both sides of the line: sheriff and convicted felon, professor and penitent, uniformed officer and priest. The contact information shared for him in the episode, [email protected] and 201-754-4GOD, reflects the practical nature of his work. He is not speaking about second chances from a safe distance. He is living inside one.