Ocean County Sex Crimes Investigator Steps into Statewide Role

One of Ocean County's most prominent investigators of sex crimes and child abuse becomes the person who sets the guidelines for the next two years.

Detective I. Sandra Rodriguez has been appointed to the President's post for the New Jersey Sex Crime Officers' Association, according to information from the office of county Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato.

The President is responsible for setting forth the annual basic study course for investigators, as well as maintaining contact with victim advocacy groups and the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner-Sexual Assault Response Team.

Other tasks include overseeing quarterly meetings and coordinating agendas for the group's annual conference.

The position to which Detective Rodriguez was sworn in Atlantic City isn't her first high-ranking spot with the NJSCOA. She served four years as its Vice President and also spent a term as its Secretary.

Her law enforcement career begain in 1996 in the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office. She migrated to the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office three years later, and entered the Special Victims Unit in 2003.

Coronato said that Rodriguez developed her passion for helping victims of some of our most brutal crimes through the inspiration of her dad, retired Sergeant John Rodriguez of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office. As a child, he said, "she would watch her father...sitting at the family kitchen table transcribing statements of sexual abuse victims from Spanish to English."