Frank Provenzano, six-term Somerset sheriff, died at 82

Frank J. Provenzano, a popular Republican law enforcement official who served six terms as Somerset County Sheriff before retiring in 2019, died on Wednesday. He was 82.

Provenzano was a retired Bridgewater police captain in 2001 when the Somerset GOP organization tapped him to run for sheriff following the retirement of incumbent Robert Lund. He won the Republican convention by a vote of 156-112 against Kevin Sooy, then an Orange police sergeant and later the mayor of Bernardsville; Sooy switched parties in 2018 and became a Democrat.

In the Republican primary, he faced Ronald Skobo, a former prosecutor’s office captain who had challenged Lund in 1995; Provenzano beat him by about 1,700 votes, 55%-45%. In the general election, he defeated his one-time boss, former Bridgewater Police Chief Richard Voorhees, by roughly 4,500 votes, 53%-37%. Voorhees had been Lund’s undersheriff.

Provenzano remained in office with little difficulty, defeating Efren Dato with 61% in 2004, Richard Myers with 55% in 2007, and Richard Arline with 58% in 2010 and with 61% in 2013.

But in 2016, with Hillary Clinton carrying Somerset County by thirteen percentage points, Provenzano won his final campaign in 2016 by just 1,286 votes, 50.4% to 49.6%, against Democrat Darrin Russo, a former Franklin Township police lieutenant. (Democrat Steven Peter ousted the Republican County Clerk, Brett Radi, that year.)

Provenzano retired in 2019, and Russo won the race to succeed him.