Before U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie made headlines uncovering corruption in the state of New Jersey, Bayonne’s Peter D. Yachmetz did so behind the scenes.
Last October, after nearly 29 years with the FBI, Yachmetz retired.
Active in some of the biggest profile cases in the county since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Yachmetz has been involved in law enforcement for more than 32 years. He became a special investigator for the office of the New Jersey Attorney General’s Division of Criminal Justice, and prior to that served as senior internal auditor for the Chase Manhattan Corporation.
His career with the FBI put him on the forefront of counter terrorism and has sent him on a variety of assignments here and abroad, including stints at American embassies in Kuwait, the Bahamas, Columbia, and the United Kingdom.
Grew up in Bayonne
Yachmetz grew up in Bayonne, and graduated from what was then called Public School No. 7.
His parents, Peter and Margaret (Marko), are from Bayonne. He even married a local woman, Patricia A. (Prusek), and has two sons.
“I received a good perspective on life. I used those as the spring board to my eventual career.” – Peter D. Yachmetz
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“I always kept the small town kid in me,” he said, recalling working after school and on Saturdays at Barney Stock as a stock boy. “I worked summers through college at Ciba Giegy down at the Hook and Best Foods downtown,” he said. “I received a good perspective on life. I used those as the spring board to my eventual career.”
Although members of his family were early supporters of Mayor Dennis Collins and the local movement of the New Democrats, he kept clear of politics.
“As an FBI agent, by our strict ethical standards, I was prohibited from participating in any political social organization as my Uncle Bill did,” he said. “I was never involved in the Frontier Democrats (I think that was their name) while an agent.”
After graduating from Marist High School in 1969, he went on to get a bachelor of science degree in finance.
Joining Chase Manhattan after graduation, he rose within three years to become its senior auditor.
In 1976, Yachmetz’s began his law enforcement career when he became a state investigator, assigned to the development and expansion of the Attorney General Office’s Major Fraud Unit, from which he investigated white-collar crime and participated in numerous successful prosecutions.
“The transition from auditor to AG’s office and the FBI? That audit background – being able to logically follow a (paper) trail step by step – is one that both agencies were interested in,” he said. “In fact, it still is a requirement to become an FBI agent if you enter with a degree in business as I did.”
In 1978, he went back to school, taking graduate courses in criminal justice at Rutgers University.
In 1980, he was appointed special agent for the FBI, and after completing training at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Va., he was assigned to the New Jersey Division in Newark, where he dealt with white collar crime, background investigations, bank robberies, organized crime and drug investigations.
He could not talk much about many of the details of these assignments.
“Suffice it to say, I was involved in some very substantial organized crime cases while still up north,” he said.
In 1984, he was assigned to the FBI’s Atlantic City Resident Agency, where he became involved in covert operations involving drug investigations and organized crime.
In subsequent years, he expanded his role, taking training in crisis and hostage negotiations and handling situations that involved hostages, barricaded subjects and people contemplating suicide. He would eventually become an instructor in this field. By the end of 1995, he had – through the Career Development Program – become of the supervisor of a 12 agent squad.
As if his whole career was building to a single moment, Yachmetz found himself as a relief supervisor at the Newark Command Center investigating the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. A short time later at the Trenton Command, he took part in an investigation about the spread of Anthrax. And if those two situations weren’t high profile enough, he also investigated the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl, the “Wall Street Journal” reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002, just four months after Sept. 11.
Shortly after this, he was transferred to the Tampa, Fla., division and assigned to investigate matters at The Kennedy Space Center, where he helped uncover and thwart a group stealing and marketing confidential video gear used on the space shuttle.
“When I was transferred from the FBI Newark Division, FBI HQ transferred me to the RA that covers the Kennedy Space Center. I was assigned as the criminal agent who was responsible for all of the criminal matters that originated at the Space Center,” he said. “I was also responsible for the criminal matters that came from Port Canaveral, all of the cruise ships (Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Disney) that called Port Canaveral home, bank robbery and fugitive matters. I was just a little busy!”
In 2003, he was assigned to the FBI’s Critical Incident Negotiation Team and deployed to Bogota, Columbia to help secure the release of a kidnapped American.
By 2007, he was deeply involved in field intelligence and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
While Yachmetz does intend to enjoy some of the benefits of retirement, such as seeing a lot of his recent grandson, Andrew, and his other family members still living in New Jersey (as well as working to improve his golf game), he said he intends to seek employment in the field of corporate security and investigations.