Nelson G. Gross

Nelson Gerard Gross (January 9, 1932 – September 17, 1997) was an American Republican Party politician who served in the New Jersey General Assembly and as Chairman of the New Jersey Republican State Committee. His political career ended in 1974 when he was convicted on federal charges involving the 1969 campaign of Governor William T. Cahill. After his prison term he went on to a lucrative business career as a real estate developer and restaurateur, before being kidnapped and murdered in September 1997.

Gross was born in 1932 in Teaneck, New Jersey to Albert S. and Rose (Nelson) Gross. He attended Teaneck High School and Yale University. After graduating from Columbia Law School he joined the law firm run by his father Albert in Englewood, New Jersey. He married Leah Binger in 1953. After a divorce, he married Edyth Noel Love, a Guggenheim heiress, on August 26, 1960.

After briefly serving as an assistant United States Attorney, Gross became involved in the Bergen County Republican Party organization, then controlled by Walter H. Jones. In 1961, at the age of 29, he was elected to a term in the New Jersey General Assembly. In 1966 he took over as chairman of the Bergen County Republican Committee, his former mentor.

Gross supported Richard M. Nixon over Nelson Rockefeller in the 1968 Republican presidential primaries. New Jersey Senator Clifford P. Case had launched a "favorite son" candidacy, with the aim of delivering the entire slate of New Jersey delegates to Rockefeller. Gross foiled this plan, managing to get 18 of the state's 40 delegates to support Nixon, thus helping to ensure Nixon's nomination at the Republican National Convention.

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