Mr. Carella was born in Newark, N.J., on November 21, 1933. After receiving his B.S. degree cum laude from Fordham in 1955, he enrolled at Rutgers Law School in Newark, N.J., where he received his law degree in 1958. Mr. Carella began his career as a lawyer and established his own practice in Nutley, N.J. In 1959, he was appointed by former Governor Brendan T. Byrne as an Essex County Prosecutor on then Prosecutor Byrne’s twelve-lawyer staff. At the time is was a part-time post, which allowed Carella to continue his new law practice in Nutley. On Byrne’s staff, Carella headed what became known as the “Charlie Squad”, since its two other members were also named “Charlie”. It was one of the first law enforcement units in the nation set up by a county prosecutor to focus on organized crime.

Mr. Carella became a long-time adviser and friend to Byrne. After Byrne was elected governor in 1973, he appointed Mr. Carella as the Executive Director of the new state Lottery Commission. Employing the knowledge of illegal gambling he had gained as the head of Byrne’s organized crime unit, Carella restructured the lottery, designed and implemented the nation’s first “Pick-it” game, which allowed customers to select their own numbers, and created the first “instant lottery game” which paid immediate cash prizes. The reform led to New Jersey’s lottery system becoming a model for other states as they established their own games. Gov. Byrne subsequently asked Carella to assume the key position on his staff as executive secretary to the Governor, the principal gubernatorial aid overseeing access to the chief executive, coordinating cabinet contacts and serving as liaison to federal, state, and local officials.

Mr. Carella left the governor’s staff in 1976 to return to private law practice, joining what was then a small patent and trademark boutique firm in Newark, New Jersey. That Firm became the Carella Byrne law firm. Mr. Carella became managing partner, and led the Firm’s expansion from four to over forty lawyers. He accomplished this through broadening the Firm’s representation of major corporate, banking, and healthcare clients. He continued to manage the Firm, which moved to Roseland, N.J., in the early 1980s, for the next 46 years.

In 1976, Gov. Byrne appointed Carella as Chairman of the State Racing Commission. He served from 1976 to 1980 during the early years of horse racing at the new Meadowlands Race Track. He led the state’s successful campaign to solicit relocation of the Hambletonian Stakes, the most prominent trotters’ race in the nation (first run in 1926), from Illinois to the Meadowlands. After Gov. Byrne completed his second term in office in 1982, Mr. Carella invited Byrne to join his law firm and the two continued to work closely together until Byrne’s death in 2018.

As a lawyer in private practice, Carella focused on corporate matters. One of his more prominent assignments was his appointment by the U.S. District Court for New Jersey as the trustee/receiver to collect the assets of the flamboyant Eddie Antar – “Crazy Eddie” — the founder of a local consumer electronics chain. Mr. Carella traveled to many locations, both nationally and internationally, to locate and retrieve Antar’s secreted assets. He also served as outside counsel to Alitalia, the Italian airline with a gateway in Newark, New Jersey, and New York, which took him to Italy on numerous occasions.

Beyond his formal positions, Mr. Carella also served as a frequent adviser in the implementation of casino gambling in Atlantic City. His contacts with key figures in the emerging legalized gambling industry led to his being named a director of Bally Gaming International, overseeing Bally’s slot machine manufacturing business in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mr. Carella was also outside counsel to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark and served as a member of its Finance Counsel. In his career-long work with the Archdiocese, Mr. Carella provided advice along with legal representation to three Archbishops and Cardinal Joseph Tobin. He represented the Archdiocese in the construction of the Catholic Chancery in Newark and numerous other legal matters for over 40 years.

Mr. Carella was a member of the Board of Regents at Seton Hall University and Fordham University. He also served on numerous private and public company boards. He was appointed Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of: Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital; University Health System of New Jersey; the Higher Education State of New Jersey; DiGiorgio Corporation; Bally Gaming International, Inc.; Elizabethtown Water Co.; and Carteret Savings Bank of New Jersey and Florida.