The team of lawyers named by Gov. Phil Murphy to investigate New Jersey's controversial tax breaks will follow up its bombshell inaugural meeting, where a whistle-blower said her former company lied to win incentives, with more interviews Thursday.

The task force said it plans to interview "several" witnesses in its mission to determine if tax breaks were properly awarded and whether the agency that administers them, the Economic Development Authority, "applied appropriate scrutiny" to incentive applications.

Those key questions have come to the forefront of debate in Trenton since the task force met for the first time in March. A pair of reports Wednesday raised more questions about the integrity of the incentive programs used heavily under Republican former Gov. Chris Christie and passed by Democrats in the Legislature.

The New York Times found that a lawyer with deep connections to Democratic politicians had a hand in writing the tax incentive legislation, the Economic Opportunity Act. That lawyer, Kevin Sheehan, helped edit portions of the bill that opened "sizable" tax breaks to clients of his law firm, Parker McCay.

Earlier Wednesday, a joint WNYC and ProPublica investigation found that two-thirds of the tax break awards in Camden, or more than $1 billion, went to companies connected to George Norcross, the powerful unelected Democrat who is allies with Senate President Stephen Sweeney, and business partners and clients of his brother's law firm.

One of Norcross' two brothers, Phil Norcross, is chief executive officer of Parker McCay. Phil Norcross told the Wall Street Journal in an earlier interview that he helped write amendments to the tax break bill. Another brother, Donald Norcross, was a union leader who served in the state Legislature and co-sponsored the bill. He is now a U.S. Representative.

Murphy said he was "deeply troubled" by the findings of the two reports.

“Coupled with what we already know about how the tax incentive program operated over the past six years, I believe now more than ever in the importance of the task force I commissioned," Murphy said in a statement. “Until we’ve taken a good hard look at the entire process, I don’t believe we can be sure that all taxpayer money has been properly spent and accounted for. If there was fraud in this program, I expect the task force will uncover it and those individuals will be held accountable."

Norcross issued a lengthy statement Wednesday responding to the WNYC report and even thanked the news outlet for "its lengthy story detailing the massive undertaking to help rebuild Camden’s future."

"The fact that private investment is returning to Camden is no accident — it was planned and fought for. As WNYC and other media outlets have reported, the commitment to rebuilding Camden's future began years ago and focused on the city's three biggest challenges: improving public safety, reforming education and bringing jobs and economic investment to the city," Norcross said.

While the Murphy task force and a legislative committee looking into the incentive programs continue their work, Murphy has tried to assert his influence in the debate. He sought the resignation of certain authority board members, but most of them defied him and remain in positions to grant future awards. And Murphy's Republican predecessor, Chris Christie, accused the Democrat of engaging in "political assassination" to gain support for his own incentives.

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It does not appear that Murphy plans to apply pressure on the holdout board members, who were named to their seats by Christie.

"They're the government appointees. We approached them, we laid out our case, they made their decision. We have to respect that decision. We don't agree with them," Murphy said last week. But then in an interview with WNYC Wednesday night, he said that "all options are on the table."

On Friday he named Kevin Quinn, a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, where Murphy worked for two decades, the authority's next board chairman. He replaces Laurence Downes, the only person who stepped down at Murphy's request.

The members of the task force are expected to hear from current and former executives of the authority when they meet Thursday in Newark. The witnesses have been subpoenaed by the task force, according to an announcement of the meeting.

Since it is armed with subpoena authority and includes white-collar crime lawyers, the task force poses perhaps the greatest threat to those who may have abused the tax incentives. At its first meeting, a woman testified that her former company lied to win tax breaks.

The panel has also said it has "obtained robust cooperation" from companies who received tax breaks, including one that admitted it was out of compliance and agreed to repay its grant, saving taxpayers $1.5 million. It has also made a criminal referral and said it has uncovered evidence of unregistered lobbying on behalf of special interests.



“As we have said, we are going to follow the facts in a search for the truth,” said Ronald Chen, chairman of the task force. “Whether that means recertifying companies, seeking voluntary payments and terminations, or making referrals, we plan to be thorough, objective and efficient.”

In the meantime, a group of activists signaled legal trouble for the authority by having its lawyer send a letter requesting that it preserve all documents related to tax incentives from 2010 on. Such letters typically precede a lawsuit.

Sue Altman, a board member of South Jersey Women for Progressive Change, which is one of many groups represented by the law firm Weissman & Mintz, said Tuesday that the potential lawsuit is partly an attempt to obtain documents from the authority and to convince authority board members to leave.

"It would be amazing if the board would resign. Keeping up the pressure on them is a tactic we’re trying to use to make it loud and clear," Altman said.