By Ben Barlyn

I am the whistleblower who cost the State of New Jersey almost $4 million in legal fees plus a $1.5 million settlement conditioned on not disclosing certain incriminating evidence of wrongdoing by the Christie administration.

I am frankly astounded that my life took this turn. I hope to shed light on the circumstances and prevent such a thing from happening again.

Some background first. Before I became a whistleblower, I spent 18 years as a hardworking career prosecutor, first at the Division of Criminal Justice as a deputy attorney general, and subsequently as an assistant prosecutor with the Hunterdon County Prosecutor's Office.

The events that led me to complain began in February 2010, when the local Grand Jury returned a 43-count indictment against then-Hunterdon County Sheriff Deborah Trout and two subordinates. At that time, one of the defendants boasted that Gov. Chris Christie himself would step in and have the whole case thrown out.

My colleagues and I dismissed this bizarre boast as idle chatter at the time. It wasn't.

Shortly thereafter, the Attorney General's Office took over the Hunterdon County Prosecutor's Office and assumed responsibility for the prosecution of Sheriff Trout. Three months after that, the AG's Office preemptively moved to dismiss the entire indictment for alleged "legal and factual" deficiencies. That same day, I protested to the Acting Prosecutor (installed by the AG) that the dismissal was corrupt and unlawful. The very next day, two state detectives arrived at my office and escorted me out without explanation.

Two weeks later, I was fired in a one-sentence fax signed by the then-Director of Criminal Justice (and now Superior Court Judge) Stephen J. Taylor.

I filed suit for unlawful termination.

From early 2012 through 2016, my lawyer, Robert Lytle, waged a grueling and largely successful battle to obtain documentary evidence from the state relevant to the case, overcoming resistance at every turn first by the AG's Office and then for two years by Gibbons P.C., the politically connected law firm hired by the Christie administration to defend against the suit.

These lawyers invoked a host of privileges to keep highly incriminating documentary evidence from our grasp. Eventually, the state conditioned release of this discovery material on our agreement not to disclose it to third parties. To avoid further delay, as well as costs, we acquiesced and our agreement was ultimately incorporated into the final settlement reached in August 2016.

The confidentiality provision insisted upon by the state as a condition of the final settlement has not sat well with legislators and members of the public. Nor should it.

Underpinning my civil suit are allegations of grave and patently criminal abuses of authority engaged in by those sworn to uphold the law. The confidential material, including the grand jury record, certainly bears upon the truth of these allegations. That the Gibbons law firm billed the state (i.e., you, the taxpayer) almost $4 million in legal fees for only two years of work while simultaneously representing the governor in his failed presidential bid compounds the stench.

The fact is, however, that civil law suits, even those brought by whistleblowers against public entities, are flawed vehicles for vindicating the broader public interest. Recognizing this, I and others tried our best to encourage the U.S. Attorney's Office, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Legislature to investigate the Hunterdon case, but without success.

In mid March, the Assembly Judiciary Committee, chaired by Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Essex), unanimously approved Bill A4243 that, if enacted, would require the State to make public a negotiated settlement between a public entity and public employee seeking damages under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act.

On March 23, The Assembly unanimously approved the bill, which now goes to the Senate. McKeon cited my hard fought legal battle with the Christie administration as inspiration for the legislation. He also advocated a broad inquiry into the events that gave rise to my lawsuit. Both the bill and the proposed investigation deserve widespread support.

McKeon's bill is a welcome and needed reform.

The resolution of civil law suits that involve the expenditure of public money and implicate matters of great public interest - as most whistleblower suits typically do - should not reside in the shadows at the whim of the parties.

Transparency promotes the entwined goals of accountability and deterrence. Better still, where the Hunterdon case is concerned, would be the willingness of the Assembly to convene a genuinely probing and thorough investigation to address all outstanding questions. The people of New Jersey deserve nothing less.

Ben Barlyn, served as a state and county prosecutor, as well as a executive director of the New Jersey Commission to Review Criminal Sentencing. He resides with his family in Bucks County, where he now is a middle school teacher.

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