“Let me be absolutely and unequivocally clear: This never should have happened,” Gov. Phil Murphy said at his offices in Newark, where he was peppered with questions by reporters. | Seth Wenig/AP Photo New Jersey's Murphy faces turmoil over handling of assault allegation against former aide

NEWARK, N.J. — New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is facing a growing scandal surrounding his administration’s decision to hire a former campaign aide for a state job despite an allegation of sexual assault.

Murphy says he’s ordering an independent investigation into how his staff handled the matter and was prepared to change state law to ensure nothing like it happens again. The governor, at a Monday press conference ahead of a nine-day overseas trade mission, denied learning any of the details of the allegations against Albert J. Alvarez until Oct. 2, but he insisted members of his staff had properly handled the matter after it was brought to their attention in March. His transition team, he said, was another story.


“Let me be absolutely and unequivocally clear: This never should have happened,” Murphy, a Democrat, said at his offices in Newark, where he was peppered with questions by reporters and appeared at times to be left uneasy by the spectacle. “In this instance, the hiring process of the transition did not reflect our values or the seriousness with which we believe allegations of assault should be taken, period.”

The governor’s comments come a day after The Wall Street Journal published an interview with Katie Brennan, an administration official who says Alvarez sexually assaulted her inside her Jersey City apartment April 8, 2017, after driving her home from a gathering of campaign staffers at a bar.

POLITICO, which first reported the allegation last week, on Monday published an account of a new accusation against Alvarez dating to his days in law school, around 2000.

Also Monday, POLITICO reported that a State Department inspector general‘s report on U.S. diplomatic operations in Germany in 2011 — when Murphy served as ambassador there — said the embassy and consulates were not “attentive” or “proactive” in dealing with harassment claims. A follow-up report in February 2013 said corrective action was taken, and that that embassy complied with recommendations from the audit.

Alvarez was never charged with a crime in either case and was hired as chief of staff in the Schools Development Authority even though top transition officials — including the governor’s current chief of staff — knew about the case. Alvarez resigned two weeks ago, seven months after Brennan said she contacted the governor’s chief counsel about the matter and four months after she tried to reach Murphy himself.

The governor, who said he had no role in hiring Alvarez but was likely made aware of his appointment, said Monday he was hiring attorney Peter Verniero, a former state Supreme Court justice and state attorney general, to undertake an inquiry into the matter.

“Sexual misconduct in any form is and will continue to be treated by this administration with the utmost gravity,” Murphy said. “Now we must lead and prove that commitment. Words are not enough.”

Verniero, who was also the top aide to Republican Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, faced his own controversy when he was state attorney general as lawmakers in 2001 looked into allegations of racial profiling by the State Police. His forgetful testimony during a public hearing, in which he repeatedly said he did not “recall” a number of details and was accused of misleading lawmakers, nearly led to his impeachment.

Verniero, of the Sills Cummis and Gross law firm, said he would pursue a “systemic review of the hiring and vetting practices of the Governor-elect’s transition office, including the hiring and vetting of Mr. Albert J. Alvarez.” He said he spoke to the governor on Monday and agreed to provide a summary of his findings by the end of the year.

“Within that mandate, I have been assured that I will have complete independence to request interviews with whomever I deem appropriate as fact witnesses as well as access to relevant documents,” Verniero said in a statement.

Murphy, who took office in January and fashions himself a champion of women’s issues, insisted the investigation would be thorough, complete and independent, and nothing like the short inquiry the FBI undertook this month into decades-old sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh ahead of his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But the governor didn’t directly answer a question about whether he would support an investigation by the state Legislature, which Republicans leaders from both houses have requested.

“I think these are very meaningful steps we are taking right now,” he said. “This is a moment where folks can either grandstand or call balls and strikes to make New Jersey better for victims of sexual assault."

State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) said Monday afternoon she was calling for the creation of a special legislative committee to conduct an inquiry into the ways allegations of sexual assault, abuse and harassment are handled by law enforcement, the criminal justice system and government in New Jersey.

Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester), Weinberg and other Democratic leaders in the upper house released a joint statement calling the new disclosures “alarming and disturbing” and that “unanswered questions multiply with each new allegation and assertion.” They called for a “full accounting of what occurred, what complaints or accusations were made, what was done to get the full truth and what actions were taken in response.”

“The conduct and behavior that has been described to this point cannot be ignored and the claims of the survivors must be taken seriously. If true, these are abuses of power that leave victims in their wake. The impact of any abuse is made worse by any failure to fully respond,” the lawmakers said. “The people of New Jersey deserve a full and straightforward accounting of what happened during the campaign, what carried forward into the transition and what continued into the administration.”

Meanwhile, the governor said he and his wife, Tammy Murphy, planned to speak with Brennan by phone on Monday to express their “profound heartbreak for what she has and is going through.” Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver will also reach out to Brennan, who remains the chief of staff at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.

Murphy said he and the first lady “admire Katie’s bravery,” and believe that it is “critical” they learn from what’s she going through. He said he was open to changing both state policy and state laws in order to make it easier for accusers to seek justice.

“Our current policies and procedures were adhered to,” Murphy said. “But that is no longer enough.”

Alvarez, whose attorney denied the allegation to The Wall Street Journal, was the Murphy campaign's director of Muslim and Latino outreach. Brennan, his accuser, later became a volunteer for the campaign. Brennan said she reported the alleged assault to police a day after it occurred. The case was investigated by the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office, but no charges were ever brought against Alvarez.

On Monday, the Attorney General’s Office announced that Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez had asked the state Division of Criminal Justice to take over the case after she realized she knew both Alvarez and Brennan. The division referred the investigation to the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, which will review the matter.

"Although these personal relationships in no way affected the investigation that was conducted in 2017, Prosecutor Suarez decided — out of an abundance of caution — to request that DCJ supersede the case," the Division of Criminal Justice said in a statement.

Murphy’s aides learned of the allegation against Alvarez in late November, shortly after the election. Pete Cammarano, now the governor’s chief of staff, was among those made aware Alvarez was facing an allegation of sexual assault, according to a senior administration official. None of the top transition aides knew the name of the accuser, the official said.

In a statement, Murphy spokesman Mahen Gunaratna said transition officials learned law enforcement had investigated an allegation against Alvarez “and that they closed the case and declined to pursue charges.”

“Following a clear background check, Mr. Alvarez received an offer of employment in state government,” Gunaratna said.

Brennan contacted Matt Platkin, the governor’s chief counsel, in March 2018 and told him about the allegation she made against Alvarez.

“The matter was immediately and properly referred to the Chief Ethics Officer of the Governor’s Office and to the Attorney General’s Office, in accordance with state policies and procedures,” Gunaratna said.

Platkin told Alvarez’s supervisor at the time, SDA Chief Executive Charlie McKenna, that Alvarez should “separate himself” from the state government, according to the senior administration official.

McKenna told the Wall Street Journal he conveyed the message, and that Alvarez said he would start searching for a new job, but no timeline had been set. “He wasn’t being fired, he wasn’t being ordered to leave,” McKenna told the newspaper. “It was just a conversation where I said, ‘I was told that this would be a good idea.’”

In June, nearly 14 months after the alleged attack and with Alvarez still working for the administration, Brennan contacted the governor and his wife, who had said publicly last year that she was sexually assaulted when she was a college student.

“Sensitive Matter-Meeting Request,” was the subject line of the email, sent at 7 p.m. June 1 to the couple’s private addresses. A copy of the exchange was provided to POLITICO.

“Reluctantly, I am coming to you today to discuss something that happened during the campaign. If possible, I would like to meet with either of you one on one for this sensitive matter,” Brennan wrote after reintroducing herself. “Thank you for your consideration.”

The governor wrote back 41 minutes later, addressing her by her first name.

“We know you well,” he said. “Adding our respective teams to get on with scheduling something. Hang in. We are on it. If we prove not to be fast enough don't hesitate to come back to Tammy or me directly.

Many thanks. Phil and Tammy M.”

The governor copied two staff members on the email.

The governor insisted Monday he learned nothing else about what Brennan had contacted him about, or that there was an allegation against Alvarez, until this month.

He said he did not follow up with Brennan because he had been counseled in general that he can’t attend to every matter personally and needs to delegate such issues.

Asked if he thought his aides had sought to give him plausible deniability, he said he did not want to speculate, and he did not respond directly when asked if he posed such a question to his staff.

“We’ve had, believe me, a lot of soul-searching over the past 15 days. Believe me, we’ve turned this thing over a thousand times,” Murphy said.

The Journal story, he said, revealed new details “and shocked the hell out of us.” He defended staying away from the matter.

“You’ve got a confidentiality process, and if you make an exception, you run the risk that someone with my power and influence can put their finger on the scale and tip it one way or the other,” Murphy said. “And that’s not right — that’s not what the people of New Jersey deserve.”