THE LATEST: Moments after a judge’s ruling, a state task force releases stunning report taking aim at political power broker

The public has a right to see a confidential report from a governor’s task force investigating how the troubled New Jersey Economic Development Authority spent billions of dollars, a state judge ruled Monday, rebuffing a concerted effort by Democratic power broker George Norcross III to prevent its release.

State Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson in Mercer County on Monday denied a request by attorneys for Norcross for a restraining order to stop the task force from releasing the report and to prohibit any further public hearings.

“Frankly the public interest is to allow the task force to report," Jacobson said. “The public has a right to know.”

Jacobson added that she was reluctant to stop the task force from issuing its findings, based on the what had been presented in the court filing.

“I can’t grant a temporary injunction when I have concerns about whether the plaintiffs can prevail,” she said.

Jacobson agreed that there were issues of reputational damage as a result of the ongoing inquiry by the task force. “The court has been concerned about the fairness of all of this,” she said, repeatedly referring to her concerns over the way the task force appeared to have targeted specific companies on short notice. “Is this process fair?”

However, she questioned whether there was any likelihood of success arguing that the governor does not have the authority to have a task force investigate an agency where significant irregularities have already been identified.

The task force released the report within minutes of her decision.

Attorneys for the task force had urged the immediate release of the controversial report, which is expected to examine how hundreds of millions in state-funded economic incentives were awarded by the EDA in recent years.

“They don’t want the report to come out. They don’t want the report to be issued,” said Theodore V. Wells Jr., who represented the task force and Gov. Phil Murphy.

Wells told Jacobson there is no dispute that the EDA tax programs were important to the state and that there have been “serious control problems” that included issues of potential fraud and abuse.

“The public has every right to know what has happened,” he said.

The EDA task force was created by Murphy, a Democrat, after the state comptroller in January concluded that the authority may have “improperly awarded, miscalculated, overstated and overpaid” tax credits to a number of companies.

But in court filings, Norcross and others with ties to him, argued that the task force was an illegal exercise of the governor’s power. He has stated publicly that Murphy’s targeting of the EDA was nothing less than a politically inspired attack as part of an escalating feud with the governor.

Sparking his ire may have been the widening focus by the task force on how lucrative incentives were approved for businesses tied to the insurance executive and his company, Conner Strong & Buckelew.

Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson, the assignment judge in Mercer County.Tony Kurdzuk | Star-Ledger file photo

Kevin Marino, one of the lawyers representing Norcross during the more than five-hour hearing before Jacobson in Trenton, argued that the task force had caused irreparable reputational harm with its allegations. He added that the governor had “glossed over” state statutes establishing the EDA, which he maintained did not permit the governor to commission an inquiry of an independent agency.

Marino told the judge the task force had embarked on an investigation not on the EDA, but of individuals and entities that not involved in the administration of the agency.

“It’s more like a grand jury investigation,” he said. “It’s a grand jury proceeding being done in the public square.”

The task force, in its own filings with the court, called the bid by Norcross nothing less than a “brazen attempt” to prevent the findings of a task force from being made public. Wells charged that the plaintiffs in the case “have stopped at nothing in their efforts to impede the task force’s work,” and said they could not justify silencing the task force or discontinuing its activities.

He said there is no question the EDA is an instrumentality of the state and the governor has the ability to investigate its actions. “The governor has the ability to reject any action taken by the EDA,” Wells maintained. “This is not a rocket science statutory issue.”

Jacobson, in her questioning of lawyers, was clearly unpersuaded by arguments that the governor did not have the authority to investigate the EDA.

“We’re talking about investigating an entity that is important to the operation of the state,” said the judge, calling it “counterintuitive” to believe the governor — who she repeatedly pointed out could veto the minutes of the authority — did not have the right to investigate how the EDA did its work.

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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