New Jersey Governor’s Aides Faulted for Bungling Staff Abuse Claim

(Bloomberg) -- New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s transition team and administration bungled its handling of one aide’s sexual-assault claim against another and failed to follow even basic human-resources policies as the man accused landed a high-paying state job, a legislative panel found.

Never again, the report concluded, should a state employee not be able to pinpoint who hired him or her. Records should show hire date, job title, salary and other such basic information -- a practice that could have saved the panel hours of witness testimony that still left questions unresolved.

“Common sense is hard to legislate,” Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, a Democrat from Teaneck who co-led the panel, said in Trenton Wednesday before the report was released.

The 119-page study was commissioned by a select oversight committee reviewing how Al Alvarez Jr. was hired for a $140,000-a-year job as Schools Development Authority chief of staff. Prior to Alvarez’s hiring, he was a Murphy campaign employee who was accused of sexual assault by Katie Brennan, a former Murphy election volunteer who became chief of staff at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.

Prosecutors declined to file criminal charges, citing a lack of evidence, and Alvarez told the panel that he was falsely accused. The April 2017 encounter with Brennan, at the apartment she shares with her husband, was consensual, he said.

No Choice

Brennan told lawmakers that her claim was mishandled by several members of Murphy’s inner circle -- starting in December 2017 when she said she warned law enforcement was investigating her report -- and left her no choice but to tell her story to the Wall Street Journal in October 2018. After the article ran, the 15-member panel was assembled to oversee hearings on the allegations, with help from three private attorneys, and recommend policy.

“Ms. Brennan wanted somebody to listen to her and hold Mr. Alvarez accountable for his alleged actions,” the report found. “Unfortunately, no one demonstrated a willingness to follow up with Ms. Brennan or took appropriate action to thoroughly review her complaint.”

Murphy’s communications staff didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The report faulted campaign, transition and administration staff alike, including Murphy’s first chief of staff, Pete Cammarano; former Schools Development Authority Executive Director Charlie McKenna; and Chief Counsel Matt Platkin.

Grilled on how he was hired, Alvarez said he wasn’t certain on who gave approval. In 2018, as Brennan continued to put pressure on Murphy’s inner circle, Alvarez resisted a request to leave the administration until he was “forcefully terminated” as the article was being prepared, he told the panel in March.

Decision Makers

“The administration should be embarrassed that, despite the Legislature conducting extensive hearings and expending substantial time and resources, no one from the administration will admit to hiring Mr. Alvarez or even knowing who did,” the report stated.

The report recommended that hiring former transition employees be governed by civil service rules and strictly follow existing human-resources policy on new employees. Applicants should be asked whether they have been criminally charged or investigated, it said, and transition staff should have resources to conduct investigations “in extraordinary circumstances.”

“Instead of stopping the train and carefully looking into the allegation, the decision-makers on the transition staff continually rationalized why they should look away,” the report stated. “This course of action did a disservice to all parties -- Ms. Brennan, Mr. Alvarez and Governor Murphy.”

The Assembly is drafting legislation based on the report’s recommendations, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, a Democrat from Woodbridge, said in a statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Elise Young in Trenton at eyoung30@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flynn McRoberts at fmcroberts1@bloomberg.net, William Selway, Michael B. Marois

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