Phil Murphy hiring investigation: Katie Brennan says her sex assault claim went unheard

In raw yet stern testimony, one of Gov. Phil Murphy's former campaign supporters who is now a top state official detailed how those in the governor's inner circle ignored her allegation of sexual assault against a campaign aide who also went on to secure a key public job.

“I had access to people in the highest positions of power in the state of New Jersey, and at each turn, my pleas for help went unanswered,” Katie Brennan, chief of staff at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, told lawmakers Tuesday during a five-hour hearing where she was the sole witness.

“Somehow it wasn’t a priority to address my sexual assault and working with my rapist until it impacted them," she said.

And Murphy himself was told she had to discuss a "sensitive matter" with him and his wife, Brennan said, but still no action was taken.

Brennan testified that at least four top Murphy officials eventually knew of her allegation against Al Alvarez, who had been the chief of staff at a state authority and a senior member of Murphy's campaign. Alvarez remained in state employment for months until Brennan finally told her story publicly.

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Brennan, 31, of Jersey City, was the first witness called to testify in front of a bipartisan panel of lawmakers set up to investigate the Murphy administration’s hiring practices after the Wall Street Journal published her allegation in an explosive Oct. 14 article.

The pending publication of that story prompted Alvarez to resign from his $140,000 position at the Schools Development Authority and laid bare a process, through the Murphy campaign and transition and into his administration, that Brennan said was broken. Alvarez, who had previously led Latino and Muslim outreach during the campaign, has denied the allegations through an attorney and was not charged in the alleged April 2017 sexual assault. 

The investigation now threatens to embroil the governor in politically damaging questions about what he knew and when. It could also lead to further deterioration in his relationship with the Legislature as he ramps up efforts to enact two key campaign promises: the legalization of marijuana and a $15 minimum wage.

Murphy, in a statement Tuesday, said he watched Brennan’s roughly 20-minute opening statement and commended “the courage, bravery, and leadership she showed in telling her story.”

“She is right: no one should have to go through an ordeal to have their voices heard,” Murphy said. “We must stand with survivors of sexual assault, and we must start from a place of believing the accuser."

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Tuesday’s hearing did not offer definitive answers about Murphy’s role in Brennan’s crusade to hold Alvarez accountable.

Murphy has acknowledged that he and his wife, Tammy, received an email from Brennan in June alerting them to a "sensitive matter" but has maintained that he did not know any details until Oct. 2, when Alvarez abruptly resigned.

Murphy later said he was “sick to my stomach” once he learned of Brennan’s allegation and launched three separate inquiries to try to get to the bottom of what happened and how to prevent it from happening again.

Lawmakers pressed Brennan on Tuesday about whether she thought Murphy was aware of her allegation before October, and Brennan said she didn’t know. 

“I did not indicate that my sensitive matter involved Mr. Alvarez,” Brennan said of her email to the Murphys.

Within an hour of sending that email, Brennan said, she received a response from the governor: “We know you well. Hang in. We’re on it.”

Brennan said she felt “a glimmer of hope.” She was later notified by an attorney for the Murphy campaign, Jonathan Berkon, that Alvarez would be leaving the administration, she said. Brennan said she did not know how Berkon knew that she had made an allegation against Alvarez.

But weeks went by and Alvarez remained at his position as chief of staff at the authority. Before that, she had contacted Jersey City police and the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office, which declined to charge Alvarez because, Brennan said, investigators did not believe a jury would convict him.

“In other words, they didn’t think that people would believe me,” Brennan said. “There are no words to describe the hollowness and disappointment that I felt.”

Brennan said she also made multiple attempts to notify the proper channels in the campaign, transition and state government of the alleged assault. She asked Justin Braz, a friend who later worked on the campaign and is now a deputy chief of staff to Murphy, to inform Murphy’s team of the allegation against Alvarez. She sent a letter via Fed Ex to the Murphy campaign headquarters in Newark. She told chief counsel Matt Platkin and his deputy, Parimal Garg, of the allegation in person. And she received phone calls about the matter from Heather Taylor, the state’s chief ethics officer, and Berkon, the attorney for the campaign.

In addition, the governor’s chief of staff, Pete Cammarano, was aware of an accusation against Alvarez, according to the Wall Street Journal.

But no action was taken by the administration until Brennan made her allegation public.

“Why did I have to tell my story to the Wall Street Journal for the administration to acknowledge they should not have hired Mr. Alvarez?” Brennan said Tuesday. “I should not have to be here today.”

Brennan, who was joined by her husband, Travis Miles, said she was testifying not only to achieve justice in her own case but also to push for criminal justice and policy reforms that would prevent others from having a similar experience. The legislative committee has said it intends to study those issues and investigate Murphy's hiring of other employees with questionable backgrounds. 

Among other recommendations, Brennan suggested making sexual assault prosecutions easier by allowing prior accusations against a defendant to be used at trial and lifting New Jersey’s two-year statute of limitations for pursuing civil sexual assault claims.

“We all have a lot of work to do. It’s not about one bad actor. This isn’t about one incident. This is about a pervasive culture of assault and violence. It is every person that looks the other way instead of acting,” Brennan said.

“These reforms did not exist for me or for the million survivors before me, but they can exist for the next survivor, because unfortunately, there will be a next one,” she added. “It is our role to ensure that when they report, they get the justice that they deserve.”

Leaders of the legislative committee said their next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 18. They declined to say whom they expected to testify.