Days after a Superior Court judge dropped two top administration officials as defendants in a whistleblower lawsuit, lawyers for the former state Health Department assistant commissioner are now seeking to question Gov. Phil Murphy.
In a new filing in the ongoing case, attorneys for Christopher Neuwirth — who sued the state after he was fired from his high-level health department job at the height of the pandemic — asked for an order to compel the deposition of the governor.
A spokeswoman for the governor’s official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this month, Judge Douglas Hurd in Mercer County refused to dismiss a defamation charge against Murphy leveled by Neuwirth as part of that case, rejecting arguments by the state that Neuwirth’s claim was without merit because he had failed to show “actual malice” by the governor.
Neuwirth served as assistant health commissioner for the state Division of Public Health, Infrastructure, Laboratories and Emergency Preparedness before his sudden and unexpected removal from the high-profile position in May 2020.
In a lawsuit that came soon afterward, Neuwirth charged that he was terminated after he complained that he had been ordered to provide COVID-19 test kits to family members of George Helmy, Murphy’s chief of staff. At issue, he alleged, were concerns about the ethics of providing scarce specimen collection supplies to those with political connections at a time when New Jersey was testing only those...
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