A New Jersey Health Department official who was suddenly fired now says it was because he refused to provide tests for the relatives of Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D-NJ) top aide.
Christopher Neuwirth, the former assistant commissioner for the Division of Public Health, Infrastructure, Laboratories, and Emergency Preparedness, filed a whistleblower lawsuit saying he was fired because he thought it was unethical to use scarce resources on people connected to the governor’s office. The lawsuit, obtained by NJ Advance Media, includes an email Neuwirth wrote to Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli’s chief of staff at the time he was asked to provide the testing.
“Clearly, we cannot say no, or advise them that this test doesn’t matter, and it’s a complete waste of an AC’s [(assistant commissioner’s) time to spend literally 6-hours collecting one specimen,” the email said, as reported by NJ.com. “I’m sharing this with you simply for documentation and in case this continues to spiral out of control.”
As the outlet reported, Neuwirth was asked to provide the testing in April, when only those with COVID-19 symptoms were being tested due to a scarce supply of resources.
Neuwirth was terminated on May 28. At the time, media outlets reported that he had been fired for allegedly not reporting his side job and leaking confidential information to the media about the governor’s coronavirus report, NJ.com previously reported.
NJ Advance Media previously “obtained secretly recorded conversations with Persichilli, who indicated that Neuwirth was actually let go because the administration had become convinced that he was the one leaking confidential information to the press about the state’s response to the coronavirus,” NJ.com reported.
Neuwirth now says in his lawsuit that neither of those things was the real reason he was fired. He also said his outside consulting work was mischaracterized, the outlet reported. He also denied leaking information to the press.
“Because I pursued an ethics complaint, I was terminated,” told the outlet through his attorney.
Neuwirth says in his lawsuit that he “received a phone call on April 24 from State Police Superintendent Patrick Callahan, who he claimed had told him that the governor’s chief of staff ‘needs a favor,’” NJ.com reported.
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The request was to have the assistant commissioner himself, or a member of his staff, go to the home of unnamed relatives of Helmy in Bergen County and collect specimens for COVID-19 testing that weekend, through the Department of Heath’s Public Health and Environmental Laboratories.
“Fully understanding that the request for the ‘favor’ was coming from top-level people within the governor’s inner circle,” the complaint said Neuwirth told Callahan that he would look into the matter.
The following day, the complaint said Callahan again called and “angrily demanded” to find out why no one had yet contacted Helmy’s family members. Neuwirth responded that he had no staff available.
“So then, this is something you are going to do?” he said the State Police superintendent asked.
Neuwirth said he responded to the superintendent that he didn’t have a choice, yet he reportedly never conducted the testing.
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