By Walter Elliott
ORANGE – When Mayor Dwayne Warren reappointed Willis Edwards III as “Deputy Administrator” in February 2013, one of the former Business Administrator’s first acts was to fire Assistant City Attorney John McGovern.
When McGovern was returned to the Orange Law Department by N.J. State Superior Court order in 2020, Edwards had left City Hall under a separate court order Dec. 31, 2015.
The July 1, 2012 – Dec. 31, 2015 actions of Willis as BA, “DA” and Mayor’s Chief of Staff have led to a pair of indictments handed down by federal grand juries in Newark on July 8 and Sept. 20, 2020.
The overall 31 counts against Willis have also involved six individuals, from a college term paper writer to the then-Orange Public Library director. While Willis himself and a seventh co-conspirator have not entered a plea as of press time, four of the others have pled guilty and one not guilty.
One of those 31 counts involved Edwards allegedly getting a college tuition reimbursement letter, on Feb. 10, 2016, authorized by City Hall employees and backdated to Aug. 17, 2015. That letter allowed the city to pay the former one-term state assemblyman $25,142 supposedly for his masters’ classes taken that autumn at Seton Hall University.
U.S. Department of Justice attorneys and FBI agents from Newark, who have executed search warrants on City Hall, OPL and related institutions in 2015-16, included the Feb. 10, 2016 allegation because the authorization documents were backdated to 2015.
The counts remain at 31 – and federal prosecutors have said that their nearly-six-year investigation remains active. The feds, however, have left some other questionable incidents involving Edwards at the state level.
One of those “outside of the 31” incidents involves Edwards’ firing of McGovern. McGovern responded by filing a whistleblower suit against the City of Orange – which eventually led a State Appellate Court panel in 2017 to have the attorney rehired and to be compensated $229,914.
Edwards, in February 2013, told McGovern that his job was being eliminated among a string of budget cuts. The two, however, had had at least one exchange of words over the handling of a $100,000 compensation lien regarding a former orange municipal clerk.
McGovern, in his Conscientious Employee Protection Act suit, said that Edwards wanted him to write a letter that would waive a $100,000 workers compensation lien against the by-then retired city clerk.
The clerk in question was injured in an automobile collision that kept him off the job. The city had paid his medical bills and temporary disability payments as worker compensation – until the clerk’s insurance carrier issued a settlement. That settlement came from the other driver’s insurance company.
Edwards’ predecessor as Business Administrator has put a $100,000 lien against the clerk as recompensation. The letter that Edwards wanted McGovern to write would waive that lien – and the clerk would keep the $100,000 in question.
McGovern, in his CEPA suit, told Edwards that the waiver would require a City Council vote. He said that Edwards demanded him to write the letter “in a menacing and hostile manner.” The attorney said he “nervously” wrote the waiver with a notation that he was doing so at Edwards’ direction.
Now-retired Superior Court Judge Dennis F. Carey III ruled in McGovern’s favor and ordered his reinstatement. Carey also asked Orange to pay the lawyer $142,560 in back pay, $50,000 in compensation and $37,354 in attorney’s fees and costs.
Orange then filed for an Appellate Court hearing. Hired city attorney Christopher Harriott asserted that McGovern was an at-will employee who needed no explanation for his termination.
The two-judge Appellate Court panel upheld Carey’s ruling. They cited the city’s refusal to provide discovery demands any evidence that would affirm or counter McGovern’s claims.
McGovern, at last employee email address check, remains in Orange’s Law Department.
An Open Public Records Act hearing related to the former city clerk’s compensation documentation between resident Katalin Gordon and the city, was scheduled to be heard by an Appellant Court panel May 11 in Newark.
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