Inquirer journalist’s notes appeared in files of N.J. Attorney General’s Office in a case against Norcross

An Inquirer staffer’s interview notes came into the possession of the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office during an investigation that led to the high-profile, and recently abandoned, racketeering indictment against South Jersey power broker George E. Norcross III.

News organizations typically treat unpublished reporting material as confidential and often fight government demands for it in court.

Inquirer editor and senior vice president Gabriel Escobar on Wednesday confirmed that state investigators had obtained interview notes typed in 2019 by Nancy Phillips, who currently edits the Justice and Injustice Team. The Inquirer “did not turn over notes to state prosecutors” and was never subpoenaed by authorities for them, Escobar wrote in a note to the newsroom.

“We do not definitively know how the notes ended up with the state, but we do know it was not from us,” Escobar said in response to questions from an Inquirer reporter.

A person with firsthand knowledge of how the notes came into the possession of the authorities said Phillips had shared the notes with someone outside The Inquirer.

“Nancy Phillips shared the notes with a third party. It was not for the purpose of sharing the notes with authorities. It was for her own edification,” said the source, who is not an Inquirer employee and requested anonymity due to ongoing litigation threats related to the case. “The state did not receive the notes from Nancy Phillips directly.”

A second source with direct knowledge of the evidence discovery file related to the Norcross investigation said the interview notes were included in an electronic file titled “Stier Documents.”

Edwin Stier, a former state and federal prosecutor in New Jersey, has been quoted previously in The Inquirer, including as part of its coverage of Norcross. He is mentioned elsewhere in the discovery file, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to publicly discuss the discovery material.

Stier declined to comment on why his name appears in the evidentiary documents.

Phillips declined to comment, saying she was “not comfortable talking about the process of newsgathering.”

Escobar — who joined The Inquirer in 2007 as metropolitan editor and was appointed its top editor in 2020 — declined to respond to questions about whether Phillips shared the notes with anyone outside the newsroom, including Stier. Escobar did not respond to a request for a phone interview and instead answered questions in writing.

BigTrial, a blog authored by former Inquirer reporter Ralph Cipriano, first reported on Wednesday that the 10-page typed interview notes were in the state’s hands. Norcross’ legal team obtained the notes from the state through evidence discovery, and Norcross is considering a lawsuit against the state for malicious prosecution, BigTrial reported.

The notes do not indicate the name of the author but appeared to summarize August 2019 meetings between a journalist and longtime Cherry Hill mayor Susan Bass Levin, who shared information critical of Norcross, according to the BigTrial report. Bass Levin is the former president and CEO of Cooper University Health System’s Cooper Foundation, where Norcross serves as a board member.

“I have never seen the notes,” Bass Levin said. She declined to comment further.

An Inquirer reporter was not able to obtain a copy of the notes. Escobar said he did not have a copy of them.

Cipriano’s report claims that there are “only a couple possible explanations” for how prosecutors obtained the notes: The Inquirer supplied the notes in response to a subpoena; or Phillips was “voluntarily helping the investigators trying to pin a racketeering indictment on Norcross and associates.”

Cipriano included no evidence to support either claim.

In his email to the newsroom, Escobar wrote that Cipriano’s theories amounted to “unfounded and irresponsible speculation.”

“Speculation that Nancy Phillips, who has a long and distinguished track record as a reporter and editor, was working with state prosecutors is both false and outrageous,” Escobar wrote. “When we learned that state investigators had the notes, we conducted an inquiry and determined that the material was not provided to them by The Inquirer.”

He declined to give further details.

(Escobar recused himself from involvement in this story, as did the reporters and editors who led The Inquirer’s coverage in 2019 of the investigation into Norcross.)

Asked whether Phillips or any other staffer had faced discipline after the internal inquiry, Escobar wrote: “We do not comment on personnel matters.”

Norcross spokesperson Dan Fee said Norcross’ legal team was not aware of how the state obtained the notes.

The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.

New Jersey state prosecutors, led by then-Attorney General Matthew Platkin, in 2024 indicted Norcross and five others in a racketeering case centered on alleged corruption in economic development tax breaks for projects connected to Norcross in Camden.

A judge in 2025 dismissed the charges. The prosecution, now led by acting Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, effectively dropped the case earlier this year when it declined to appeal a state appellate court decision upholding the dismissal.

Beginning in 2019, Inquirer reporters Andrew Seidman and Catherine Dunn wrote a series of articles on the tax break deals and the investigation into Norcross.

Norcross spokesperson Fee said Seidman told him at the time that Phillips was not involved in the coverage. Phillips had a longtime romantic relationship with the late New Jersey billionaire Lewis Katz, who clashed with Norcross when both were co-owners of The Inquirer in the early 2010s.

The combination of the notes and subsequent stories in The Inquirer indicate that Phillips had not just met with Bass Levin but also passed her notes to the reporters covering the story, showing that Phillips did play a role in coverage of Norcross, Fee said.

Fee said Wednesday that Escobar’s statement “confirms the two most important things in the BigTrial story: Nancy Phillips’ notes ended up in the hands of prosecutors and that despite her bias against George Norcross being clear and known, Phillips was part of the reporting on stories involving him.”

He called on Inquirer leadership to conduct a “public investigation” and questioned whether “there will be some effort to cover everything up.”

Cipriano’s report quoted brief portions of the notes, including that Bass Levin suggested requesting certain public records, and that an Inquirer reporter later requested those records.

Escobar’s note to the newsroom Wednesday said that Phillips “was not directly involved in the [Norcross] coverage but served as a conduit for information only she could access.”

“Nancy has established a network of sources in her long career, and the information she has been able to gather has aided our journalism across many fronts,” Escobar wrote. “In 2019, she was approached by a source who was offering unique insights on a significant and running story. Nancy conducted an interview, typed up the notes, and then shared them with two Inquirer reporters who were working on the story.”

Cipriano, Norcross, and Phillips each have complicated Inquirer tenures.

Cipriano, who was fired from The Inquirer in 1998, sued his editor for libel following a dispute over his coverage of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The suit was settled in 2001 with both sides declining to disclose the terms of the agreement, according to a New York Times report. Cipriano frequently criticizes The Inquirer’s coverage and its reporters and editors on his blog.

Norcross was a co-owner of The Inquirer from 2012 to 2014, a tumultuous period in which he battled with Katz over control of the company.

And Phillips, who scored legendary scoops as a crime reporter and now edits the Justice and Injustice Team, was involved in a relationship with Katz during his public fight with Norcross.

Katz and cable mogul-turned-philanthropist H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest ultimately prevailed in the dispute over who would own The Inquirer. Katz died in a 2014 plane crash, just days after he and Lenfest bested Norcross in an auction organized to settle the ownership matter. (The Inquirer since 2016 has been owned by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a nonprofit endowed by its namesake before he died in 2018.)

Escobar, who did not become The Inquirer’s top editor until a year after Phillips’ meeting with Bass Levin, said that he “did not have firsthand knowledge” of any arrangement barring Phillips from involvement in Norcross coverage.

“But I could see a situation where a judgment call was made that placed priority on gathering information in a limited way,” Escobar said.

He added in a separate response: “Gathering information from all quarters on a story always yields better and more complete journalism and, as the [newsroom] note says, this particular source was in a position to know and would only provide it to Nancy.”

At the time of the 2019 interview, Phillips was a deputy regional editor overseeing reporters covering the Pennsylvania and New Jersey suburbs. In that role, Phillips would not normally be involved with stories concerning the Norcross investigation, which was handled by reporters from the politics and business desks.

In a statement, Seidman noted that Norcross and the Camden tax breaks became a matter of public debate in the spring of 2019 and that he and Dunn began their reporting in May of that year — three months before Phillips met with Bass Levin.

“Our reporting was based on interviews, emails, bank documents, property records, appraisals, and other government documents,” Seidman said. “I stand by it 100%.”

Dunn, who left The Inquirer in 2022 and has been a reporter at Barron’s for about four years, declined to comment.

Fee said he repeatedly disputed Seidman’s and Dunn’s coverage of Norcross, including an October 2019 article Cipriano highlighted regarding a land deal in Camden.

The Inquirer publishes corrections when it discovers that its reporting contained factually inaccurate information. No corrections were made to the 2019 article.

Former Inquirer editor John P. Martin, who was the lead editor on that story, said he and the reporters “talked at length with Mr. Norcross’ spokesman and several lawyers representing him.”

“At no point, to my recollection, did Nancy Phillips offer input, advice, editing help, ask questions, or even engage in small chat about that story or any involving Mr. Norcross,” said Martin, who is now with Bloomberg.

Escobar concluded his note to the newsroom by saying the episode offered “an important lesson.”

“The information we gather in the course of reporting should always be safeguarded,” he said. “And no matter how well established a source-reporter relationship is, each interaction should establish clear parameters for the use of the information.”

Asked for clarity on how those comments related to prosecutors obtaining Phillips’ notes, Escobar wrote: “The notes ended up with the state so something went awry. That part of the message is intended as a general reminder and not specific to the circumstances.”