Ex-Murphy Campaign Volunteer Settles $1M Lawsuit Against State, Governor After Rape Allegation
Katie Brennan accused Al Alvarez, a former Murphy campaign adviser, of raping her in her apartment in 2017 after the pair left a gathering with other campaign members. Brennan went public with the allegations in 2018 before suing last year.
Murphy's campaign and the state of New Jersey will pay $1 million, with $600,000 going to a charity of Katie Brennan’s choice and $400,000 to her attorneys. Neither side admitted wrongdoing.
Brennan said she was pleased the settlement included an award to the Waterfront Project, a non-profit group in Hudson County that will use the donation to help low-income survivors of sexual assault, according to NJ.com.
Brennan, who now works as chief of staff at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, filed a lawsuit against the state and Alvarez, the former campaign adviser she accused of raping, according to media reports The suit alleged that Murphy campaign's and the state failed to properly investigate her case.
Alvarez denied any wrongdoing, was never arrested and two county prosecutors who reviewed the case declined to prosecute.
"It's a fair and reasonable settlement,''' Murphy said at an unrelated news briefing on Friday.
Under the settlement, the state and Murphy for Governor Inc. will split the $400,000 payment to Brennan's legal team.
The $600,000 payment to the charity will include $400,000 from the state and $200,000 from the Murphy campaign, according to NJ.com. The state agreed to pay mediation fees for the case, estimated to be around $20,000, the news report said, and Alvarez will owe nothing.
As part of the settlement, the state agreed to change its policy to allow alleged victims of sexual assault or harassment to have a support person accompany them to interviews with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigators. That is one of more than 25 changes in state law and policies that Brennan called for after she said the system failed her, and filed a complaint. The state also agreed to help Brennan present her list of proposed reforms to the state Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Council.
According to NJ.com, the 17-page settlement says Brennan and Alvarez will participate in a “restorative justice" program. It will include an anti-sexual harassment class for Alvarez and a meeting between Brennan and Alvarez with a facilitator within six months.
Murphy made this statement about the settlement with Brennan at his COVID-19 news conference Friday: “We’ve worked collaboratively and constructively with Katie and her team to institute meaningful reforms to support survivors in the workplace."
“We look forward to continuing our work on these issues to make New Jersey a leading state for survivor-centric policies as we have been doing now for a long time," Murphy said without taking further questions about the settlement.
Brennan said she was raped in 2017 after the pair left a gathering with other campaign staff. The accusation, made public in 2018, and her allegations of a cover-up, led to state legislative hearings and a government report detailing how the case was mishandled.
Alvarez, the former head of Latino and Muslim outreach for the governor’s campaign, later served as deputy director of personnel for the Murphy transition, then chief of staff to the New Jersey Schools Development Authority. Alvarez was forced to leave that job after Brennan went public with her allegations.
For the complete story on the settlement, go to NJ.com.
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