Democratic Party Power Broker Sues Major Paper For $100 Million After Prosecutor Allegedly Ends Up With Reporter’s Notes

A New Jersey Democratic kingmaker wants $100 million from the newspaper he says helped engineer a criminal case that fell apart.

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George E. Norcross III filed the defamation and conspiracy suit Thursday in Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas, targeting The Philadelphia Inquirer and editor Nancy Phillips, according to the newspaper’s own coverage. The complaint carries five counts, among them false light, intentional infliction of emotional distress, abuse of process and civil conspiracy.

Phillips typed out the notes at the center of the lawsuit in 2019 after interviewing former Cherry Hill Mayor Susan Bass Levin, the Inquirer reported. Norcross says his attorneys located those notes inside prosecutors’ evidence while reviewing discovery in his criminal matter, and that the writeup contained invented statements. (RELATED: New York Times Loses Defamation Lawsuit, Ordered To Pay Millions In Damages To Former Alabama Basketball Player)

The notes claimed Norcross, a longtime Garden State political boss who faced racketeering charges that were dismissed last year, played an oversized part in a Camden property deal and “openly berate[d]” John Sheridan, who led the Camden community development nonprofit now known as Camden Community Partnership, according to Politico. Bass Levin later told investigators she disputed that account and would not have used such language, the Inquirer reported.

New Jersey prosecutors indicted Norcross and five others in 2024 over economic development tax breaks tied to Camden projects, according to the Inquirer. A judge threw out the case, a state appeals court affirmed the dismissal in January, and the attorney general chose not to keep fighting, Politico reported.

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The newspaper rejects the allegation. Editor Gabriel Escobar told staff in July that an internal review cleared the paper of handing anything to authorities, the Inquirer reported.

“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 in the memo, according to the Inquirer.

Norcross alleges Phillips resented him because of her past romantic tie to Lewis Katz, who beat a Norcross-led group for control of the paper, KYW Newsradio reported. The suit also links Phillips to claims connecting Norcross to Katz’s death and the Sheridan deaths, though the complaint offers no proof for either, the Inquirer reported.

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Any award would fund Camden-area programs, spokesman Dan Fee said.