Inkygate: Clown show at the Inquirer gets serious

When we last left the crack journalists at The Philadelphia Inquirer, they were still trying to determine how ten pages of typewritten notes written by editor Nancy Phillips somehow ended up with the N.J. state attorney general.

“We do not definitively know how the notes ended up with the state, but we do know it was not from us,” Inquirer editor Gabe Escobar told Inquirer reporter Sean Collins Walsh for a July 16th story published in the Inquirer.

The Inquirer’s efforts to inform the public about the ethical scandal in their own newsroom were hampered by the curious spectacle of an Inquirer editor and a couple of Inquirer reporters [one former, one current] who stonewalled Collins.

The former Inquirer reporter wouldn’t talk to Collins; the current Inky reporter gave Collins a written statement.

Phillips not only wouldn’t talk to Collins, she also apparently wouldn’t share her notes with him either. Inquirer editor Gabe Escobar also told Collins that he didn’t have a copy of Phillips’s notes.

How, you might ask, can Escobar talk about the scandal involving Phillips’s notes if he doesn’t have a copy?

This would all merely be comedy at the city’s so-called “paper of record” if it weren’t for the danger of a probable defamation lawsuit.

On Friday, Norcross’s lawyers hand-delivered or emailed “litigation hold notices” to seven current or former Inquirer employees, warning them to preserve all notes and electronic records in the likely event that Norcross decides to sue them for defamation.

The notices, signed by attorney Joseph Podraza Esq., were served on Phillips and Escobar, as well as two other reporters, Andrew Seidman and Catherine Dunn, who published stories apparently based on tips from Phillips’s notes.

Here’s what the litigatiion hold notice to Phillips had to say:

On July 15, 2026, it was reported that the notes (“Phillips Notes”) of a Philadelphia Inquirer employee, you, were in the possession of the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office and used by that office in the investigation leading up to the return of the Indictment.

[That paragraph refers to the original Big Trial story. The indictment refers to a racketeering indictment that the N.J. A.G. filed against Norcross and five associates in 2024, an indictment tossed a year later by a judge.]

The notice goes on to say:

On July 16, 2026, it was also reported that the Phillips Notes were circulated to two other Philadelphia Inquirer present or former employees, Catherine Dunn and Andrew Seidman, who may or may not have knowledge of how the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office came into possession of the Phillips Notes.

[That paragraph refers to a July 16th Inquirer story where editor Escobar confirmed that the notes were written by Phillips and somehow ended up with the N.J. A.G.]

The notices goes on to inform Phillips:

In addition, further information has been learned that you, in your personal capacity and in your capacity as an employee of the Philadelphia Inquirer have made malicious and defamatory comments regarding George E. Norcross, III and certain other individuals named in the Indictment to other individuals and other employees of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

It is further believed that you have been engaged in this unlawful and unethical conduct in concert with your editors and publishers at the Philadelphia Inquirer, including but not limited to Gabriel Escobar, and other third parties . . .

Phillips is the former longtime companion of the late Lewis Katz, who was involved in a nasty legal battle with Norcross over who would own the Inquirer. She apparently still holds a grudge against Norcross.

Then the litigation hold notice got down to details:

Pursuant to the New Jersey Rules of Court and Rules of Evidence, you must preserve all documents and communications and all electronic devices of any kind, whether personal or employment-related that may be potentially relevant to the above.

TO AVOID CONFUSION, THIS LITIGATION HOLD NOTICE APPLIES TO ALL COMMUNICATIONS, WRITTEN OR RECORDED, ON ANY MEDIUM OR DEVICE, ELECTRONIC OR OTHERWISE, WHETHER OWNED, USED AND/OR POSSESSED ON A PERSONAL OR EMPLOYMENT RELATED BASIS. THIS LITIGATION HOLD NOTICE ALSO INCLUDES ALL RECORDED COMMUNICATIONS, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO VOICEMAILS.

In her notes, Phillips documented a long, gossipy conversation she had over two days back in 2019 with Susan Bass Levin, the former mayor of Cherry Hill, N.J.

In the notes, according to Phillips, Bass Levin basically trashed George Norcross, the political boss of South Jersey as a bully and a would-be dictator who was allegedly trying to take over the city of Camden.

To make things more entertaining, when she sat down with Phillips in 2019, Bass Levin was president of the charitable branch of Cooper University Health System, where Norcross is the longtime chairman of the board of trustees.

Bass Levin, who did not respond to a request for comment from Big Trial, told Collins that she had never seen Phillips’s notes.

But on Sept. 5, 2023, however, when Bass Levin and her lawyers sat down for a proffer session with an assistant N.J. state attorney general and two FBI agents, she sang a different tune.

“Her relationship with Mr. Norcross was cordial and professional and she respected his political acumen and knowledge of local and national politics and other topics,” Bass Levin was quoted as saying in a 23-page “privileged and confidential” memorandum drafted by Bass Levin’s lawyers.

Meanwhile, the Inquirer last week was still trying to unscramble the misdirection play that Phillips, the Inquirer’s “Justice and Injustice” editor, apparently pulled with her notes.

“The notes ended up with the state so something went awry,” Escobar admitted in an email to Collins.

In his story, Collins tried to shed some light on the mystery of how Phillips’s notes wound up with the N.J. A.G.

According to Collins, an unidentified source “with firsthand knowledge of how the notes came into the possession of the authorities,” stated that Phillips “shared the notes with a third party . . . for her own edification.”

So Phillips needed “a third party” to explain to her what her own notes meant?

According to the Inquirer, a second unidentified source “with direct knowledge of the evidence discovery file related to the Norcross investigation” told Collins that Phillips’s notes became part of an electronic file housed over at the N.J. A.G.’s office, under the title “Stier Documents.”

Edwin Stier is a former state and federal prosecutor in New Jersey who declined to talk on the record to the Inquirer.

Collins didn’t explain whether Stier was third party who Phillips gave the notes to. Or whether Stier got the notes from a fourth party before the notes were delivered to the N.J. A.G.

It should be noted that editor Escobar’s admission that Phillips shared her notes with an unidentified third party outside the newsroom, if true, would mean that Phillips voluntarily waived any confidentiality attached to those documents.

As chronicled by Collins, at the Inquirer, the clown show continued when Escobar told Collins he was recusing himself from editing Collins’s story.

Hopefully, Phillips did as well.

Click HERE to read Cipriano’s original story.

This story originally appeared on Substack and is reprinted with the permission of the author.  Click HERE to subscribe to Ralph Cipriano’s Substack page.