In the enduring mystery over how ten pages of typewritten notes from Philadelphia Inquirer editor Nancy Phillips wound up with the New Jersey state attorney general, one name keeps popping up.
That’s Edwin Stier, a former New Jersey state and federal prosecutor.
In a July 16th story about the notes ending up in the possession of prosecutors, the Inquirer quoted an unnamed source as saying, “Nancy Phillips shared the notes with a third party . . . The state did not receive the notes from Nancy Phillips directly.”
In that same story, Inquirer editor Gabe Escobar confirmed that it was somebody outside the Inquirer, and not anybody at the newspaper, who gave Phillips’s notes to the A.G.
“The notes ended up with the state so something went awry,” Escobar admitted.
According to the Inquirer, an unidentified source “with direct knowledge of the evidence discovery file related to the Norcross investigation” disclosed that Phillips’s notes were part of an electronic file kept at the N.J. state A.G.’s office under the title “Stier Documents.”
Phillips and Escobar did not respond to questions about whether Phillips gave her notes to Stier.
Stier also did not respond to a request for comment. He remains a possible suspect as the person who gave Phillips’s notes about Norcross to the A.G.
In her notes, Phillips documented a long, gossipy conversation she had over Aug. 4 and 5, 2019 with Susan Bass Levin, the former mayor of Cherry Hill, N.J.
According to Phillips’s account of the conversation, Bass Levin basically trashed Norcross as a bully and a would-be dictator who was allegedly trying to take over the city of Camden.
When she sat down with Phillips in 2019, Bass Levin was a political insider, as president of the charitable branch of Cooper University Health System, where Norcross is the longtime chairman of the board of trustees.
The notes became part of an official N.J. state A.G. investigation of Norcross. An investigation that culminated in 2024 when then-A.G. Matthew Platkin filed a 13-count criminal indictment against Norcross and five business and political associates for alleged racketeering.
Last year, however, Mercer County Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw dismissed all the charges. After poring over the indictment’s 111 pages detailing hardball business tactics, the judge concluded he could find no evidence of an actual crime being committed.
Now it appears that Stier wasn’t only gathering information for the N.J. state A.G. about Norcross. The former prosecutor also met with the FBI during a federal investigation of the South Jersey political boss.
On Oct. 9, 2019, two months after Phillips sat down with Bass Levin, Stier visited the FBI’s South Jersey office in Cherry Hill, to meet with three assistant U.S. Attorneys, the FBI, and his client, Mark Sheridan.
According to an FBI 302 form dated Oct. 18, 2019, a typewritten summary of the meeting, Stier “was present at interview acting as legal counsel for Sheridan.”
Mark Sheridan, who declined comment on the meeting, is the son of John Sheridan, a business associate of Norcross. John Sheridan died with his wife in what authorities originally believed was a murder-suicide.
John Sheridan’s death came after he was feuding with Norcross over the sale of a 17-acre business park on the Camden waterfront known as the L3 complex.
At the time of the Sheridans’ death in September 2014, NJ.com reported, the Sheridans’ dining room table was covered with documents regarding the L3 complex.
The L3 complex was at issue because the nonprofit Coopers Ferry Partnership, chaired by John Sheridan, wanted to purchase it and have Cooper University Health System, where John Sheridan was a senior executive, rent space in the building.
Norcross, however, as chairman of the board of Cooper University Health System, wanted the hospital to purchase the business park rather than pay rent.
Phillips’s notes of her conversation with Bass Levin details the conflict between the two men over ownership of the L3 complex.
According to a newsroom source, Nancy Phillips, was the editor supervising the Inquirer’s coverage of the deaths of the Sheridans. And in at least one newsroom conversation, Phillips accused Norcross of having been involved in the crime.
Even though there has been no evidence that Norcross had anything to do with the death of the Sheridans.
Ed Stier now has the attention of Norcross’s lawyers.
On July 17th, Stier received a “Litigation Hold Notice” from Joseph Podraza, a lawyer for Norcross who’s already put the N.J. state A.G. on notice that Norcross is going to sue for false and malicious prosecution.
Podraza’s also gearing up to sue Phillips and the Inquirer for defamation.
In the notice to Stier, Podraza goes into the sale of the L3 complex:
The Indictment makes unfounded allegations and charges contending that the defendants acted unlawfully as to the acquisition of the Camden L3 Complex by Cooper Health and others to the detriment of Coopers Ferry Partnership . . .
And then, Podraza talks about Nancy Phillips and the Inquirer:
In addition, further information has been learned that Nancy Phillips, in her personal capacity and in her capacity as an employee of the Philadelphia Inquirer has 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 Nancy Phillips has been engaged in this unlawful and unethical conduct in concert with her editors and publishers at the Philadelphia Inquirer, including but not limited to Gabriel Escobar, and other third parties, including but not limited to Drew Katz, Mark Sheridan and you.
The sale of the L3 complex was a key topic of Mark Sheridan’s meeting with three U.S. Attorneys and the FBI:
”Mark [Sheridan] further explained the conflict was consuming John [Sheridan] at the time as Mark believed John felt he had to do what was in the best interests of CFP [Coopers Ferry Partnership],” the FBI 302 states.
But regarding the sale of the L3 complex, Mark Sheridan stated that John Sheridan “was receiving pressure to do what was best in the interests of Cooper,” meaning Cooper University Health System, where Norcross is the longtime chairman of the board of trustees.
“George and Phillip [Norcross] kept pressuring John to make the best deal for Cooper [University Health System] in relation to the L3 building even though Cooper was not part of the L3 deal at the time,” the FBI 302 states.
The eight-page document states that Mark Sheridan and Stier met with assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Donovan, Christopher Manion, and Claire Pozos.
At the time of the L3 sale, according to Dan Fee, a spokesman for George Norcross, the only way the Coopers Ferry nonprofit could have afforded to buy the L3 complex was if the Cooper University Health System was the lead tenant.
But, according to Fee, George Norcross argued why rent the complex when we could just buy it.
When Mark Sheridan met with three U.S. Attorneys, the FBI 302 states, ”Mark advised that Cooper greatly benefited from how the L3 deal played out.”
Instead of renting the complex, Cooper University Heath System wound up owning it. And the original proposed rent for Cooper Health, at $33 a square foot, was reduced to $28.
“Mark also provided two emails he received from a reporter dated Oct. 7, 2019,” the FBI 302 states. “These emails contained the official response to two questions the reporter posed to George [ Norcross] about the L3 deal. Mark advised that the response appeared to be crafted in a way to smear John” Sheridan.
At the time, Fee said, questions he received from Inquirer reporters Catherine Dunn and Andrew Seidman closely tracked what Mark Sheridan told the FBI.
In the Litigation Hold notice, Podraza advised Stier that:
This demand requires that you take all necessary steps to preserve all documents, data and information relating to the Phillips Notes and all documents, data and information relating to communications regarding the Phillips Notes including any of the following individuals . . .
Among the 28 people listed are Inquirer editor Escobar, and Inquirer reporters Catherine Dunn and Andrew Seidman.
When Norcross was indicted, Ed Stier gave several interviews to journalists.
On June 19, 2024, two days after Norcross was indicted, NJ Spotlight News identified Stier as “a former federal and New Jersey state prosecutor specializing in complex organized crime and corruption cases.”
Asked about the indictment, Stier told NJ Spotlight News that Norcross apparently presided over “a lengthy enterprise whose purpose was to use political power to force property owners to disgorge the value of their property and to transfer that property to the defendants and their associates.”
To “use the pressure of government to force people to give up valuable property rights,” Stier told NJ Spotlight News.
Stier was particularly impressed with the wiretap recordings that according to the indictment, investigators had allegedly made of the defendants, including Norcross.
“That’s powerful evidence, very difficult for the defense to overcome,” Stier predicted.
“I can tell you that there is nothing more powerful in a criminal prosecution than hearing a tape recording,” Stier told the Inquirer on same day, June 19, 2024. “You can’t cross examine it.”
In the original racketeering indictment, A.G. Platkin had charged that during a conference call loaded with lawyers, George Norcross had threatened an unnamed developer by alleging he would “fuck [him] up like [he’d] never been fucked up before.”
Norcross, however, denied making that threat.
Then, in subsequent litigation, the developer that Norcross had supposedly threatened, Carl Dranoff, was questioned about his interactions with Norcross.
Dranoff recalled Norcross raising his voice and calling him names. But Dranoff didn’t mention the colorful quotes attributed to Norcross that were used in the indictment.
Neither did Dranoff’s daughter, who was also in on the conference call.