Gov’s office fights to block records related to sexual-harassment scandal involving top aide

Governor Josh Shapiro’s administration is fighting in two separate lawsuits to block the release of documents and other information that could shed more light on the sexual harassment allegations that forced the resignation of his top deputy, Mike Vereb, in September 2023.

In both cases, the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records has ruled that many of the documents should be turned over in response to requests by Broad + Liberty. The legal fight already unearthed in February that the administration completely deleted the email account of Vereb’s accuser after she suddenly quit in March 2023, and the governor’s office has refused to say when the account was deleted.

The evolution of the scandal suggests more of an unraveling than of anything to being put to rest. An email account deleted at an unknown time, a “get stuff done” executive who didn’t know about accusations against his most trusted deputy, legal exclusions to withhold documents that were easily dismissed by courts, and now court cases seeking to bar documents — all these cut against the brand of the politician who made his fame prosecuting the Catholic Church for its handling of sexual abuse in its ranks. 

Vereb served as Shapiro’s director of legislative affairs for several years — first in the attorney general’s office, then in the governor’s office. Mere weeks into the gubernatorial administration, in March 2023, a female deputy accused Vereb of sexual harassment, an allegation that remained secret until Vereb resigned six months later in September.

Shapiro has said he only learned of the accusations against Vereb about the time that an out-of-court settlement was being reached sometime in July or August of 2023. The governor has not answered why Vereb stayed on for weeks, and his explanation that a personnel policy prohibited him from learning about the allegations sooner has dissolved under scrutiny.

Broad + Liberty filed a number of Right to Know requests in an attempt to produce a deeper understanding of the most serious scandal of Shapiro’s first term, with many of those requests still pending in appeal.

A quick primer on Pennsylvania’s open records law

All states have their own laws that empower citizens to obtain government documents. Pennsylvania’s is the Right to Know Law, or RTK. All of these laws also contain a limited number of exclusions and exemptions — reasons why the government can legally deny the documents.

In nearly all other states, when a government denies a records request, the requester has no recourse but to quit or file a civil lawsuit, hoping a judge will deem the government’s denial improper and order the production of the documents. 

Pennsylvania, on the other hand, created a quasi-judicial state agency, the Office of Open Records (OOR). Requesters unsatisfied with a government’s response to an RTK can appeal to the OOR, and the state’s attorneys there will study the case details. If the government was incorrect in its denial, the OOR can order the agency to produce the records. If the government disagrees with the OOR, it can elevate the matter to court.

Appeal Number One

In December 2023, Broad + Liberty filed an RTK request with the governor’s office seeking emails related to Vereb or the accuser around the time of her departure. Because certain documents were denied, Broad + Liberty appealed to the OOR in early 2024, then filed suit in July 2024. The emails sought in this request could shed light on the circumstances around the time the deputy quit, such as whether the government’s timeline and reasoning hold up, and whether various procedures meant to create a safe working environment were employed.

This summer, Commonwealth Court Judge Michael H. Wojcik largely ruled in Broad + Liberty’s favor, tightening the screws on some of the exemptions the governor’s office had used in denying the documents — something the OOR now calls the “Shepherd court” or Shepherd ruling.

“We are not inclined to say that [the governor’s office’s] attestation and exemption log set forth the type of fulsome discussion necessary to show that the records at issue are exempted as predecisional and deliberative,” Judge Wojcik said, as one example.

After Wojcik issued new guides on how to interpret some of the exclusions the governor’s office was using, he then ordered the OOR to redo much of its previous work. The subsequent OOR ruling in October was, again, largely in Broad + Liberty’s favor. Then on Monday, the governor’s office appealed the matter to Commonwealth Court, asking that the OOR’s ruling be reversed.

It is notable that the governor’s office is now appealing a Right to Know case that Broad + Liberty first took to court more than a year ago. In essence, even after one ruling from the bench and a refreshed ruling from the OOR, the governor’s office is still fighting the release of the documents in question.

Appeal Number Two

In March of this year, Broad + Liberty filed a request for email metadata for Dana Fritz and Jennifer Selber, Shapiro’s chief of staff and chief legal counsel, respectively. Metadata includes email information like sender, recipient, date, time, and subject line, but not the email body. The data sought could be instructive as to how the administration responded to the allegations against one of its top cabinet members.

After an April appeal, the OOR produced a ruling in August that was politely critical of the governor’s office.

“The evidence submitted by the [governor’s] Office is quite broad and somewhat conclusory and does not reflect that the Office was deliberating a particular determination, ruling or policy…” the OOR said at one point.

“None of the information redacted is on its face deliberative in nature…” the OOR said elsewhere. “The redacted subject lines appear to reveal only the subject matter being considered and not the actual discussion or deliberation.”

The OOR’s ruling relied significantly on the Shepherd ruling from Judge Wojcik just a couple of months before.

The governor’s office appealed the matter to Commonwealth Court in September.

As Broad + Liberty previously reported, when the scandal first broke, Shapiro pointed to Fritz and Selber as evidence that his office naturally would have responded appropriately.

“Our administration is led by two women, strong women, my chief of staff and general counsel. And we work every day to make sure that we have a healthy, safe, professional work environment for all of our employees,” (video, minute 37:30),” Shapiro said at a press conference about one week after the scandal first erupted.

However, documents obtained as part of a separate RTK request show Selber and Fritz knew about and were responding to the accusations within a week of the deputy’s departure. That revelation, which has never been contested by the governor’s office, raises more questions about how it would be possible for Shapiro’s top two deputies to know about the allegations, but for Shapiro to have remained in the dark.

Deleted emails, timeline holes, and shifting defenses

One of the earliest RTK’s filed by this organization asked for all emails in the accuser’s account for the week leading up to her departure, among other items. When the documents turned over from the governor’s office contained no emails at all from the accuser, Broad + Liberty took that RTK to court as well with the idea that it was impossible for the deputy to have had zero emails in that time period.

It was only in court in February when the governor’s office made its admission. 

Thomas Howell, an attorney for the governor said the office “no longer possesses the records of this employee who was – who left commonwealth employment I think about a year to a year and a half before this Right to Know Law request came in.”

“That, frankly, should not be surprising that an account of a departed employee would be disposed of in accordance with the records retention schedules,” Howell told the court. “Those retention schedules are public, and they establish that, you know, your general emails are deleted as soon as they’re no longer necessary,” Howell added.

Yet a Broad + Liberty analysis of state retention schedules suggests most of the deputy’s emails should have been retained for a minimum of two years. More tellingly, subsequent RTK requests showed Adrienne Muller — who left the same legislative affairs office in November 2023 — had her emails preserved and produced 488 days after departure. Vereb’s metadata still exists eighteen months later. The accuser’s account appears to be the only one deleted during active litigation.

The deputy’s allegations were first made in March 2023, but Vereb didn’t resign until September of the same year. Only during the 2024 “Veepstakes” did Shapiro offer an explanation. In a New York Times article, a spokesperson told the paper that Shapiro didn’t know about the allegations when they were first levied.

Only in 2025 did Shapiro’s office offer further information. Pressed by Broad + Liberty, spokesman Manuel Bonder said Shapiro found out when an out-of-court settlement was in discussion. Given that the settlement was signed on August 31 and September 1, the discussions would have started in July or August of 2023. 

That explanation still leaves about four weeks where Vereb remained in the office, when, according to the administration’s telling, he should have been out. Additionally, video from a press conference on Sept. 13, 2023, shows Vereb in attendance with Shapiro, apparently still fully in the governor’s good graces.

Trying to defend the timeline, Shapiro has invoked explanations that fall apart under scrutiny.

When asked this year by Tom McGrath of Philadelphia Magazine why he wasn’t quickly informed, Shapiro said a human resources policy kept his team from informing him of the allegations. 

“Well, [the allegation] wasn’t brought to my attention because our policy didn’t require it to be, because our policy required this HR process to be conducted and then a determination to be made,” Shapiro told McGrath.

The policy, obtained through a RTK request, does not appear to have any such prohibition.

The administration pivoted by claiming the policy required disclosure only to those with a ‘need to know’ — but has never explained who decided the governor of Pennsylvania didn’t need to know about cabinet-level sexual harassment, or why his top deputies knew within a week but he didn’t know for months.

The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The Vereb affair was unfolding just as another sex assault scandal was rocking Harrisburg. At that time, former State Rep. Mike Zabel was being pressured out of office for allegedly groping a union lobbyist after reporting from Broad + Liberty.  The Zabel affair was making workplace safety a front-page issue precisely when Shapiro’s office was secretly handling the Vereb allegations.

Todd Shepherd is Broad + Liberty’s chief investigative reporter. Send him tips at tshepherd@broadandliberty.com, or use his encrypted email at shepherdreports@protonmail.com. @shepherdreports