A week’s worth of emails that are critical to a sexual harassment case in the Shapiro administration have suddenly gone missing.
In February, it was revealed in court that a week’s worth of emails from a former Shapiro administration deputy cabinet secretary no longer exist. A young woman has claimed that she was sexually harassed by a top Shapiro aide in 2023.
In September of that year, Shapiro’s director of legislative affairs Mike Vereb resigned because one of his deputies accused him of workplace sexual harassment in February and March of the same year.
The female deputy resigned from her position the first week of March. Female legislators questioned how Vereb stayed in his role for six months despite the administration spending $295,000 in taxpayer dollars to settle the sexual harassment complaint.
More than a week after Vereb’s resignation, Shapiro told reporters, “I can tell you the individual [Vereb] you cited in your question no longer works in my administration. I’ll also tell you – and I want to just speak generally on this, not this regards to any specifics here, and I appreciate your understanding of why I can’t comment individually – 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.”
A local media outlet made a legal effort at the Commonwealth Court level to obtain more documents from the Shapiro administration, but the Governor’s lawyers attempted to suppress it.
The lawyer suggested that the emails were deleted out of good digital practice. However, government regulations indicate the emails should have been preserved for a minimum of three years.
The scandal is the most detrimental issue Governor Shapiro has faced during his first term.
On March 14th, about one week after the female deputy quit, Shapiro’s senior legal analyst in the Office of General Counsel sent a message to Vereb described as “forwarding legal advice”. The two attachments in the email were described as “conveying legal advice/instruction”.
This suggests the possibility that Shapiro’s office was providing legal advice to Vereb while simultaneously investigating him. Shapiro’s spokesperson, Manuel Bonder, said the office of general counsel “represents the Office of the Governor and executive agencies, and not individual officials in their personal capacities.”
Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward said in an interview last August, “It is becoming apparent that any attention Shapiro or his staff gave this matter was protective to cover their office. Shapiro has had every opportunity to step up and do the right thing and he has failed every time.”
Representative Abby Major, who was a confidant to the female deputy that resigned and also experienced sexual harassment at the capitol, said, “The idea that there are zero emails on the server for an employee is preposterous. Even after someone’s account is removed, there are still records of emails that were sent and received in other inboxes.”
Since the initial accusation, a woman who works for a nonprofit organization accused Vereb of verbally attacking her years before when Shapiro was still at the attorney general’s office.
The report said, “…Vereb, allegedly invoked Shapiro’s name on the call, telling the woman that ‘by the time he and Josh were done with me, I would be worse than nothing,’ said the woman, who requested that her name not be published, in an interview with ABC News.”
