A Democratic official in Gloucester County faces a charge of theft after allegedly stealing documents that belonged to a Republican county commissioner from a community printer.
Michelle Coryell, a deputy county administrator in Gloucester and a potential candidate for county administrator and Gloucester Democratic chair, allegedly picked up a handful of documents on June 11 and took them into an elevator and out of the office.
Republican Commissioner Chris Konawel’s aide, Courtney Bracken, had printed documents relating to two issues, he said: private casework for a constituent and work on ballot boxes that arose because of the commission’s oversight of the county clerk. Konawel said Democratic commissioners possess printers inside their offices, but the GOP commissioners, who are in the minority, have smaller offices and no private printer.
“I can’t understand, for the life of me, what you gain from that, other than just to screw with us,” Konawel said. “You know, it’s just senseless.”
Democratic and Republican commissioners work in the same county building, a setup that can sometimes lead to hijinks and disputes.
In surveillance footage shared with the New Jersey Globe, Coryell walks into an elevator and appears to take a picture of a document with a thick black stripe toward its top. Konawel said the stripe was distinctive to documents that his office had been working on. Konawel said it was a quiet day in the office and that no other printing jobs had been placed in the timespan.
“If they weren’t your documents and you take pictures and realize they weren’t yours, you simply just go, ‘Oh, these aren’t mine,’ and either go back and put them up or at least notify somebody,” Konawel said.
Another surveillance camera caught movement near the printer, though neither the printer nor the person are in clear view. Moments after the figure leaves from near the printer, Bracken arrives and sorts through what was left from the printer; Konawel said she was befuddled, since many of the documents were missing.
With the departure of County Administrator Chad Bruner late last month, Coryell now leads the county government.
Konawel said the incident was part of a “petty” series of disputes involving Coryell, including a time he said Coryell tried to have his vehicle towed from the building’s parking lot.
An attorney for Coryell did not immediately return a request for comment. She once served as former Senate President Steve Sweeney’s chief of staff.
The case remains open, pending discovery and a trial.
