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Internal records obtained from Governor Josh Shapiro’s office suggest the email account of a top aide who accused a cabinet secretary of sexual harassment was deleted under suspicious and possibly selective circumstances — and not as part of any routine records policy.
The aide, who resigned in 2023 after lodging the allegation, appears to be the only official whose email records have been entirely wiped from state servers during that period.
The absence of any preserved messages raises sharp questions about whether the Shapiro administration took steps to erase a digital trail tied to a politically sensitive personnel matter — and whether broader email retention practices in the governor’s office are compromised or selectively enforced.
The accuser was a young woman in her early thirties who, in the earliest days of the Shapiro administration, accepted a job as a deputy in the Governor’s Office of Legislative Affairs headed up by Mike Vereb, who had held the same position for Shapiro in the attorney general’s office. Vereb, a Republican, had a long history with Shapiro, given that both served as state representatives from Montgomery County in the General Assembly slightly more than a decade ago.
Feeling immense pressure, the young woman abruptly quit just weeks into her job, and later filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. Although she left her job in March of 2023 and the complaint was filed just weeks later, Vereb managed to stay in his position until September of that year, even weeks after the governor’s office settled the matter out of court for $295,000.
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