STONE HARBOR – Jeffrey Craig, a general liability attorney on the list of approved attorneys for the Atlantic County Joint Insurance Fund, is now the attorney of record for two of the three employee lawsuits facing the borough and a co-counsel for the third.

In substitution-of-attorney papers filed with Superior Court Nov. 26, Craig took over litigation by Megan Brown, a current employee, and Kimberly Stevenson, a former borough clerk. In both cases the Stone Harbor attorney being replaced was Armando V. Riccio of Medford Township.

Craig is co-counsel with borough solicitor Anthony S. Bocchi on the case of former borough Administrator Robert Smith’s suit against the borough. Smith is suing as a whistleblower saying he was fired for trying to get the Husband of council member Jennifer Gensemer to file long overdue financial reports.  Jack Gensemer is a member of the borough’s zoning board. That case is scheduled for trial on May 12, 2025.

On Dec. 6, Judge James Pickering Jr. modified his earlier decision concerning the deposition of Mayor Judith Davies-Dunhour in the Smith litigation. Pickering had earlier ordered the borough to make Davies-Dunhour available for deposition but had also approved a protective order that limited questions in the deposition to events that happened on or prior to the day the Borough Council voted to remove Smith as administrator.

In his Dec. 6 ruling, Pickering said that the “court’s blanket protective order that prohibited any questioning of any incidents that occurred after the date of plaintiff’s termination was too broad.” He modified the order to allow questions of the mayor “regarding comparators or other relevant incidents or facts that occurred after plaintiff’s termination.”