Gov. Murphy will tap George Helmy, former chief of staff, to fill Menendez Senate seat

Gov. Phil Murphy is expected to announce that his former chief of staff George Helmy will represent the residents of New Jersey in the U.S. Senate for the next few months.

Helmy will fill the vacancy being created with the resignation of Sen. Bob Menendez, said sources close to the Murphy administration.

Menendez resigned after being convicted on 16 felony counts earlier this summer in a federal courtroom in New York. He maintains his innocence and has said he intends to appeal the decision.

Helmy is currently an executive for a hospital system, but he served as chief of staff for nearly five years before departing last fall.

"Simply put, you cannot write the history of our administration without recognizing George's singular role in leading our team for over four and a half years," Murphy said in a statement at the time.

Who is George Helmy?

Before taking the post of chief of staff, Helmy was the state director and deputy chief of staff for Sen. Cory Booker and served in the office of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg. He is a Jersey City native and lives with his family in Morris County. He has a bachelor's degree from Rutgers and a master's from Harvard.

This isn’t the first time Helmy has been mentioned in association with Menendez this year. During Menendez's federal trial, former state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal testified that he cut off an inquiry in 2020 from Helmy — who was not named specifically — about the investigation of a North Bergen man whose case was complicating the passage of a landmark criminal justice reform.

Though Helmy's name was not mentioned in the testimony, the reference to the governor's chief of staff aligns with his time in the role. The subject of his inquiry involved the case of Walter Somick, a North Bergen recreation worker who was charged in 2016 — before Grewal took office — with falsifying time sheets to collect pay for work he didn't perform. It was a serious charge: He was facing a mandatory five years in prison for official misconduct.

How long will Helmy serve in Washington?

Helmy will serve the remainder of Menendez's term, which ends in early January. Murphy said after Menendez's conviction that he would "exercise my duty to make a temporary appointment to ensure the people of New Jersey have the representation they deserve." Murphy called for Menendez to resign after the indictment was unsealed last fall. He went on to ask the U.S. Senate to expel him if he didn't resign.

The governor has had a few weeks to consider whom to appoint to the post. Though he doesn’t leave office until Tuesday, Menendez formally submitted his letter of resignation on July 23.

Rep. Andy Kim, the Democrat on the ballot for the seat in November, had said that if asked to fill the seat, he would accept it, though two former Republican governors have called on Murphy to appoint someone else instead. Former Govs. Tom Kean and Chris Christie issued a joint statement calling on Murphy to follow the "New Jersey tradition of letting the voters decide."

Katie Sobko covers the New Jersey Statehouse. Email: sobko@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Gov. Murphy will tap George Helmy, former chief of staff, to fill Menendez Senate seat