New Jersey Guard Chief Resigns Amid Report of Contact With Aide
December 02, 2011, 12:14 AM ESTBy Elise Young
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Governor Chris Christie said he accepted the resignation of Major General Glenn Rieth, New Jersey’s head of the National Guard, days before a media report today that Rieth was observed in a physical relationship with an office aide.
Rieth, 54, has been adjutant general of 9,000 troops assigned to the New Jersey Army and Air National Guard for almost 10 years. He served under three Democratic governors before his reappointment by Christie, 49, a first-term Republican and longtime personal acquaintance, in January 2010.
“Last week General Glenn Rieth offered his resignation as adjutant general of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, which I accepted,” Christie said in a statement released this afternoon. His retirement, after 30 years of Army service, will be effective Dec. 15, the statement said.
Kevin Roberts, a Christie spokesman, e-mailed the release about 15 minutes after the Associated Press reported that Rieth, who is married, was resigning after he and an unnamed female aide, also married, were seen having physical contact in his office. The report said the incident occurred last month, and was attributed to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter was of a sensitive nature.
Rieth told Christie about the incident in early November and said it was being reported to the U.S. Army, according to the Associated Press. The account didn’t name who had witnessed the contact, identified only as a female aide, or who was notifying military officials.
‘Personal Matter’
Christie’s statement didn’t discuss the allegations.
“This is obviously a difficult time for his family and General Rieth did the right thing by stepping down to address this as a personal matter,” the statement said.
Roberts didn’t immediately respond to e-mailed questions about when Christie received the resignation and under what circumstances, or why the governor’s office waited to disclose a Cabinet member’s scheduled departure.
Chief Warrant Officer Patrick Dougherty and Wayne Wooley, press officers for the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, didn’t immediately respond to phone calls for comment. Rieth, who oversees that department, didn’t reply to an e-mailed request for comment.
Guardsmen are trained for domestic and foreign combat, natural disasters, reconstruction and homeland security missions. The New Jersey governor is the commander in chief of the state guard, and the adjutant general is the military chief administrative officer. Christie and Rieth appeared together at news conferences in late August, when Hurricane Irene’s destruction led to the deployment of National Guard forces.
Rieth graduated from The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, in 1980, and started an Army career, according to biographical information from the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs website. When Christie took office in January 2010, he said he and Rieth had known each other growing up in Livingston, New Jersey, and that Rieth would stay on the job in his administration.
--Editors: Rick Levinson, Alexis Leondis.
To contact the reporter on this story: Elise Young in Trenton at eyoung30@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net
