Fired NJ deputy AG charged in Pa. was the state’s lawyer in at least 22 insurance-fraud court cases since 2025, state records show

A former New Jersey deputy attorney general, fired effective Oct. 15 after being charged in Pennsylvania with child sexual abuse material offenses, was the state’s lawyer of record in at least 22 insurance-fraud court cases posted by the Department of Banking and Insurance since January 2025, a Jersey Intel review of those records found.

Brian R. Fitzgerald, 51, of Lower Makefield Township, Bucks County, is charged with possession of child sexual abuse material, dissemination of child sexual abuse material and criminal use of a communication facility, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office. All three are felonies, the court docket shows. They are charges, not convictions. Fitzgerald is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

What the court records show

The Department of Banking and Insurance posts Division of Law court judgments and settlements from its Bureau of Fraud Deterrence on its website. Jersey Intel downloaded all 121 documents posted for 2025 and all 72 posted so far for 2026 and searched their text. Fitzgerald is named as the deputy attorney general appearing for the state in 11 documents from each year.

The cases are civil actions under the New Jersey Insurance Fraud Prevention Act, filed in the name of the banking and insurance commissioner against residents accused of lying to insurers. They ran through courts in Atlantic, Bergen, Burlington, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Passaic, Union and Warren counties.

Examples from 2026 include a $19,810 default judgment entered Jan. 23 in Middlesex County that also suspended the defendant’s driving privileges for a year, a $43,072.90 judgment against two Passaic County defendants entered March 31, and a $24,079 judgment in Middlesex County. The most recent filings bearing his name are two settlements posted in July 2026, in Warren and Monmouth counties. In those settlements, payments and notices to the commissioner were to be sent to Fitzgerald in the Division of Law’s Banking and Insurance Section in Trenton.

The posted documents list his state phone number and law.njoag.gov email address and his New Jersey attorney ID. His name appears on filings going back to at least 2021, including a 2019 Appellate Division opinion in which he was on the state’s brief in a real estate license case.

The documents counted are only those whose text could be searched. Two posted files could not be read, so the count is a minimum.

The charges

According to the Bucks County DA’s office, the investigation began after the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children forwarded a CyberTip that a Discord user had shared an illicit image on July 10, 2026. Investigators said subscriber records linked the account to Fitzgerald’s home.

The DA’s office said detectives searching his home on Oct. 15 recovered prompts and scripts used to create AI-generated child sexual abuse material. It said Discord chat logs showed the user admitting to making and sharing the images, and that he also obtained and shared material depicting real children through another platform.

Magisterial District Judge Corryn L. Kronnagel set bail at $2 million, 10 percent, and sent him to the Bucks County Correctional Facility, the DA’s office said. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Oct. 27 before Kronnagel, according to the court docket, No. MJ-07111-CR-0000230-2026. As of Oct. 19, the docket listed him as held in the Bucks County jail, unable to post bail.

“No one is above the law, least of all someone entrusted with upholding it,” District Attorney Joe Khan said in the office’s release.

The state’s response

The Attorney General’s Office said Fitzgerald was fired effective Oct. 15. “Our office is aware of the charges that have been filed against a now-former employee of the Division of Law. We are cooperating with our partners in the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office. The individual’s employment was terminated effective Thursday, October 15,” an office spokesperson said in an Oct. 16 email to Jersey Intel.

Jersey Intel also asked whether his pending cases had been reassigned, whether people told to send settlement payments or notices to him would get new instructions, and whether the office is reviewing any of his past matters. The office’s Oct. 16 reply did not address those questions.

The arrest was first reported Oct. 15 by outlets including Patch, CBS Philadelphia, NBC10, FOX 29 and New Jersey 101.5. NJ101.5 reported that Fitzgerald had worked for the Attorney General’s Office since May 2016, worked in the Banking and Insurance section and earned $138,649 this year.

The court docket lists Paul G. Lang of the Trevose law firm Parlow & Lang as Fitzgerald’s attorney. Jersey Intel sent a comment request to Lang through his law firm’s website on Oct. 19 and had not received a response by publication time. This story will be updated if he comments.