New Jersey GOP gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli’s campaign announced on Thursday that he would be filing a lawsuit against Democratic opponent Rep. Mikie Sherrill (N.J.) for defamation following comments she made during a debate on Wednesday about him, his business and the opioid crisis.

“Last night, faced with continued questions about her refusal to release disciplinary records that would reveal her true role in the Naval Academy cheating scandal, and pressed about her unusually abbreviated tenure as a federal prosecutor, Mikie Sherrill cracked,” Ciattarelli campaign strategist Chris Russell said in a statement. 

“In doing so, she claimed – twice – that Jack Ciattarelli ‘killed tens of thousands of people, including children’, a clearly defamatory attack that shocked the moderators, press, and public alike,” he continued.

“In a time where political violence and violent rhetoric are becoming all too prevalent, Mikie Sherrill baselessly and recklessly accusing a political opponent of mass murder in a televised debate crosses the line,” he added.

The lawsuit is expected to be filed early next week. 

Sherrill and Ciattarelli met on Wednesday night for their second and last debate in New Brunswick, N.J., which was often testy and heated. 

At one point, one of the moderators asked both candidates how they would bring jobs to New Jersey given the state’s 5 percent unemployment rate and several factors adding to the uncertainty of hiring.

“My opponent likes to talk a lot about being a businessman, but I think what New Jersey doesn’t know as much about his business, how he made his millions, by working with some of the worst offenders and saying that opioids were safe, putting out propaganda, publishing their propaganda, while tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died,” Sherrill said after Ciattarelli gave his answer.

“And as if that wasn’t enough, then he was paid to develop an app so that people who were addicted could more easily get access to opioids,” she continued. “And so, as he made millions, as these opioid companies made billions, tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died.”

That prompted a back-and-forth between the two who each said, “shame on you.”

Ciattarelli responded that while former President Biden was in office, “she had no problem whatsoever with tens of thousands of people crashing our border each and every day” and said Sherrill was lying about his professional career.

“I’m proud of my career,” he added.

The NJ.com reported in September 2021, before New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and Ciattarelli were set to face off in the November gubernatorial election that year, that his business, Galen Publishing, produced continuing education materials for the University of Tennessee’s pharmaceutical school, which was financed in large part by pharmaceutical companies.

The New Jersey news outlet noted that some of the materials appeared to downplay risks associated with opioid abuse, though a spokeswoman for Ciattarelli’s campaign told the news outlet at the time that drug manufacturers were not the ones proposing topics for the educational materials but school faculty.

Ciattarelli sold the business between 2008 and 2017, according to NJ.com.

Sherrill pressed on after those remarks, saying during the debate she would be “happy to publish the information” and that “I think the people you got addicted and died deserve better than you.”

The two got in another back-and-forth, with Sherrill alleging at one point, “I think you’re trying to divert from the fact that you killed tens of thousands of people by printing your misinformation, your propaganda, and then getting paid to develop an app so that people could more easily get the opioids once they were addicted.”

Ciattarelli knocked Sherrill in response, saying “The difference between me and the congresswoman: I got to walk at my college graduation,” alluding to recent revelations that she did not walk during her commencement ceremony in 1994 at the U.S. Naval Academy. He added he had “never broken the law,” while knocking Sherrill over stock trades.

Sherril has said she didn’t walk because she didn’t turn in some of her classmates during a widespread cheating scandal that took place there, but Ciattarelli has suggested Sherrill hasn’t been entirely truthful.

Sherrill’s campaign doubled down on its allegations in response to Ciattarelli’s announcement that he would be filing a lawsuit, with spokesman Sean Higgins saying in a statement that the Republican was “clearly unfit to lead and protect this state.”

“Jack’s reaction is to hide behind a lawsuit, not to take responsibility,” Higgins said. “What’s reckless and irresponsible is Jack Ciattarelli making millions of dollars profiting off the pain of New Jerseyans — publishing misinformation about the dangers of opioid addiction and developing an app to coach patients to ask doctors for more drugs.”

The broader back-and-forth between the campaigns has underscored the contentious nature of the gubernatorial race, which has become personal and heated at times. While recent polling has largely showed Sherrill with a lead over Ciattarelli, an Emerson College Polling/PIX11 News/The Hill survey out last month showed a dead heat between the two.