As Katz later recalled, Corzine offered her a job on his Senate campaign, but she declined the offer. Corzine and the still married Katz were soon dating, and they began appearing in public as a couple in early 2002, shortly after Corzine's unofficial separation from his wife, Joanne. (The Corzines divorced the following year.) For more than two years Corzine was romantically involved and living with Katz. She lived with him at his apartment building in Hoboken from April 2002 until August 2004. After Corzine's breakup with Katz, their lawyers negotiated a financial payout in November 2004. According to press accounts, the settlement for Katz exceeded $6 million, including cash (in part used to buy her $1.1 million condominium in Hoboken), a college trust fund to educate her children, a 2005 Volvo sport utility vehicle, and Corzine forgave a $470,000 loan he had made to Katz in 2002 to buy out her ex-husband's share of their home in Alexandria Township. Katz enrolled in Seton Hall University School of Law on a full scholarship in 2004. Corzine later acknowledged he had given $15,000 to Katz's brother-in-law, Rocco Riccio, a former state employee who was forced to resign after being accused of examining income tax returns for political purposes. At the time, Katz was president of the CWA Local 1034, which bargains on behalf of many state employees. In the summer of 2005, when Corzine was running in the New Jersey gubernatorial election, news first emerged of his relationship with Katz and the money she had received. Corzine was elected governor despite the scandal. In the fall of 2006, during an impasse in contract negotiations between the Corzine administration and the state's seven major state employee unions (including the CWA), Katz contacted the governor by phone and e-mail to lobby for a renewal of the negotiations. Their relationship and the financial settlement Katz received after their breakup led to allegations of many potential conflicts of interest in labor negotiations while Corzine was governor. A state ethics panel, acting on a complaint from Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan, ruled in May 2007 that Katz's contact with Corzine during negotiations did not violate the governor's code of conduct. Separately, New Jersey Republican State Committee Chairman Tom Wilson filed a lawsuit to release all e-mail correspondence between Corzine and Katz during the contract negotiations. On May 30, 2008, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Paul Innes ruled