Sherrill announced the resignation at a press conference Friday afternoon. "I gave the lieutenant governor until today to resign," she said. "He submitted his resignation to me this afternoon, which I accepted."
The move follows a 61-page investigative report released Thursday night that found Caldwell made female staff members uncomfortable and substantiated a sexual harassment complaint against him. Caldwell denied the allegations and issued a defiant statement questioning the findings that night, but investigators did not find his denial credible.
The resignation ends Caldwell's time as New Jersey's second-in-command under pressure from his own governor. Sherrill set a deadline rather than letting the process drag out, and Caldwell missed his chance to fight the findings from inside the administration. His staff, whose discomfort triggered the original complaint, now works under a governor's office that took the allegations seriously enough to force out its own lieutenant governor.