Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey was unceremoniously ousted from his job as the head of a Jersey City nonprofit Monday, in what he's described as an act of political retaliation by Mayor Steve Fulop.

McGreevey has headed Jersey City's Employment and Training Program (JCEPT) since 2013. It's a nonprofit that gets federal funding to provide job training and services to the formerly incarcerated and other at-risk populations. 

McGreevey was hired by Fulop in 2013 and served as a political mentor of sorts for the young mayor, when Fulop was rumored to be mulling a run for governor. McGreevey says the relationship soured after he fired one of the Fulop's patronage hires at JCEPT for taking cash payments from program participants. And McGreevey isn't leaving without a fight. Instead, he used his unique status as a former governor to draw media attention to his plight, and he summoned dozens of his supporters to Monday's JCEPT board meeting, where he expected to get the axe.

After more than an hour of testimony from his supporters, the board voted five to three to fire McGreevey without comment.

After the vote, McGreevey complained, "No one has given me the courtesy of a detailed reason of why I'm being dismissed.'

One dissenting board member, vice chairman Robert Knapp, a holdover from the previous administration, voiced his displeasure with how the firing was handled.

"I’ve never seen the tentacles of politics so deeply entrenched in an agency," said Knapp.

But board chair Sudhan Thomas, who is now leading JCEPT on an interim basis, disputed McGreevey’s claims of political retaliation.

“The mayor has nothing to do with this, and you know if he did I wouldn’t listen to him," Thomas told reporters after the board meeting.

Thomas says McGreevey’s been focusing his efforts on the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, a statewide nonprofit the former governor also runs, while allowing Jersey City’s program to fall by the wayside.

Mayor Fulop’s office denies a hand in the former governor’s firing. McGreevey says he plans to fight the decision. In a letter he sent Fulop last week, he promised to sue the Mayor and invoke his whistleblower protections.