“Smoke their marijuana, do this do that, and don’t worry about it,” Michael Saudino, the sheriff of Bergen County, said, according to a report published online Thursday by WNYC. “You know, we’ll tie the hands of cops.”

“He didn’t do that because of Bergen County; he did that because of the turban,” Saudino said of the governor’s selection of Grewal, who at the time was the Bergen County prosecutor.

The sheriff also made an inflammatory remark about Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver.

“Is she gay? Because she’s never been married,” Saudino asked others in the room.

After listening to the recording, Murphy, a Democrat, immediately called on Saudino to resign.

“Without question, the comments made on that recording are appalling, and anyone using racist, homophobic and hateful language is unfit for public office,” Murphy said in a statement. “If indeed that is Sheriff Saudino’s voice on the recording, he must resign.”

Saudino sent out an apologetic statement late Thursday afternoon but did not address calls to resign.

Bergen County is the most populous county in New Jersey with about 950,000 residents, according to the most recent estimate by the U.S. census. It is also diverse, with a population that is roughly 20 percent Hispanic, 17 percent Asian-American and 7 percent black, according to the census.

In New Jersey, county sheriffs are elected. Saudino was elected sheriff in 2010 as a Republican, after serving as police chief of Emerson in Bergen County. He switched his party affiliation to Democrat for the 2016 election.

It is not his first brush with controversy. During the 2012 election, Kathleen Donovan, the Bergen County executive, accused Saudino of referring to her with a vulgar term and afterward refused to have any private meetings with him. Saudino denied having made the remark and called the person who told Donovan about the remark a “lying rat.”

As sheriff, Saudino worked with Grewal before he was nominated attorney general by Murphy.

After hearing the recording, Grewal also called on Saudino to resign.

“I have thick skin and I’ve been called far worse,” Grewal said in a statement. “But the comments about the African-American community are wrong, racist, and hurtful. The comments about our lieutenant governor are inappropriate and homophobic. New Jersey and Bergen County deserve better.”

Grewal, the first Sikh-American in the country to become a state attorney general, has been the target of numerous racist and disparaging remarks since his nomination last year.

In July, two radio personalities on New Jersey 101.5, a conservative-leaning FM station, repeatedly referred to Grewal as “turban man.”

They were suspended for 10 days.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Nick Corasaniti © 2018 The New York Times