A New York Times journalist offered a mea culpa of sorts to an author whom his reporting had implicated in the sexual assault allegations against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.

"I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my role in the Kavanaugh coverage, and I would be happy to talk to you about it at some point. For now, I will just say that I have learned some lessons and would probably do certain things differently next time," New York Times investigative reporter David Enrich wrote to author and journalist Mark Judge. Judge revealed the exchange in an article for Chronicles Magazine.

"I got the most unexpected response I ever could’ve imagined, which was the New York Times reporter who tried to ruin my life, sounded contrite," Judge told Fox News Digital. 

Judge contends that the New York Times was fed "totally bogus" opposition research provided by disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti and others that he and Justice Kavanaugh, his high school friend, were involved in drugging and gangraping girls in high school that Enrich and his "partner in crime" Kate Kelly set out to corroborate by unearthing whatever embarrassing information they could dredge up about him from when he was an adolescent. Judge says that in the years since the Kavanaugh hearings, several reporters involved in the smears against him have been "agonizing" over their role in wrecking his life. 

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Judge was accused by Christine Blasey Ford of being present in the room when she claimed Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s, when the two were both teenagers. He was interviewed by the FBI about his alleged role in the assault, which Ford said occurred at a party. Judge and Kavanaugh attended high school together at Georgetown Preparatory School, while Ford attended the all-girls Holton-Arms.

Judge denied Ford’s allegations and claimed he never witnessed Kavanaugh engaging in the actions she described. No other witnesses could corroborate Ford's account or even remember seeing Ford and Kavanaugh together. 

Enrich had written that Judge was "a fixture of the school’s party scene," and described him as "a goofball with a big mouth."

He reported on a high school yearbook group photo Judge was featured in along with future Justice Kavanaugh which was labeled "Renate alumni" on a student’s personal page. Renate Schroeder Dolphin was a student at a nearby Catholic school.

Enrich also reported on an underground high school newspaper Judge wrote with two other classmates called "The Unknown Hoya," which allegedly contained sexist humor.

"The newspaper claimed that a public library card was ‘all it takes to have a good time with any H.H. (Holton Hosebag),’ using slang for a promiscuous woman," the article stated.

Judge, who wrote about his experiences in his book "The Devil's Triangle," told Fox News Digital that Enrich and Kelly’s reporting had taken a major toll on his mental health and even caused him to contemplate taking his own life.

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When Judge informed Enrich his and Kelly’s reporting had caused a "terrible amount of damage and distress to my family" and "blew apart decades-long friendships," he was shocked to see that a journalist who had seemingly been dedicated to his personal destruction offered him sympathy.

"I can’t imagine what it was like for you to go through that," Enrich said, according to Judge. 

"For years, my friends at Georgetown and I have been saying, ‘if only there was somebody with a conscience at the New York Times or Washington Post, if only one of them would come forward and admit what they did here, and I think we’ve just gotten it. I think we might’ve found that one person with a conscience in David Enrich. I don’t want people to badmouth him, I want to encourage him," Judge said.

"Mr. Judge's claims about our reporters' practices are not accurate. The Times's reporting on Justice Kavanaugh's nomination and confirmation process was thorough, independent and fair, and we stand behind it," a New York Times spokesperson said in a statement.

Enrich and Kelly declined to comment for this article. 

The author previously sat down with Fox News host Martha MacCallum where he alleged he was the victim of an extortion attempt after he refuted Ford’s claims.

Judge recounted receiving a mysterious call from a California number, which he claimed threatened him.

"[The caller was] brilliant enough to leave a message: ‘You like f'ing with people, Mark? I like f'ing with people too. You better change your story,'" he recalled.

"So they were directly trying to extort me," Judge claimed. He added that he passed along the message to his attorney, who said they provided it to the FBI, but that there never was any resolution. 

Chales Creitz contributed to this report.