No. Neel found it by auditing code. See CVE-2011-0014 for a previous OpenSSL bug he found by auditing code. See CVE-2010-0239 to witness his awesome ability to find bugs by auditing assembly code.
Wouldn't that track record of awesome ability, and his support for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, also potentially make him a sought-after expert about mysterious things that a journalist didn't understand in a leaked NSA (or other) document?
Do you know if the Codenomicon researcher(s) found the issue in the same way? (Their corporate webpage makes a big deal about their fuzzing tools.)
Do you believe it was just coincidence that both recently found this same monumental vulnerability? How long would Mehta and/or Codenomicon typically privately research such a bug, with or without coordination with OpenSSL maintainers, after first confirmation of danger?