MTA Officials Seek Inspector’s Report on Whistle-Blower Firing

Top Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials on Thursday asked staff members and internal investigators for a written report on the firing of a whistle-blower who says officials retaliated against her for exposing waste and mismanagement in the beleaguered agency.

Amelia Earnest worked for 11 years as a buyer and contract administrator in the agency’s procurement department before she was fired Nov. 5, 1997.

MTA officials said Earnest was one of 52 employees laid off to reduce the size of the work force, and refused to comment further on her termination.

But Earnest said her firing was the culmination of a campaign to get rid of her because she was regularly providing information about fraud, waste and abuse to the office of the inspector general, the internal MTA watchdog.

Her 64-page wrongful termination claim makes 19 allegations against the MTA, including invasion of privacy, defamation, deprivation of civil rights, intentional infliction of emotional distress and racketeering.

The MTA rejected her claim in January, but Earnest’s attorney, Marvin Rudnick, said he will add information and resubmit it by May.

In a closed session Thursday, many members of the MTA Board of Directors expressed serious concern about Earnest’s allegations, MTA directors said.

Interim chief executive Julian Burke asked staff members and Inspector General Arthur Sinai to prepare a detailed report about Earnest’s dismissal for the next board meeting.

“There’s enough smoke there that I think we should check and see if there is a fire,” said board member and Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

Yaroslavsky said he and other board members want to know the criteria for Earnest’s termination, who made the decision about her layoff and an explanation of how her wrongful termination claim was handled, among other issues.

Over the last several years, Earnest provided the inspector general with information about contract mismanagement, unsafe working conditions and misuse of public funds, according to her claim. Earnest said she was cooperating with investigators according to a 1994 directive requiring MTA employees to report any evidence of fraud, abuse or other criminal violation.

During the internal investigations, she also assisted the FBI and California Occupational Safety and Health Division.

Earnest said some of the incidents she reported came to her attention in her work as a contract administrator. In other cases, the inspector general’s office asked her to help track down computer records and other files, she said.

In one case, she reported that a janitorial service hired to clean train stations was dumping garbage in alleys and leaving the stations filthy. An investigation revealed that the company could not produce records of how it spent MTA funds and had overbilled the agency at least $250,000, according to her claim.

In another case, Earnest told investigators that fare boxes at train stations were not working because the fare collection company was not regularly emptying them and delivering the money to MTA.

After reporting these and other problems to her superiors and the inspector general, Earnest said, she was harassed, intimidated and reprimanded. According to the complaint, her supervisors threatened to fire her and tried to demote her.

MTA officials refused to comment on her charges, calling it a private personnel matter. Even though she has national certification as a purchasing manager, Earnest was transferred in August 1995 to work as a material supervisor in a procurement department warehouse, according to her claim. After continuing to file reports of unsafe working conditions, Earnest said, she was transferred against her will to a night shift.

Earnest said she continued to report abuse and waste to her supervisors, including telling them about hazardous and flammable chemicals that were left unlabeled and uncovered in the warehouse and of vendors who were substituting counterfeit or inferior products for brand names, according to her claim. In another case, she said the MTA purchased a five-year supply of a cleaner that had a one-year shelf life. She also told investigators about the conduct of other MTA employees, including an agent who, she alleged, demanded a $2,000 loan from a vendor and never repaid it and a buyer who received an Alaskan fishing trip from a vendor, according to Earnest.

In May 1997, Earnest said she was transferred to a new section in the procurement department. She said her computer password was taken away and she was barred from the 12th floor, where the rest of the department was located.

According to her claim, Sinai’s office asked her to help in its investigation of alleged procurement fraud and improper political activities involving Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, then chairman of the MTA board.

After The Times published an article in July 1997 detailing allegations about Alatorre’s financial improprieties, Earnest said, her supervisors ordered her to turn over all the information she got from computer databases and demanded to know the source of the password she was using to gain access to the computer.

On July 31, MTA investigators took information out of Earnest’s office about the Alatorre investigation, despite protests from her supervisors, telling them she was under their jurisdiction, according to her claim. Later that day, Earnest was put on a month suspension for using an unauthorized password.

While she was gone, Earnest said, her supervisors changed the password on her telephone voicemail so they could intercept her calls.

She said the campaign against her mounted when she returned, including an attempt to have her arrested for trespassing when she was talking to colleagues at a warehouse off-hours.

After her suspension, Earnest said her supervisors told her she had not been asked to assist the office of the inspector general and forbid her to communicate with the investigators without permission.

During this time, Earnest said her calls to Sinai’s office went unanswered. Later, Earnest said investigators told her that they were instructed not to talk to her.

She said that Sinai should have tried to protect her from retaliation. Sinai refused to comment.

“In the end, there was nobody in my department I could go to,” she said. “I couldn’t even go to [the inspector general]. When it came down to it, I was set up. I felt betrayed.”