Can anyone explain how this works? The lawsuit was lost by LANS, which doesn't exit anymore. However, the quote is from Roark, and credited to LANL now operated by Triad. Seriously, does Triad now have to pay the verdict? If not, then why is Roark giving a statement?
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/jury-sides-with-ex-lanl-official-who-was-forced-to/article_bd5e13ca-7ef8-53a9-b7f0-c98f5be0db41.html
34 comments:
I believe the way it works is that the new contractor, in this case Triad, assumes not only the assets, but also the liabilities. For example, Triad was "novated" all existing contracts, including the protection services contract, the contracts for services and supplies that had not expired, the fire department contract, the leases with the public schools and other landlords, etc. etc. So actually it is interesting if NNSA is on the hook since it reimburses LANL for virtually everything but the new contract has some different language regarding legal expenses.
What I found interesting is by going to the case lookup page, then looking for John J. Tapia v LANS you can see how many individuals were deposed, including Leasure, Zerkle, Marquez.Also the Lab did not allow a telephone conversation between Zerkle and Tapia or Marquez employment termination to be on the record during the trial.
Since a settlement did not occur, and the jury decided in the former employees favor, the NNSA may elect not to reimburse the responsible contractor for the legal fee bill for this case, or for the $735,000 employee award. Sometimes a hubris echo chamber meets its match.
The judge did not allow for punitive damages. If Tapia’s attorneys took on this case on contingency, they would receive 40% of the $735k. If not, the plaintiff’s award of $735k will likely go to his attorneys. The only positive outlook for him is towards his retirement. I would hope, that the Laboratory learns from this. Their only defense was Tapia violated Policy 701. Had they used the “time fraud” evidence the outcome would of been different. This would of been a criminal case. How would of LANL explained this NNSA? Their first obligation to themselves is to protect the institution at all costs. They need to drain the swamp so this does not happen again. They rid LANL of Rich Marquez without being held accountable for his unethical actions. Next should be Carolyn Zerkle. Depositions in 2003 indicate UC wanted John Tapia terminated for falsifying documents. Rich Marquez protected him. Tax payers should be concerned.
The judge did not allow for punitive damages. If Tapia’s attorneys took on this case on contingency, they would receive 40% of the $735k. If not, the plaintiff’s award of $735k will likely go to his attorneys. The only positive outlook for him is towards his retirement. I would hope, that the Laboratory learns from this. Their only defense was Tapia violated Policy 701. Had they used the “time fraud” evidence the outcome would of been different. This would of been a criminal case. How would of LANL explained this NNSA? Their first obligation to themselves is to protect the institution at all costs. They need to drain the swamp so this does not happen again. They rid LANL of Rich Marquez without being held accountable for his unethical actions. Next should be Carolyn Zerkle. Depositions in 2003 indicate UC wanted John Tapia terminated for falsifying documents. Rich Marquez protected him. Tax payers should be concerned.
LANS is dissolved so NNSA will foot the bill.
This whole case is very very odd, I am no LANS fan but rumors about this guy had been going on for years and years. Maybe it was all bunk, or maybe LANS should have done a better job in this. By the way I thought this same guy was involved with Marquez. You can say what you want about New Mexico but the the place is beyond corrupt.
In 1997, Dee Kotla a former LLNL employee was allegedly fired for making $4.30 of local phone calls, "right after she blew the whistle against her employer in a sexual harassment case on behalf of a colleague named Kim." What did LLNL legal fee reimbursements from DOE (actually taxpayers) total? Sit down first, $10,000,000. Even with their $10,000,000 legal fee arsenal, the former employee Dee Kotla won in court.
http://fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/legal-swindle
In 2015, a wrongful termination lawsuit was settled between LLNS and 129 former workers for $37,000,000. Who paid the LLNS legal fees that permitted LLNS to comfortably stretch out the litigation and employee suffering for 7 years? That would be DOE/NNSA (taxpayers).
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/after-7-years-of-litigation-the-lawrence-livermore-lab-agrees-to-a-settlement-of-over-37-million-300154247.html
Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort are being sentenced for lying to Congress. In the 2003 LANL criminal case against Bussolini and Alexander, John Tapia was the Laboratory ‘s golden boy who testified to Congress on LANL’s behalf. Depositions indicate UC wanted Tapia fired. The Laboratory protected him.
In the trial last week, Michael Sheppard, former employee who worked under John Tapia, testified Tapia falsely wrote a letter (as a woman) claiming sexual harassment against a Board of Trustee for Jemez Mountain Electric Cooperative which he also sits on as a “At Large” Trustee. He testified John Tapia hated the Trustee and wanted the Board to remove him. This is an example of this guys character. At the Laboratory he had been investigated for misuse of credit card, salvage discrepancies, subordinate abuses, time fraud, etc.
The Laboratory needs to seriously start holding their managers accountable. They are making every attempt to keep these type of things under the radar all to protect the Laboratory contract.
Carolyn Zerkle needs to go next! Under her watch John Tapia became Deputy Division Leader for Procurement and Salvage. Zerkle on the other hand oversaw not only these departments but Human Resources allowing a non-competitive bid for John Tapia’s position. He was part of the “Zerkle Circle.”
Another bizarre thing is that Tapia was originally involved with all the alleged missing materials along with the culture of theft nonsense. He was the one that said it was all an accounting error. Chuck Montano goes on about this and blowing the whistle. The problem is LANL could not have done anything about this since as we can see the jury just sided with Tapia. So the lab gets hit by Montano for being corrupt and not firing Tapia but the jury says you cannot fire Tapia. New Mexico is simply a 3rd world country and is run like one. But hey everyone got good money both Montano and Tapia, hell maybe they where in on it all together. Seems odd that both of these guys got a big payout at the taxpayers expense.
"The Laboratory needs to seriously start holding their managers accountable"
The problem is the lab cannot make certain managers accountable evidenced by the favorable outcome for Tapia in the trial. This is New Mexico, some people can be very corrupt and get away with it, and as long as Los Almaos is in New Mexico it will have an element of corruption in it. You can get on the labs case all you want about corrupt and unethical managers but what could the lab possibility do? No jury in New Mexico will ever side with the lab.
You never went to go to trial in northern NM especially in Rio Arriba or Santa Fe counties. The juries are sympathetic, anti-LANL, and very generous with awards.
Re: Holding managers accountable. I know personally that numerous individuals and I complained or raised concerns regarding Tapia's behavior and lack of ethics. So I disagree that the Lab cannot hold managers accountable. It WON'T hold managers accountable. How would it appear to Lab employees, NNSA, taxpayers, if LANL acknowledged in open court that Tapia allegedly committed time card fraud (based on his constant attendance at his other job, reported to be half the work week). Try explaining this to the employee who earns $50K and was fired for 2 hours of time card fraud, that an individual earning $190K per year was at work only half the week and was not accountable, after all, who signed Tapia's timecard, his performance appraisals, and who non-competitively promoted him to deputy division leader to head procurement when he had zero job skills in that area. The jury did not have this information. All it had was his attorney's superior skills at persuading the jury that Tapia was this exemplary employee - all based on falsely inflated job appraisals and undeserved promotions to serve Marquez's and Zerkle's agenda.
The Laboratory had John Tapia for time fraud and they choose to force a termination on Policy 701. Not to mention what they had on him for years. Yes, Northern New Mexico is anti-Laboratory but had the hard evidence LANL had on John Tapia (with his reputation by employees and the community) he would of lost this case. All in the interest again, to PROTECT the Laboratory. What a deservice to LANL employees and the rest of the tax payers. They have turned the other way since 2003. John Tapia was protected by Rich Marquez and Carolyn Zerkle. How many other employees have been let go for less? MANY!
At the same time, John Tapia didn’t come out well! Out of the $735k, he has to pay taxes on it and has to pay his attorneys which are extremely high. He had hoped for punitive damages and got none. He’s lucky if he comes out even.
The whole responsibility on this mess is the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Stop protecting these people all in the interest of not havining to be held accountable by NNSA. You have a responsibility to the American people.
Hey Julian, 6:49 PM is continuing his posts from the thread you rightfully closed. Why are you allowing him to continue his nonsense here? His post here has NOTHING to do with this thread.
Thanks for catching that, 6:15pm!
Carolyn Zerkle was on the same TEAM with Rich Marquez. Their “boys” John Tapia and Albert Giron are/were the most unqualified managers. The new Director should terminate Zerkle immediately. She too has done shady deals at LANL.
And just a note that none of them were Bechtel and the cycle of LANL continues.
And just a note that none of them were Bechtel and the cycle of LANL continues.
December 27, 2018 at 7:44 PM
But they all were "early adopters," Bechtel suck-ups who hoped for (or were promised in return for working on the bid) big positions at the transition from UC in 2005 - 2006. They got it and the rest is history.
And just a note that none of them were Bechtel and the cycle of LANL continues.
December 27, 2018 at 7:44 PM
Bitter much? UC won, let it go, your world view turned out not to be correct. There is more to life than hating UC and LANL. Why do you keep on this crusade?
You said UC would never bid...they bid.
You said no credible team would ever bid...four teams bid.
You said Battelle would never bid...they bid
You said UC could never win...they won.
Do you see where I am going with this? Are you starting to see a pattern?
They were there before Bechtel and and some are STILL at LANL. Sounds like a culture issue to me. Good luck to Triad. I hope
they fire 1/3 of the workforce who suck the lifeblood out of LANL. LANL has become a jobs program since the end of the Cold War and even before.
"LANL has become a jobs program since the end of the Cold War and even before."
Under LLNS, LLNL has become a jobs program for far too many uneducated and undereducated managers that are eager to please LLNS since they have no material scientific or engineering accomplishments to stand behind. Most of them have LLNL programs knowledge that are a mile wide and an inch deep.
"They were there before Bechtel and and some are STILL at LANL. Sounds like a culture issue to me. Good luck to Triad. I hope
they fire 1/3 of the workforce who suck the lifeblood out of LANL. LANL has become a jobs program since the end of the Cold War and even before.
December 29, 2018 at 1:08 PM"
You sound just a tad bitter to me, just a tad. Even a bitter person could have a point if they provide evidence for their assertions but you have never provided any evidence to "prove" any of it. I know your response will be "Mr Prove it again", the problem with that is that it does not actually address the issue of proof. The other alternative is that you are so bitter that you will say any crazy thing that has nothing to do with reality.
As for LANL being a jobs program, that would imply that LANL just employees people to employee them rather than have them do something of value. If that is the case can you please explain why Mechels, Walp, Dorn, and Montano are no longer employees at LANL? It would seem that having some skills is actually needed to be employed at LANL, else you are not needed.
The last part if not really an argument but I suspect that it is really at the heart as why you are so bitter when it comes to employment at LANL.
9:55 AM, Dorn dude.
We all know why Walp and DORAN are no longer employed at LANL. Why don't you? You've been told this before, many times. UC fired them for uncovering evidence of financial abuses at LANL. After the DOE Investigator General found that LANL had wrongfully fired them, they were rehired. Walp and Doran then sued UC and won. The courts determined that UC terminated them improperly. Glenn Walp was paid $930,000 by the UC. Walp, 61 years old at the time, took the money and left LANL. Smart man. Doran was rehired by UC and put in charge of security at ALL UC locations, initially including LANL.
Prove what? That Tapia and Zerkle didn’t work for Bechtel and were at LANL before Bechtel. You want their HR records pulled? Nonsense. As far as the jobs program, where to start. Let’s see, why are we consistently talking about the quality of the managers and scientists from sub par feeder schools? Why do we have programs that have nothing, nothing to do with the NNSA mission (30% of the lab at this point). Why do we employ non science, administrative positions at 50+% what the rest of New Mexico would pay. Would you like some examples? What do you think an administrator should make? 80k, 90k, 110k easily looked up on the LANL job repository. These are the LANL rates. Now you can go to the web and quickly find that this is very very high and this is just one example of the non management positions. Don’t get me started on the manager positions most of which did Not change in the transition.
Last, your bitter defense is laughable at best. Bitter about what? Making lots of money off of bloated stupidity defended by entrenched power who are defended on blogs with zero self reflection. Hint. Blogs are helpful places to self reflect.
What is needed is a full blown FBI investigation. There does not appear to be a deterrent to fraud, waste and abuse at LANL. And no one is afraid of getting caught so managers could allegedly have IT contracts while pulling iin huge salaries, senior managers allegedly promoted unqualified individuals in a godfather environment, senior officials allegedly looked the other way to gross time card fraud and a government credit card was allegedly used to pay for a senior managers birthday party at a casino. If none of these allegations don’t warrant a criminal investigation then all we continue to do is sigh in frustration in a blog and gossip at parties and work. No wonder John Tapia won his case. The case was tainted against the lab and not due to the mission or WIPP. It’s all this other innuendo.
On January 2017, Rich Marquez, Carolyn Zerkle and their staff were at UC working on their bid for the recent contract. Suck ups promised more crooked contracts to fill their pockets. The FBI, DOE IG or any other law enforcement agency will not investigate the Laboratory. All in the National interest of keeping the contract. Unbelievable isn’t it???
The LANS Director was aware of the last contract Rich Marquez orchestrated with an individual from England before his forced termination. This in addition to all the other internal investigations on them. A criminal act just like John Tapia. Why didn’t they have them indicted? Senior Management continues to feed off the tax payers.
These Senior Managers hire unqualified and incompetent individuals that will execute their requests. Now do you understand the pattern?!
We all know why Walp and DORAN are no longer employed at LANL.
December 30, 2018 at 3:39 PM
No, "we" don't, because the actual reasons were never made public. UC "invented" reasons to settle because no one in government would agree to release the actual reasons for the firings. Busboom and Tucker lost their jobs because no one in government would agree to release the actual reasons for the firings. Some of us know the actual reasons but are prevented from stating them.
"We all know why Walp and DORAN are no longer employed at LANL. Why don't you? You've been told this before, many times. UC fired them for uncovering evidence of financial abuses at LANL. After the DOE Investigator General found that LANL had wrongfully fired them, they were rehired. Walp and Doran then sued UC and won. The courts determined that UC terminated them improperly. Glenn Walp was paid $930,000 by the UC. Walp, 61 years old at the time, took the money and left LANL. Smart man. Doran was rehired by UC and put in charge of security at ALL UC locations, initially including LANL.
December 30, 2018 at 3:39 PM"
Wow, someone sure got triggered. At least we cleared up where all the bitterness comes from. As for why they where fired all you have to do is loot a few videos on the internet which feature Walp and Dorn, and it will become very obvious why these guys no longer work at LANL. I would also guess these guys don't even have jobs now which is one of the reasons they are pushing the Burik case in order to drove up more money.
Translation time
"Prove what? That Tapia and Zerkle didn’t work for Bechtel and were at LANL before Bechtel. You want their HR records pulled? "
I am envious of these people for making more money than I did
"Nonsense. As far as the jobs program, where to start. Let’s see, why are we consistently talking about the quality of the managers and scientists from sub par feeder schools?"
I myself have a degree from a weak school and could not get a job as a manager.
"Why do we have programs that have nothing, nothing to do with the NNSA mission (30% of the lab at this point).
I don't know what I am talking about and have no idea what things are or are not part of NNSA mission.
"Why do we employ non science, administrative positions at 50+% what the rest of New Mexico would pay. Would you like some examples? What do you think an administrator should make? 80k, 90k, 110k easily looked up on the LANL job repository. These are the LANL rates. Now you can go to the web and quickly find that this is very very high and this is just one example of the non management positions."
I am bitter because I do not get to make this kind of money at LANL.
"Don’t get me started on the manager positions most of which did Not change in the transition. "
I am even more bitter that I could not get a manager position at LANL.
"Last, your bitter defense is laughable at best. Bitter about what? Making lots of money off of bloated stupidity defended by entrenched power who are defended on blogs with zero self reflection. Hint. Blogs are helpful places to self reflect."
It is kind of obvious that I am very bitter about being fired from LANL and not making the money that I think I should make.
So it all about being envious that other people made more money than you did? Kinda sad and pointless.
January 1, 2019 at 11:54 AM
Good read of the anti-LANL guy. He is a piece of work. Glad you had the energy to do what I wish I'd done. Good work, thanks.
Good read of the anti-LANL guy. He is a piece of work. Glad you had the energy to do what I wish I'd done. Good work, thanks.
January 2, 2019 at 5:54 PM
Thanks, although it does not take much work to translate what he is really saying.
11:47 AM wrote
"As for why they where (sic) fired all you have to do is loot (sic) a few videos on the internet which feature Walp and Dorn (sic), and it will become very obvious why these guys no longer work at LANL. I would also guess these guys don't even have jobs now which is one of the reasons they are pushing the Burik (sic) case in order to drove (sic) up more money.
Head shake. This guy hurts LANL's reputation with every sentence he attempts to write.
Head shake. This guy hurts LANL's reputation with every sentence he attempts to write.
January 2, 2019 at 11:00 PM
Bitter much?
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