Posted on 06/08/2005 5:22:36 AM PDT by robowombat
Whistleblower Beating: Details Emerge
The phone reception was awful on the conference call describing the assault on Los Alamos investigator Tommy Hook. But here's the information I pieced together, based on what I could hear his wife, his lawyer, and his partner say:
Last Friday, Los Alamos auditor-turned- whistleblower Tommy Hook got a phone call at his Albuquerque home. It was late -- past ten-thirty at night, and Tommy was getting ready to go to bed. He had had shoulder surgery recently, and a stroke about a year-and-a-half before that. So he needed his rest.
But Tommy got up, anyway. The man on the other end of the call said he was an auditor, too, at Los Alamos. And he had information that could corroborate Tommy's upcoming testimony before the House Energy Committee on financial shenanigans at Los Alamos. The two were supposed to meet earlier that day, but the auditor couldn't make the appointment. Could Tommy meet him now, he asked?
Tommy made the fifty-minute drive to Santa Fe, to a nudie bar called Cheeks. And there he waited, for over an hour. The auditor never showed. So finally, frustrated, Tommy walked out, got into his car, and started it up.
Suddenly, he was yanked out of the car by four to six men. And "they began to beat him with their feet," Tommy's wife, Susan, said. Afterwards, "there were shoe marks on his face." His jaw was fractured. At the hospital, doctors wired it shut -- and diagnosed him with a herniated disk, too.
The men "didn't take his wallet or our car," Susan added. But they "kept telling him," according to Tommy's lawyer, Bob Rothstein, "'If you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut."
Now the assailants didn't mention Los Alamos, or the University of California (UC), which runs the lab on behalf of the Energy Department. And Tommy's testimony -- which had been rescheduled several times, because of an impending family cruise -- was not publicly known. Nobody on the conference call accused the lab or UC of ordering some sort of hit on Tommy.
But by battling whistleblowers in court, by retaliating against them on the job, and by stretching their cases out for years on end, UC "encouraged an atmosphere where whistleblowers were perceived as enemies of the University," Rothstein said.
The local police have been called in to investigate the incident. And "the FBI is with Tommy right now," his wife said as the conference call came to a close.
Some other info on this case:
From the Santa Fe New Mexican
LANL whistle-blower beaten in Cheeks parking lot
Lawyers for Tommy Hook released this photograph, which they said was made at St. Vincent Regional Medical Center. Hook remains hospitalized with injuries after he suffered in an attack outside a Santa Fe bar. - courtesy photo
By Diana Heil | The New Mexican
June 7, 2005
Tommy Ray Hook had boot marks on his face. He could barely open his swollen mouth at the hospital to tell his wife what had happened.
In a low mumble, he told her someone identifying himself as a Los Alamos National Laboratory auditor had called him at home late Saturday night and arranged to meet him at Cheeks, a Santa Fe topless bar on Cerrillos Road, she said. Hook knew of the auditor through a friend, she said. They were supposed to have met on Friday, but the auditor had been a no-show .
Hook went to Cheeks on Saturday while his wife was in Albuquerque with their two grown sons. It was business, she said. He was preparing for a congressional investigation, tentatively scheduled for late June in Washington, D.C., and the auditor purported to have key information about fraud at the lab.
Hook, 52, is known at the nuclear-weapons lab for taking strong stands against fraud and abuse, and he has a lawsuit pending against the lab’s operator , the University of California , alleging retaliation. As the lab’s former officer in charge of dealing with whistle-blower complaints, he had access to internal investigation reports and high-level officials.
The University of California is competing to keep the management contract, and many employees want UC to win it. Bringing up problems now could jeopardize that, his wife said Monday.
Hook didn’t get what he came for. After the auditor didn’t show up, the slight, 5-foot-8-inch Hook went to his car in the strip club’s parking lot, where four to six assailants attacked him. They fled, leaving him injured, with his car’s motor running and his wallet untouched.
“This weekend, Tommy was preparing to meet with congressional investigators,” Susan Hook, his wife, said Monday at a news conference at a Santa Fe attorney’s office. “That’s why this Saturday he got out of bed to meet with someone he believed was a whistle-blower . Instead, he was brutally beaten.”
She continued: “The attackers told him to keep his mouth shut. They didn’t take his wallet or our car. It is clear to us that this was a message. I can assure you, however, that Tommy will not be stopped by these thugs. He will continue to tell the truth.”
Though the assailants never mentioned Los Alamos lab or the upcoming competition for its management, the FBI is looking into the possibility that Hook’s assailants hurt him to muzzle him.
“They made statements to him during the course of the attack, which indicated that they were trying to intimidate him from continuing to engage in disclosure of wrongdoing. They left him in the parking lot for dead,” said attorney Bob Rothstein, who alerted the FBI to the situation.
Members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce were scheduled to meet with Hook todayto prepare his testimony for the congressional investigation. In spite of what happened, they still plan to interview Hook and others. The hearing will cover broad management concerns such as worker safety, whistle-blower protections and the restart of the lab after a seven-month shutdown last summer.
“We certainly aren’t going to make allegations at this point,” said a committee staffer, who listened to the news conference on the phone. “It sounds like they have enough leads to go on.”
Santa Fe police say officers were called to the Cheeks parking lot about 2 a.m. Sunday. Hook was taken by ambulance to St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.
“He was conscious when an officer first made contact with him,” Deputy Chief Eric Johnson said Monday.
“We don’t know exactly where this case is going at this point,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out exactly what happened .”
The University of California and lab Director Robert Kuckuck denounced the attack, saying any form of violence toward a person is unacceptable.
Susan Hook cried as photographs of her disfigured husband were shown to news reporters. She said today is their 30th wedding anniversary . She said she had to cancel a Hawaiian cruise they had planned to take. When a reporter asked whether her husband could be lying, she said he was not the type to go to bars. “We just aren’t dancers or bar people,” she said. “And he’d been in bed.”
He usually accompanied her to Albuquerque, but he was too tired and overwhelmed with the upcoming hearing, she said. He suffers from a heart condition , and he is recovering from a stroke and shoulder surgery. He had been back to work just three weeks. When she talked to him on the phone after 10 p.m. Saturday, he told her he had a last-minute meeting with the auditor at a bar.
Chuck Montaño , a co-plaintiff with Hook in his lawsuit against UC, thinks his co-worker was set up. “Whistle-blowers usually suffer financial and emotional consequences when they speak out. But violence, physical attacks, is something I guess I was a little naive (about). I didn’t think it would happen,” he said. “But we’re talking about a major contract here. We’re talking about people that have strong feelings about the University of California continuing to run the laboratory, so I guess now in retrospect it doesn’t surprise me that it would become violent.”
Montaño plans to testify about lab abuses in Washington, too. “I’ve known Tommy for many years, and this is not in character with him to be going to bars,” Moñtano added. “He’s been my boss, and we’ve never even had a drink together
Man, this is just plain 100% messed up. I hope they catch the people that did this and, more importantly, the people that are behind the hit.
One can get their arse kicked at a Nudie Bar for a miriad of reasons.
Including that ones WIFE doesn't support such after work activities!~}
We can't let these people run our nuclear bomb labs.
...which would be precisely the reason to lure him there.
bookmark
Hmmmm, let me get this straight. The guy goes to a nudie bar- an excellent spot to do some whistleblower chatting, gets his head beat in bad enough he has to call the cops and his wife just happens to be out of town at the time. Hmmmmm?
An example of why vast bureaucracies don't work.
I get the impression the guy is trying to cover for going to a nudie bar with a made up story.
Me too.
There's something awfully fishy about all this. Normally whistleblowers don't get beat up, they simply disappear. I know, I are one.
The other possibility is that he really does have a fat mouth that needs to stay shut. Why in the world would he set himself up by going to a titty bar, that's so stupid it's unbelievable. Which isn't to say they shouldn't catch the assailants, just that there is something fishy about a beatig like this.
it doesn't get any better than this.
When his story falls about will he be forced to pay the costs of the investigation?
Still, I would be very cautious about reaching conclusions. First, the whisleblowing concerns fraud and abuse, something the Inspector General continually looks into and is nothing new, and second it is apparently against the University of California and alleges certain accounting irregularities or manipulations, again something frequently done. Can you see the University of California finding 6 thugs to go after someone testifying on something readily available to anyone researching the records. In other words, the cat's out of the bag.
Finally, look at the possibility that he got into a fight while outside the nude bar, got his butt kicked and so needed an excuse. It seems convenient that he went to the nude bar to meet a whistleblower at the time his wife was out of town.
He may well be telling the truth, but it looks a bit shady to me.
This morning's tv news throws some doubt on the identity/motive of his attackers. Clearly a developing story.
I hope that all those who are quick with an accusation are as quick with an apology.
"unacceptable"??????
QUIT THE PSYCHOBABBLE!
How about WRONG!, DISPICABLE!, BAD!?
Just because we let wanna be doctors convince us that its better for a child's tender feelings not to use harsh terms, doesn't mean there is no "right" or "wrong"!
People never learn. It's not the crime itself that causes the most problems-it's the cover up!
Interesting. Thanks for taking the time to post.
From article in second comment:
Hook went to Cheeks on Saturday while his wife was in Albuquerque with their two grown sons.... He usually accompanied her to Albuquerque,...
Does he live in Albuquerque? The second article reads like he doesn't.
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