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A TALE OF TWO WOMEN AT THE USDA MANAGEMENT VIOLENCE IN THE FEDERAL WORKPLACE DIRECTED AT WHISTLEBLOWERS AND EEO COMPLAINTANTS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington, D.C. (PR WEB) July, 2003 -- Violence in the workplace isn't always the result of spontaneous aggression by disgruntled employees. Oftentimes it is premeditated; and even more alarming, sometimes management is the perpetrator. Though U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a stated zero-tolerance policy, nevertheless officials are prone to turn a blind eye when it's their own. Not confined to guns and death threats, violence in the workplace includes stalking, surveillance, sexual assault and intentional placement of individuals in harms way.
Death Threat by AK-47
Karin Leperi, a senior official at the Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service at U.S. Department of Agriculture, knows first-hand the paralyzing fear that comes when told the head of internal investigation at her agency wants "to blow out her brains."
According to a shocked witness, the male manager threatened two women, one of which was Leperi. "He said you just want to take employees like that' and then made the motion as if he were grabbing someone by the hair or the back of the head and throwing them to the ground. He then made the motion of stepping on their neck and while molding his hand into the shape of a gun acted as if he were shooting them by making the noise of a gun shot while pointing his imaginary gun to the head region of the person on the ground."
In a sworn affidavit, another agency manager says of the same male manager "
he commented if anyone ever tried to bring him down, he would climb to the top of the building and start picking people off with a gun." Another witness corroborates the threat by saying "(he) made some off hand comments about going out onto the roof of the APHIS building and picking some people off with a gun.
He said that he would just use the AK-47 he had in his attic."
An ex-subordinate says the abusive manager would brag in front of staff on how he's entitled to one "free kill" since he's a Vietnam Veteran and can use the Vietnam Stress Syndrome as his defense argument. Leperi's stress-level peaked after discovering her home was under surveillance confirmed by her husband and neighbors.
Now, Leperi's agency is intentionally moving her office to the same floor as the manager who made the death threat against her, despite protest and pleas for her safety. Appeals to Leperi's Agency Administrator and the Secretary of Agriculture are ignored trivialized. Because she dared file an EEO complaint, and because as a whistleblower, she reported a senior agency official who intentionally misrepresented himself as a foreign official, she is being dangled as bait for possible target practice by an angry male manager who still reigns supreme yet to be reprimanded. "As a military reserve officer, I recognize the combat zone. They are purposefully putting me in harm's way," says Leperi.
Same Agency Same Tactic Different Woman
Penny Kriesch is an articulate and attractive African-American federal employee who was once a "Negro" scholarship recipient at college. Her demeanor is professional while her work product is sterling. Unfortunately, numerous awards and accolades could not protect or insulate her from the violence of sexual harassment and assault. Called into her supervisor's office under the pretext of a counseling session, Kriesch was greeted by a male manager who proceeded to masturbate in front of her. Soon to follow was a demand for sexual favors, followed by stalking, and her supervisor stealing her house key.
Then the anonymous phone calls started coming to her home, at all hours of the night. Frightened for her safety and that of her daughter who had also been threatened by the same manager, she trusted the agency complaint process to resolve her dangerous predicament. However, her trust was misplaced. Even though an investigation by Office of Special Counsel directed that the agency fire the manager, he was almost immediately rehired by another agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Flash forward ten years. Kriesch had earned numerous awards and worked her way into a management position. Little did she expect that when management rediscovered her EEO history, the agency response was to move her office four doors down (and in a back hallway) from surprise her "rehired" supervisor. The ex-supervisor immediately stoked her fears by repeatedly walking by her office. Distraught and fearful for her physical safety, it was over eighteen months before agency officials addressed the explosive situation and only after she filed another EEO complaint.
Kriesch says of her situation, "The Agency deliberately used a known sexual predator to retaliate against me. By tormenting me with the threat of physical harm, they were attempting to establish supremacy and send out a clear message that I was not welcome in management ranks regardless of my contributions. They used plantation management tactics as a method to subdue, suppress, and segregate."
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For more information:
Robert Seldon, Esq., 202.955.6968 (Leperi)
Lawrence Lucas, President, Minority Coalition, 856.910.2399 (Kriesch)
This article courtesy of http://www.iblowers.com.
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