A veteran Los Angeles firefighter has been awarded $2.75 million in a retaliation lawsuit.
According to the Los Angeles Daily News, a jury on Wednesday sided with firefighter Stephen Meiche's claim that he suffered a backlash after reporting that LAFD personnel and members of the dive team were wrongfully destroying and discarding property bought with federal funds.
“I was being excluded from participation in the unit I helped build,” said the 57-year-old Meiche.
Meiche said he became concerned that others were questioning his fitness for the job.
“I truly believed that there were rumors floating around about my competence as a diver,” said Meiche, who says he also worried whether his colleagues would assist him if something went wrong during a dive.
Meiche began complaining in March 2014 that property purchased with federal funds, including diving dry suits, were being destroyed in violation of grant money rules and that records were “likely falsified” to cover up the destruction.
He also alleged that some department members were “abusing grant funds by falsifying hours worked on training.”
Meiche, who joined the LAFD in 1980 and was assigned to Station 49, filed his suit in June 2016, alleging harassment, discrimination and retaliation.
