Feds won’t release details of settlement with FBI agent
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — As they fight allegations that Connecticut FBI agents retaliated against employees for whistleblowing, federal government officials are refusing to release details of a legal settlement with a special agent and asking a judge to throw out another employee’s lawsuit.
Special Agent Kurt Siuzdak’s lawsuit, filed in 2014, exposed allegations of internal strife and dysfunction within the FBI’s main Connecticut office in New Haven. It also disclosed a 2013 visit to the New Haven office by then-Director James Comey, who apologized to employees for “the failure of the FBI’s executive management to correct the leadership failures” in Connecticut.
Siuzdak’s lawsuit was reported settled in court documents filed in March, but the FBI and Justice Department have declined to release the details and rejected recent requests under public records laws by The Associated Press for a copy of the deal. Officials would say only that there was no admission of wrongdoing in the settlement.
Federal officials are now battling another lawsuit by a second New Haven FBI employee, electronics technician Omar Montoya, according to court documents obtained by the AP. Montoya alleges the retaliation against him included his supervisors falsely labeling him an “insider threat” to the FBI, which sparked an investigation, and authorizing unwarranted surveillance of him.
Siuzdak and Montoya have declined to comment on the lawsuits, which were filed in federal court.
Officials at FBI headquarters in Washington and Patricia Ferrick, the special agent in charge of the New Haven office since 2013, also declined to comment on the lawsuits.
Thomas Spina, an assistant U.S. attorney representing the New Haven FBI office, said Justice Department policy prevented him from commenting on pending litigation and releasing details of settlements with employees. In court documents, federal officials denied the allegations in both lawsuits.
“We take the allegations seriously,” Spina said.
Montoya sued the FBI, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray in September. He said Ferrick and other supervisors began a campaign of retaliation against him after he began helping Siuzdak with Siuzdak’s internal complaint against Ferrick and other officials for alleged discrimination and retaliation. Montoya was Siuzdak’s volunteer equal employment opportunity affairs counselor.
https://www.apnews.com/265654186298492eab16069a55160209/Feds-won%27t-release-details-of-settlement-with-FBI-agent