The task of becoming a whistleblower exposing corruption in city government is a stressful high-wire act, balancing the moral imperative to do the right thing with the possibility of losing a good-paying job. Just ask Ricardo Morales.
Morales was fired a few years back as a deputy commissioner after exposing evidence of backroom deals regarding city real estate. He provided that evidence to the city Department of Investigation (DOI), the FBI and Manhattan federal prosecutors looking into corruption during the de Blasio administration.
Then he went and asked for whistleblower protection that would require the city to give him his job back if his allegations of retaliation were proven.
It was not to be. Morales was fired from his job, not allowed to retire and had his health benefits cut off days after leaving the hospital where he’d been treated for heart problems. DOI determined Morales — who had a clean record and had won an award for promoting ethics training in a prior city job — had not met all the qualifications to be eligible. The department denied his request for whistleblower status.
Speaking to a City Council committee earlier this month, Morales said that other employees get the message. “If a guy like me doesn’t get the status, the chilling effect is, ‘This guy had all of these things going for him, won those awards — I’m going to keep my mouth shut’,” he testified.
Statistics presented at that hearing, chaired by Councilmember Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan), and an...
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