An assistant UConn professor has been awarded what is likely to be more than $1 million after complaining a decade ago in a whistleblower suit that he was fired in retaliation for raising questions about mismanagement and favoritism in the school’s business development laboratories.
The suit against the university by soon-to-be-reinstated business professor Luke Weinstein was filed in 2011 and wound its way through the state and federal courts - it reached the U.S. Court of Appeals twice - before Superior Court Judge Susan Peck recently ruled.
Peck said former business school Dean Paul Christopher Earley eliminated Weinstein’s position after Weinstein persisted in expressing concern that cost cutting measures by Earley in the school’s business accelerator program could jeopardize federal funding and that Earley allegedly made decisions that benefitted his wife, Elaine Mosakowski, a tenured business professor who ran one of the accelerators.
Peck awarded Weinstein about $736,000, concluding he was effectively fired by Earley in retaliation for the concerns he raised. She said his lawyer, Jacques Parenteau, is entitled to a yet to be determined sum to cover 11 years of litigation and expenses.
Attorney General William Tong’s office, which defended the suit, declined comment and UConn did not address specific points raised by Peck’s decision.
“UConn is reviewing the decision and considering its options in this matter, which has had a lengthy procedural history,” spokesman...
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