A high-level official with the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority has filed a lawsuit claiming she was wrongly put on administrative leave from her job this May after repeatedly reporting “millions” of dollars worth of missing liquor inventory to authority executives and Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration.
Jennifer Burke, ABC director of retail operations, claims she faced “retaliatory actions” for conduct protected under the state’s whistleblower law, according to a suit filed Dec. 13 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The case accuses ABC, Chief Retail Operations Officer Mark Dunham and former CEO Travis Hill as having “acted intentionally, willfully, recklessly and maliciously against Burke with utter and conscious disregard of her rights.”
Burke is one of four authority officials placed on administrative leave in connection with a string of embezzlements that occurred in 2022 when employees at seven stores exploited vulnerabilities in the cash register system to pocket thousands of dollars. At one Roanoke store, three employees netted more than $8,000. However, Burke claims there was “no way possible” she could have had any involvement with the incident and was scapegoated in retaliation for her reports about lost inventory.
“They sent me out on administrative leave to try to shut me up about the millions of dollars that they had lost,” Burke said.
The lawsuit is the latest evidence of trouble at the state liquor monopoly,...
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