Jennifer Burke, who joined ABC more than five years ago, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Richmond on Wednesday against the authority; its chief retail operations officer, Mark Dunham; and its former CEO, Travis Hill. Spokesman Jeff Caldwell said the authority could not comment on pending litigation. Hill declined comment and deferred to the authority.
Hill stepped down as the first CEO of the 5-year-old authority last month, and two other executives have resigned in the past four months as Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration has stepped up pressure to increase the amount of net profit that ABC sends to the state general fund budget. The General Assembly voted in 2015 to turn the former executive branch agency into an authority in 2018.
The lawsuit seeks up to $1 million in damages — including up to $350,000 in punitive damages — on two counts of retaliation under the state’s whistleblower protection law and Burke’s First Amendment constitutional rights, one count of defamation and one count of violation of her due process rights.
Burke alleges that ABC placed her on administrative leave in May and then reinstated her in July with diminished job duties in retaliation for telling the authority’s new board chairman, former Del. Tim Hugo, R-Fairfax, and state Chief Transformation Officer Eric Moeller that ABC leadership had covered up an audit showing $2.7 million in lost inventory at the state liquor distribution warehouse.
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