The town of Clark, N.J., has been plunged into political turmoil with the revelation that the mayor had been recorded making racist and sexist comments. The mayor issued an apology, but that has not put an end to this affair. Rather, Antonio Manata says he was forced into retirement and denied full pension benefits. But Manata is not the mayor, nor was he the target of the mayor’s remarks. The former Clark police lieutenant is the whistleblower who made the recordings that recently surfaced, exposing the mayor’s hate-filled comments.
Manata appears to have been constantly stymied in his attempts to bring his allegations to light. In a lawsuit he recently filed, he alleges that he was warned by the county prosecutor’s office two years ago against filing a complaint against Mayor Sal Bonaccorso. Furthermore, Manata alleges, the prosecutor’s office said that it could not promise that his complaint would remain anonymous. The lawsuit goes on to state that the mayor somehow discovered that Manata was going to make a formal complaint and that Manata was then suspended from his job.
This is just one recent example of whistleblowers being punished as they seek to disclose uncomfortable truths. A state trooper in Maine, for example, alleges that his recent poor performance reviews are due to his whistleblowing concerning intelligence-gathering practices in his department. And a whistleblower at a jail in Oklahoma was fired for disclosing that a supervisor — now facing possible...
The internet is full of people promising effortless tax refunds. For many, the business model is simple: invent expenses, file claims at volume, and take a cut. These “refund factories” exploit HM...