James F. Tomscheck forced disabled veteran from CBP IA – Pt. 2
Further, Tomscheck blames a dysfunctional culture at CBP on those to whom he directly answered in the CBP line of command. He specifically has pointed the finger at then CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin and then Acting CBP Chief David Aguilar. Bersin now serves as the Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security. Aguilar retired from his position as Acting Commissioner of CBP in February 2013; he currently is employed by Global Security and Intelligence Strategies.
Perhaps most alarmingly, Tomscheck charges that 25 percent of the twenty-eight immigrant deaths in which CBP agents were involved at the Mexican border since 2010 may be legally culpable. The details of these twenty-eight cases, which were examined by CBP IA under the supervision of Tomscheck, have never been made available to the public nor the families of the victims. He also has suggested that there are an unknown number of other felony cases involving CBP employees including assault and corruption.
Besides Tomscheck, Richardson attributes responsibility for absence of accommodations for his documented disability to Janene Marie Corrado. Corrado was then Director of Integrity Programs Division at CBP IA. She now is the Chief of Staff at CBP IA.
Jeffrey M. Matta, according to Richardson’s allegations, also shares blame for the ways in which he was adversely treated at CBP IA under Tomscheck’s leadership. Matta is the Deputy Director of the Integrity Programs Division at CBP IA. He is currently Acting Director Integrity Programs Division at CBP IA.
In the IA Integrity Programs Division headquartered in Washington, D.C., Corrado and Matta directly supervised five Security Analysts — including Richardson — who were GS 14s, three other personnel, and three administrative staff. Both Corrado and Matta were on the Internal Affairs leadership team under Tomscheck.
Employees in the Integrity Programs Division at CBP IA saw each other on a daily basis and were very aware of the office environment and culture as it pertained to their personal well-being.
On a daily basis, a CBP IA employee who was in a nearby cubicle witnessed Richardson’s treatment at CBP IA: “…he (Richardson) just needed an ounce of compassion” from his supervisors. However, Richardson, who was designated a disabled veteran with 80 percent physical disability and medically retired by the U.S. Navy’s Physical Evaluation Board, never received any consideration or accommodation for his documented disability before being fired.
Instead, Richardson appears to have been set adrift in the complexities of the federal employment procedures and policies process which repeatedly failed to respond to his needs as a disabled returning veteran. Tomscheck carefully orchestrated these legal employment procedures and processes for his own self-interest, Richardson asserts.
After seriously injuring his back while deployed in West Africa from September 2010 to September 2011, Lieutenant Commander John Richardson expected to return to his job as a Senior Operations Analysis Specialist in Customs and Border Patrol Internal Affairs (CBP IA). A 30-year veteran who had been honored on several different occasions — including two Joint Service Commendation Medals as well as the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal — for his meritorious service to his country, he sustained a serious back injury during his last deployment to West Africa as an Intelligence Officer with the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa at Camp Lemmonier.
Richardson’s military service record and military medical record appear fully to support his claims as to his medical status and documented medical disability. As well, the mistreatment he endured at CBP IA when he returned from his West African deployment appears substantiated by both his documentation and by those who knew him well while he was at CBP IA under Tomscheck.
Long before returning to his civilian job at CBP IA, Richardson contacted his supervisors to tell them of his disability status and accommodations to his injuries.
In fact, Richardson regularly kept in contact with Matta by both phone and e-mail from September of 2011 to September 2012, when Richardson was receiving medical rehabilitation for his injuries at a Naval medical facility in Norfolk, Virginia.
On 3 August 2012 Richardson officially notified Matta in writing of his 80 percent veteran disability rating. On 6 September 2012, Richardson sent Matta his updated resume detailing his disabilities which were preceded by several phone calls to him detailing his back injuries.
On 8 September 2012, Matta replied by e-mail that a new position was waiting for him in CBP IA.
In fact, in a memo to Richardson dated 30 March 2012, Matta comments about Richardson’s appearance in a news story on Wounded Warriors (Richardson is a Wounded Warrior). Matta writes to Richardson, “Thanks for the video clip. You had a nice sound bite!”
Richardson, in rehabilitation because of his injuries, is told by Matta in the same e-mail, “I hope your convalescence is progressing. Be well!”
But apparently Matta has a short memory of Richardson serious injuries, because even when Richardson notified his supervisors at CBP IA immediately after he received the first military doctor’s report identifying his multiple medical issues and permanent disabilities, his needs were ignored by Matta, Matta’s immediate supervisor Janine Corrado, and the senior official in charge, Tomscheck.
Medical records of Richardson’s documented disabilities prior to returning to CBP IA include lumbar neuritis, a disease of the lumbar nerves. This lumbar neuritis is, according to Richardson, the major cause of his back pain and suffering. Richardson was told in this same military medical report that he also has osteoarthritis, a degenerative disease of the joints, in his right and left knees. This medical report, along with others, also cites a similar condition in his right and left shoulders.
In subsequent medical reports after working at his new job at CBP IA, Richardson’s medical condition had substantially worsened and his pain had substantially increased (letter to John Richardson from Randle Logan, Disability, Reconsideration and Appeals, United States Office of Personnel Management, 1 August 2014).
It had never occurred to Richardson that accommodations for his physical disability would not be met. In every sense of the word he says he always had followed rules and policies throughout his entire military career and this attention to detail carried over to his civilian job at CBP IA.
Richardson alleges that Tomscheck was fully aware of his disability upon his return from West Africa — including his request for accommodations for his disability — because he was the senior official in charge of Janene Corrado and Jeffrey M. Matta at CBP IA. In addition, one of Richardson’s previous job positions at CBP IA brought Tomscheck into daily contact with Richardson. Tomscheck and Richardson knew each other very well.
From September, 2009 until January, 2009, Richardson was the Acting Special Assistant to Tomscheck at CBP IA.
The deterioration of Richardson’s medical status began the first day he returned to work at CBP IA headquarters in Washington, D.C. after his yearlong rehabilitation and medical treatment. Richardson says he was shocked to discover that not only had his supervisors at CBP IA made no accommodations to his documented disability, but they also claimed they had never received any of the documents he sent them.
Richardson was assigned a desk job requiring long hours sitting in a chair in front of a desktop computer.
On this first day at his new job at CBP IA, 18 September 2012, Tomscheck publically declared to office staff that Richardson would remain at his assigned desk job. Shortly after, several of Richardson’s supervisors, including Matta, met and, even though they knew Richardson had an 80 percent disability, including major back pain, also decided that Richardson would remain at his desk job.
On his second day back at work at his new job at CBP IA, Richardson was “…very adamant about not being able to perform the same job. I also made it very clear that my medical documentation was very detailed and very accurate. I told them that attempting to force me to stay in the same position was actually a violation of my military and employment rights.”
Then he was asked, “Why don’t you just retire?” By this the manager meant that instead of just retiring from the Navy because of his medical disability, why didn’t Richardson also voluntarily retire from his job at CBP IA.
However, Richardson had no intention of being forced out of his job at CBP IA. Instead, as required by employment procedures at CBP IA, he filed a formal complaint with the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) on 1 October 2012. Richardson also met with the CBP Equal Employment Opportunity Complains Officer Christopher Smoot and with DHS Executive Director of Diversity and Inclusion Nimesh Patel.
On 9 October 2012, CBP refused to accommodate his work environment requests based upon his status as a disabled veteran. He was told the CBP Harassment Complaint Manger stated that, “…under the current circumstances our office will not seek a reassignment on your behalf.” Nor were any other work environment accommodations ever made.
Thus began Richardson’s odyssey through a maze of employment practices and procedures while he continued, despite the pain he continually endured at this desk job, to perform to the best of his abilities. MRichardson says that he repeatedly requested from his superiors a non-sedentary job position at CBP IA. In fact, Richardson, prior to his medical disability, had a successful performance record at CBP IA dating from 2006.
Richardson asserted that had he been assigned a job that at least in part included standing and moving around, a job similar to one he had at one time successfully held at CBP IA, he could have performed his job successfully and with far less physical deterioration, pain, and suffering. Previously, because of his demonstrated experience and skills, he headed a large security force at one of Washington’s federal office buildings. Richardson says he was praised in his annual work evaluation for his performance in this capacity.
At times this pain was so unrelenting that Richardson, according to one employee in his office, was forced to take breaks by lying on his cubicle floor in an attempt to temporarily alleviate his suffering.
When he could no longer tolerate the pain and was forced to miss work because of it, he was told by his same supervisors, under the direction of Tomscheck, that he would be fired if his absences from work continued. When Richardson explained in writing that his absences were directly due to the failure of his supervisors to provide an accommodation for his documented disabilities, he repeatedly was ignored.
Tomscheck, now turned federal whistleblower and under the protection of the Whistleblower Act of 1989, chose to turn a blind eye to his former Acting Special Assistant whom he knew very well. Both Corrado and Matta, the former the first deputy director of integrity at CBP IA, the latter her assistant deputy, were also fully aware-as were other management personnel-of Richardson’s medical status and undo suffering caused by his work place environment and lack of reasonable accommodations.
In so doing, Tomscheck, with the help of Matta and Corrado, were eventually successful in forcing out of the CBP IA an experienced and trusted federal employee. J. Gregory Richardson was officially “removed”— fired — from his position on 5 March 2014 (letter to John Richardson from Joseph M. Gaudiano, Section Chief, Security CBP, Office of Internal Affairs, 15 March 2014).
Richardson’s experience as an employee under Assistant Director Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs Tomscheck appears, however, to be one among other allegations providing a broader context for understanding Tomscheck’s charges against his superiors.
Robert Lee Maril, a professor of Sociology at East Carolina University, is the author o f The Fence: National Security, Public Safety, and Illegal Immigration along the U.S.-Mexico Border. He blogs at leemaril.com.
