declaration of kimmett ca no. 4:cv-08-1496 - pennsylvania corbett case fraud waste wrongdoing

8/7/2019 Declaration of Kimmett CA No. 4:CV-08-1496 - Pennsylvania Corbett Case Fraud Waste Wrongdoing

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

THOMAS D. KIMMETT

Plaintiff,

v.

THE PENNSYLVANIA OFFICEOF THE ATTORNEY GENERALET AL.

Defendants.

Civil Action No. 4:CV-08-1496

(Judge Jones)

(Magistrate Judge Blewitt)

DECLARATION OF THOMAS D. KIMMETT IN SUPPORT OF

PLAINTIFFS MOTION FOR PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT

I, Thomas D. Kimmett, hereby declare as follows:

1. From September 2006 through November 21, 2008, I was employedas a Senior Deputy Attorney General in the Administrative Collections Unit

(Collections unit) of the Financial Enforcement Section (FES) of the

Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General (OAG).

2. FES is responsible for collecting all the debts from all the variousCommonwealth agencies, boards, commissions, colleges and universities. At any

given time, there were approximately 40,000 cases with debts totaling $400-500

million and millions of dollars being paid to private collection agencies (PCAs)

at rates as high 30% (40% previously), which were five to six times the rate paid

by some other nearby states.

Case 4:08-cv-01496-JEJ-TMB Document 155 Filed 07/20/2010 Page 1 of 12


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3. The Collections unit handles a web of fund flows, which includes (a)payments made by debtors to FES in response to FESs collection efforts; (b)

money collected by PCAs from debtors that the PCAs remit to FES; (c)

commission payments made by FES to PCAs; (d) payment by FES of debts it

collects to the state agencies where the debt originated; and (e) payments from the

state agencies to FES to reimburse FES for commissions FES paid to the PCAs for

the PCAs collection of the agencies debt. Millions of dollars pass through FES

every year.

4. During the time I was employed at FES, I learned of and discoveredwaste, wrongdoing, and gross mismanagement that had been occurring in FES and

in the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue (DOR). I believed that some of the

wrongdoing that I had found amounted to fraud. It was my opinion that an

independent investigation of FES was warranted, either by OAGs Internal Affairs

unit, the Office of the Auditor General, or by some other law enforcement agency.

I expressed this opinion to many other people, within OAG and elsewhere.

5. After discovering what I believed to be the numerous instances ofwrongdoing and a massive amount of waste and mismanagement, I reported this to

my superiors within my chain of command at OAG, including FES Chief Stephen

Brandwene, FES Chief Michael Roman, and Division Director Louis Rovelli. I

also reported this to the Comptroller, Edward Bianco, and the Assistant



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Comptroller, Doug Ottenberg. I also reported my findings and concerns to persons

outside my chain of command, including the Attorney Generals Chief of Staff

Brian Nutt and First Deputy William Ryan.

6. I reported examples of the gross mismanagement and wrongdoing topersons who worked at independent Commonwealth Agencies, including but not

limited to DOR, the Pennsylvania Department of Motor Vehicles, the Pennsylvania

Department of Transportation, state colleges and universities, and a number of

other Commonwealth agencies.

7. James Furlong, DORs liaison to OAG, reported to me manyexamples of gross mismanagement and wrongdoing that had been occurring in

FES prior to my employment. I followed up on those examples and I also

discovered many other problems in FES beyond what Mr. Furlong had described.

I kept Mr. Furlong regularly informed of the waste and wrongdoing I was

discovering within FES, even though many of those examples did not relate

directly to work FES was performing on DORs accounts.

8. I also reported my findings of gross mismanagement and wrongdoingto Richard Hudic, the Executive Director of Team PA, who had direct contact to

Brian Nutt and Tom Corbett. Mr. Hudic and I worked on projects together during

my prior employment at DOR. I had multiple communications with Mr. Hudic

about the problems I had discovered in FES and DOR. In December 2006, I met



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with Mr. Hudic for approximately ninety minutes at his office to detail the

problems at FES. During that meeting, I went through specific examples with him.

9. On a number of other occasions in 2007 I communicated with Mr.Hudic about the problems I was discovering and about the resistance I was

encountering from others in my direct chain of command. Because of that

resistance, I asked Mr. Hudic to help me find new employment.

10. Because I reported the waste, gross mismanagement, and wrongdoingthat I discovered to those in my chain of command as well as those outside of it,

and because I continued to find and report on additional examples of such

problems, I was subjected to retaliation by others in FES, including but not limited

to Mr. Rovelli, Mr. Brandwene, Mr. Roman, and Ms. Keiser.

11. After I first began reporting on the waste, gross mismanagement, andwrongdoing in FES in late 2006, Stephen Brandwene, then the Chief of FES (my

boss), ceased nearly all communications with me.

12. Jill Keiser, whom I was supposed to have replaced as the Supervisorof the Collections unit, refused to interact with me, take supervision from me, or

assist me with day-to-day work in the Collections unit. Ms. Keiser would even

refuse to submit leave for vacation time she would take, and would not inform me

of such absences beforehand.

13. Although I had assumed the position of Collections unit supervisor,



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Ms. Keiser continued to act as though she was in charge of the section. This was

problematic because Keiser would meet with representatives of PCAs, with which

FES had contracted to collect commonwealth debts, to discuss matters relating to

the work in the Collections unit that I was attempting to supervise and manage.

14. When Steve Brandwene retired from FES, I was denied a promotionto Chief of FES. Approximately one week before Brandwene resigned, Division

Chief Louis Rovelli met with me to discuss his decision not to promote me to

Chief. Rovelli said he had no complaint with the quality of my work; however, he

explained that I did not understand OAGs culture. Rovelli made clear that this

was because I had reported the mismanagement, wrongdoing, and potential fraud

in FES. Rovelli specifically cited an example of illegal activity that had been

discovered to have been occurring by investigators in the Philadelphia area and the

fact that no one within the office would report on it. Rovelli stated that even

though the Office knew they had engaged in illegal activity they were still

employed in the Office. Rovelli then discussed my concerns that Jill Keiser had

been involved in wrongdoing, and possibly fraud. He said that I needed to ignore

the wrongdoing and would be required to work with Keiser moving forward. What

happens in OAG, legal or not, does not get reported.

15. At that meeting, Rovelli also explained that he had held his position asthe Director of the Civil Law Division in OAG during the terms of every elected



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Attorney General, and that he was close, personal friends with the current AG,

Thomas Corbett, as well as with former AGs Leroy Zimmerman and Michael

Fisher. It was clear to me that I was intended to take from these statements that

Mr. Rovelli was a very powerful figure within OAG and not one to be crossed.

16. From the point when Michael Roman assumed the position of Chiefof FES, he avoided communications with me to the extent possible. I attempted to

engage Mr. Roman and to keep him informed of the problems I discovered within

FES and DOR. Mr. Roman expressed no interest in following up on or discussing

my many reports and memoranda detailing waste, wrongdoing, and gross

mismanagement.

17. At one point, I had been requested by the Comptroller Bianco to signan unqualified representation relating to a Pennsylvania Department of

Transportation audit of FES. I met with Mr. Bianco and his assistant Mr.

Ottenberg on numerous occasions to explain my position that I could not sign such

a representation. Both Ottenberg and Bianci were well aware that I believed that

gross mismanagement and fraud had occurred in FES, and they shared many of my

beliefs. I also sent a memorandum to Mr. Bianco and Mr. Roman detailing my

concerns and outlining the improprieties that had occurred in FES before, during,

and after the audit period at issue. When I raised my concerns to Mr. Roman, he

got very upset with me and said that I had to get past the fraud issue. I outlined



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my discussions with Mr. Ottenberg, Mr. Roman, and Mr. Bianco on this issue in a

memo to file on June 20, 2007. Ultimately, I signed the representation letter as

requested because, after my discussion with Mr. Roman, I understood that I could

lose my job if I refused to do so.

18. Both Mr. Brandwene and Mr. Roman made it clear to others in FES,including many of my subordinates, that he did not like me. Roman would

encourage employees who disagreed with my assignments to them to complain to

him, and he would routinely question my assignment of tasks to Collections unit

employees.

19. Mr. Roman would hold meetings with one of my subordinates, MarkSantanna, without allowing me to participate, despite my requests to be involved.

This obstructed my ability to supervise Santannas work.

20. When employees left the Collections unit, I was not provided the

opportunity to hire replacements. This resulted in a reduction of the Collections

unit staff by attrition, despite the fact that I had identified a significant amount of

work that needed to be done to get current on cases that had been ignored during

prior years of gross mismanagement, waste, and wrongdoing.

21. I was informed by Mr. Furlong, Mr. Ottenberg, and Mr. Bianco on

numerous occasions that I would be fired for finding, reporting, and attempting to

address the waste, mismanagement, and wrongdoing I had discovered.



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22. During my time at FES, I discovered wrongdoing by DOR.

Specifically, I learned from DOR employees that DOR was failing to collect from

debtors Act 40 fees, despite a legal obligation to do so. This failure was costing

the Commonwealth money. I reported my concerns on this issue to Mr. Furlong. I

discussed this concern with others both within and outside of government when

communicating about the waste, gross mismanagement, and wrongdoing I had

discovered.

23. I discovered that DOR was entering into What-If settlements with

taxpayers whose appeal rights had long since expired and that DOR was

attempting to keep that fact quiet. I believed that DORs What-If settlements

created a dangerous precedent and that DORs instruction to keep their existence

quiet to be inappropriate. I detailed my concerns on this issue in a memorandum to

Mr. Roman. I also discussed this concern with others both within and outside of

government when communicating about the waste, gross mismanagement, and

wrongdoing I had discovered.

24. I formed a team to review compromises, including compromises of

debts owed to DOR. My team and I found that many of the proposed compromises

of Revenue debts were not supported by any documentation or were otherwise

unjustified. In many cases, compromises that would have paid the PCAs

thousands of dollars in fees never even existed in the PCAs records. Because my



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team and I would not approve such compromises until (and if) the required

documentation was obtained, DOR and a representative of the Linebarger PCA

complained. I addressed the compromise issue in a detailed memorandum to Mr.

Roman. I discussed the recurring problems relating to proposed compromises with

others both within and outside of government when communicating about the

waste, gross mismanagement, and wrongdoing I had discovered.

25. When Mr. Furlong learned that I had heard about various problems at

DOR from my discussions with DOR employees, he instructed DOR employees to

cease communicating with me. I learned of this instruction directly from those

DOR employees. Mr. Furlong also informed the DOR employees that, to the

extent I expressed valid concerns about particular cases or issues, he could get me

overruled by going to Mr. Roman. Mr. Furlong also told me to have no further

communications with any DOR employees except through him.

26. Other employees at FES, including Diane Burman and Sherri

Bellaman, also recognized and reported to me that Mr. Furlong would play with

the accounts by lowering the dollar amount that had previously been established

with the debtor, collection agency, and OAG in a compromise offer.

27. In the spring of 2008, I again discussed with Mr. Hudic examples of

waste, gross mismanagement, and wrongdoing that I had discovered, including the

various new issues that had arisen since our last communication. I also informed



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him of the stiff resistance I was encountering from my direct chain of command

and Mr. Furlong.

28. Mr. Hudic said he intended to speak with Mr. Nutt or Mr. Corbett

about my concerns. My hope was that Mr. Nutt or Mr. Corbett, upon learning of

the gross mismanagement and wrongdoing, would initiate an investigation.

29. In May 2008 I spoke again with Mr. Kane about the gross

mismanagement and wrongdoing that I was continuing to discover in FES and

DOR. At that point, Mr. Kane arranged for me to talk to Bruce Brandler, an

Assistant United States Attorney. Mr. Kane informed Mr. Brandler that I would be

calling and gave me Mr. Brandlers phone number.

30. I called Mr. Brandler and spoke with him for approximately thirty

minutes. During that time, I described the activities in FES and DOR that I felt

amounted to wrongdoing. Mr. Brandler explained that the FBI conducts

investigations on behalf of the United States Attorneys Office, and he wanted to

put me in touch with the FBI.

31. After talking with Mr. Brandler, I decided to meet with an attorney. I

was concerned that Mr. Rovelli and Mr. Roman would terminate my employment

if they learned that I was communicating with the U.S. Attorneys Office and the

FBI. My attorney had subsequent communications with the U.S. Attorneys office.



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32. I have met with an FBI agent to discuss the wrongdoing and fraud that

I discovered in FES and DOR. My most recent meeting with the FBI occurred at

the FBIs request in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area on May 19, 2010.

Subsequent to that, the FBI agent requested a meeting with my attorney, and my

understanding is that that meeting took place in Washington, D.C. on July 6, 2010.

33. After filing suit, most everyone I encountered at OAG would not talk

to me. Mr. Rovelli would have no direct conversations with me until the day

approximately three months later when he terminated my employment.

34. Shortly after I filed suit, Defendant Keiser threatened Sherry

Bellaman, one of my subordinates who had worked closely with me in (among

other things) attempting to rectify the effects of past mismanagement and

wrongdoing. I was informed that Ms. Keiser handed Ms. Bellaman a copy of my

lawsuit, asked Ms. Bellaman what she thought of the suit, and then told Ms.

Bellaman to watch herself. In that conversation, Ms. Keiser also made a number

of disparaging remarks about me.

35. Given the large amount of money handled by and through FES, this

massive amount of mismanagement, wrongdoing, and fraud I discovered must

have cost the Commonwealth millions of dollars over the years.



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declaration of kimmett ca no. 4:cv-08-1496 - pennsylvania corbett case fraud waste wrongdoing

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