Justice Dept. Whistle-Blower in Alabama Case Is Fired

Source: The New York Times
By John Schwartz
July 9, 2009

A Department of Justice whistle-blower who accused prosecutors of misconduct in the closely watched federal corruption trial of former Gov. Donald E. Siegelman of Alabama has been fired, and claims retaliation is the reason. The government denies that it was retaliating.

The whistle-blower, Tamarah T. Grimes, worked as a legal aide with the team prosecuting Mr. Siegelman and Richard M. Scrushy, the former chairman of HealthSouth, on bribery and corruption charges.

Both men were convicted in 2006 in a case that Mr. Siegelman, a Democrat, and supporters say was politically motivated.

Ms. Grimes filed her complaints in 2007 under whistle-blower protection laws, accusing prosecutors of several misdeeds. Included were improper communications with jurors and the continuing involvement of the United States attorney for Alabama, Leura G. Canary, long after Ms. Canary, a Republican, said she had removed herself from the case because of partisan ties.

Ms. Grimes received word of her firing on June 9 from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, according to a statement she issued.

In her statement, Ms. Grimes called the firing, which was first reported on a Harper’s Magazine blog, “the price for opposition.”

On June 1, she had sent a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that laid out her concerns in the case; that letter was included by the legal team for Mr. Siegelman in filings seeking a new trial.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department, Tracy Schmaler, said Ms. Grimes’s firing had no connection to the misconduct claims.

“The department takes seriously its obligation under the whistle-blower law and did not violate it with regards to the termination of this employee,” Ms. Schmaler said, declining to offer further comment “for privacy reasons” in a personnel matter.

The department investigated Ms. Grimes’s accusations, and in its report last October said the Alabama prosecutors had not “violated any law, rule or regulation” or engaged in mismanagement. The report said the evidence “strongly supports” the positions taken by management in the dispute.

The House Judiciary Committee, however, released a report the next month criticizing the Justice Department report as incomplete and “one-sided.”

Ms. Grimes had been on administrative leave for much of the previous year.