Here is another Whistleblower Story. -GFS
From a reader:
USDA, & Vilsack fire another. This one is a US Farm Bill whistleblower.
Please read this article. I will use “hyperspectral data” to show this to the newspaper readers.
The mainstream media is not concerned about the $300 Billion 2008 US Farm Bill, and how the USDA steals your money.
Check out this link:
http://wcrecord.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=314
| Front Page : Whistleblower reveals himself |
| on 11/10/2010 (349 reads) |
| Valvo accuses NRCS of betraying the public trust
(The following article is part two in a series of articles dealing with the investigation of the NRCS in Pembina County.) REGION—In the first article it was introduced that the Natural Resource Conservation Service’s (NRCS) office in Cavalier is under investigation by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in regards to allegations of fraud, waste and mismanagement. These acts are violations of the public trust. They were first brought to the attention of the NRCS Cavalier Field Office and eventually to the OIG by Geo-Spatial Analyst Anthony (Tony) Valvo, who is currently employed as a soil conservationist with the NRCS and has a master’s degree from Purdue. He has been employed by the federal government for seven months in the Cavalier field office. Valvo, is not a career bureaucrat, but carries his work experience from American industry. He is also a veteran of the U.S. Navy, where he served in the engineering department aboard a fleet ballistic missile submarine. Valvo is not a disgruntled employee, but someone who tried to right wrongs that he considered violations of the public trust. The following is his story: I am an example of the great opportunity afforded our citizenry, and a testament to why government is essential to the average American. None of my accomplishments were given to me, but our government made them available to me, and many others. A few weeks ago I gave this newspaper (The Walsh County Record) permission to write a story concerning government corruption. The charges are currently under investigation by the USDA’s OIG. The original target of the investigation is the NRCS. I do not know the status of the investigation, and do not have the “need to know.” The case is under investigation and has been broken down into two components. One is criminal and ethical violations and the other is retaliation against me for reporting violations of the public trust. I did report the people in this circle for unethical practices, fraud, waste and mismanagement. I did not expect the level of retaliation I received from the NRCS Cavalier Field Office, and its Area I Office Staff. The harassment has been unrelenting, sustained and cruel. I am currently not allowed on any USDA property. On Oct. 8, I was removed from the office by the Cavalier Police Department. I was told that I had a disease and was not allowed on the property. That’s the last thing I remember. I awoke in the Pembina County Memorial Hospital in Cavalier. From there I was transported to the cardiology department at Altru Hospital in Grand Forks. Being a former resident of the State of Florida I had no friends and very few social contacts in the area, who could come and get me. Needless to say I had to call someone to make the 165 mile round trip back to Cavalier to come and pick me up after being released by the hospital. No one from NRCS office bothered to call or offer assistance. Currently, I am still employed by the NRCS, but am on administrative leave and not allowed to be near USDA terminals or USDA property. This privileged group of federal employees in Cavalier and Area I, don’t want you to know what they do with our money. When they stand accused of misappropriating taxpayer money, they become bullies that hide behind the inertia of a 100,000 person bureaucracy. This behavior is not in keeping with the traditions of the USDA, and the United States of America. These people do not own, and were not elected to run this vital federal agency. That’s Valvo’s story. This is what happens to government employees for exposing fraud, waste and mismanagement. These actions are supposed to be protected by the No-Fear Act signed into law by President Bush. The No Fear Act requires that Federal agencies be more accountable for violations of anti-discrimination and whistleblower protection laws. Valvo went to lower and middle management to get redress of these issues before filing an OIG report. Paul Sweeney, state conservationist out of Bismarck was recently asked about the investigation and confirmed the reports of an OIG probe, but refused to comment on the subject. Valvo has Type II Diabetes and Hepatitis C, which he got from his former wife who is a primary caregiver. The reasons given to keep him out of the office by NRCS officials are that he is armed and dangerous, that the NRCS couldn’t provide “reasonable accommodation” for his diabetes and that he has a blood born illness. “I have asked the proper chain of command for help. Nothing so far,” he said. “I have used my best communication skills and best deportment to bring administrative change to these issues. I met with relentless retaliation.” What’s at the core of these issues with the NRCS is it doesn’t do anything to expedite the process of the construction that is often needed to implement conservation plans and does very little to see if the plans are actually carried out or verified. This is an important point because oftentimes agri-businesses firms are paid before actual verifications are performed. |
Link to original: http://wcrecord.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=314
…sorry, but Diabetes (either Type 1 or Type 2) is not a contagious disease…
You are correct about diabetes, Bill. I really wondered about that when I read that as well. I didn’t have time to confront it though at the time. I believe that being in a very stressful situation can affect one’s health. I have talked with an endocrinologist and found that is demonstrable in his professional experience and research experience. What is difficult for many employees is that they find themselves facing harassment, retribution, and extreme stress at work, and then can also have extreme stress at home as well.
Extreme stress can affect a person’s entire system, endocrine systems, thyroid and adrenal function, immune system, digestion, brain function, sleep patterns and ability to get restful sleep, etc. etc. With dysfunctional immune system issues, it becomes more likely a person will succumb to any number of communicable and genetically opportunistic diseases. The auto-immune diseases (Diabetes, Leukemia, Thyroid Disorder, MS, Lupus), are very much given more opportunity to manifest themselves with a person who is under horrific prolonged stress. It is believed that cancer is opportunistic in this way also. I have been reading about how stress can affect one’s PH recently. It makes some sense, that if stress can negatively affect one’s whole body system, including PH balance, it may well do a lot of other devastating things as well. Perhaps that is why so many employees have had such health crisis states while or after going through being a whistleblower. It is a part of the damage that should be accounted for when a person is seeking help and representation.
If you read other articles, it states that Valvo had Hep. C, which he states he contracted from his ex-wife, who was a nurse. It does sound like his Diabetes was influenced by the level of stress at home and work, and that he had some minor emotional outbursts. Again, read other (longer) articles and you will see this. I believe he was going through a divorce at the time as well (or leading up to one).
My Name Is Anthony Valvo. I am a formally educated, and experienced Agronomist.
18 month ago I caught the highest ranking USDA employee, in the state of ND assisting in the theft of US Taxpayer dollars.
The USDA Key employees were all sent to “Turkey Farms”, that is where we send federal employees that tarnish the logo. Our military does the same thing, put them somewhere they can’t hurt anything. In civilian life we fire them.
These Federal Employees signed contracts to give 27 million dollars to 4 Pembina County Agribusiness Firms. These firms produce GMO, low quality sugar, and starch. The money was stolen by approving WRP Easements for these 4 businesses. I checked their land and it was not in compliance. After turning the fraud over the federal authorities the money was not paid out, and I was fired by Vilsacks goons.
They sell this crap to EBT recipients. When I was at Purdue 15 years ago: I was told never to bring this issue up because it would lead to the elimination of the USDA.
Perhaps we should answer that question first. Should we get rid of the USDA? They are going the way of the USPS.
I am a whistleblower. You can Google 7 articles written about me at: anthony_valvo_usda_fraud.
What does my health have to do with fraud discovery. Do you work for the NRCS/USDA.
*Look for the second foot to fall in newspapers in 13 southern states this summer. We are building the 303 redirects for SEO presents know.
*Who do you people think you are?
Thank you.
NRCS whistleblower Valvo awarded settlement
Charges against producers in Pembina County, federal employees remain active
(Editor’s note: The following story is a follow-up to a series of stories involving Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) employee Anthony “Tony” Valvo that The Walsh County Record collaborated with beginning in 2010.)
Tony Valvo uncovered corruption that caused high level NRCS officials in North Dakota to be transferred and in some cases lose their positions within the Natural Resources Conservation Service. He was working for the Pembina County NRCS office as a geo-spatial analyst beginning in 2010. By December 2010 he was fired when he reported allegations of fraud, waste and mismanagement.
Valvo was in effect a federal whistleblower, but was illegally terminated by Paul Sweeney, N.D. State Conservationist.
“I was fired for whistleblower reprisals, basically,” he said. “That was what the settlement that I was just awarded pertained to.”
Under the federal “No Fear” act Valvo was not to lose his job, but the NRCS found ways around the law. In 2010 was placed on administrative leave and eventually fired. Valvo has been working for the Veterans Administration in New Mexico and was recently issued a settlement by the federal government due to the actions of the NRCS in Pembina County and North Dakota for wrongful dismissal.
Valvo was preparing to leave North Dakota when someone placed a box of spent 30.06 rifle casings near his car door. It was time to leave. He headed south June 9, of 2011.
Valvo continued the earnest fight with the NRCS and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in an attempt to prove the agency’s dishonesty and underhandedness. He was helped immensely by Dr. Don M. Huber, who is a professor emeritus at Purdue University’s Department of Botany and Plant Pathology.
“I wanted to believe that the Federal Employees of the NRCS/USDA in North Dakota were just a handful of people that thought they could get away with stealing our money. Since then I have met many more, and the trail leads to Washington D.C, and includes David White, the Chief NRCS officer,” he said. “I will give narrative to what they did, and will post the contributions on my FaceBook page this week, and open it to the public.”
While in New Mexico Valvo received helped from Democratic Congressmen Martin Hienrich. His expert staff including Stephanie Russo, and Chief of Staff Steve Haro, managed to get the entire case dismissed in three months. The NRCS decided the best course of action upon learning of Valvo’s whistleblowing tactics was to attempt to get his claims of civil rights violations against the agency dismissed and they did.
Valvo’s dismissal from the NRCS in 2010 was trumped up as the Pembina County office knew that Valvo was going to cry foul about the fraud, waste and mismanagement of federal funds to upper management and to any other federal agencies that would listen to help right the ship.
Currently, Valvo is collaborating with The Record and a colleague who is a computer analyst.
“We have more than 25,000 indexed Google searches, so we are telling the world of this story, and are doing it globally,” he said.
The story in the settlement starts with U.S. Congress and Representative Heinrich’s office in Albuquerque, N.M. In October 25, 2011 contact was made with the office through a staffer named Stephanie Russo.
“The staffer interviewed me, and collected the personal information Senator Conrad, and former Congressman Pomeroy’s office did,” he said.
According to Valvo, Heinrich’s office mailed him two letters, one acknowledging his visit and the second a willingness to help. The second letter was from the NRCS Civil Rights Chief, Sandra McWhirter.
“McWhirter’s letter assured me I would get a fair hearing. That hearing was conducted September 26, 2011. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Judge was Cheryl Kramer,” he said. “Judge Kramer told me that the NRCS settlement was not a good settlement.”
The settlement included the term “Global”. According to Valvo, “Global” is legal speak for everything.
“This was an attempt by Gretchen Clark, the attorney for the NRCS to dismiss the case, and the false claims charges which could end up being criminal and civil,” he said. “I declined Clark’s offer. Even though Judge Kramer told me ‘this is not a good deal for you,’ on the request of Gretchen Clark, Judge Kramer dismissed the charges. This was a bad day for me.”
Even though the case was dismissed Valvo didn’t give up. He made an appointment with Ms. Russo of Heinrich’s office and requested in writing the transcripts of that hearing.
“I was contacted by Heinrich’s Chief of Staff Steve Haro, who informed me that there was no record of the September 26 hearing,” he said. “I requested freedom of Information Act of that hearing and have not received a response from the EEOC, or the USDA?” I am convinced that Congressman Heinhich’s staff collaborated with the EEOC and NRCS to have my charges dismissed.
At this point Valvo was referred to State Senator, Jerry Ortiz Y Pino. The Senator was approachable and a New Mexico certified Master of Social Work. Y Pino met Valvo the next week after reading my his file.
“The first thing he said to me was ‘this has to stop,’” Valvo said. “He drove me to an attorney’s office, walked into the attorney’s private office and introduced me.”
The attorney the Senator choose was from former New Mexico Governor’s Bill Richardson administration, which included the Lt. Governor’s Office of Civil Rights.
According to Valvo, in five days she was defending him at a teleconference with a new EEOC Judge — Judge Powers. The NRCS had the same NRCS attorney, Clark. Two weeks after this hearing Valvo prevailed and was awarded a hefty settlement.
“Phase one Vilsack Vs. Valvo was settled in my favor,” he said. “The next act is for the false claims.”
The four Pembina County producers named in the false claims act will most likely be named after trial or settlement, according to Valvo. There are also two more NRCS persons named in the claim, he said, who will have to answer for their actions in regard to fraud, waste and mismanagement of federal funds.