A former aide to Consultant Doug Lamborn, Republican of Colorado, filed a lawsuit on Thursday claiming that he was fired after complaining about hi
A former aide to Consultant Doug Lamborn, Republican of Colorado, filed a lawsuit on Thursday claiming that he was fired after complaining about his boss’s disregard for security measures meant to guard congressional employees members from the coronavirus, which he stated resulted in an outbreak in Mr. Lamborn’s workplace.
The previous aide, Brandon Pope, stated within the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Courtroom in Washington, that he had examined optimistic for the virus on Nov. 19, sooner or later after studying that Mr. Lamborn and two different employees members had contracted the virus.
Calling Mr. Lamborn the supply of his personal an infection, both direct or oblique, Mr. Pope, 35, stated his boss had misled his aides and the Workplace of the Attending Doctor for Congress about his publicity. The lawsuit claims that Mr. Lamborn had slept in his Capitol Hill workplace and had shut contact with contaminated employees members.
Within the 16-page lawsuit filed in opposition to the workplace of Mr. Lamborn, Mr. Pope stated that the consultant had principally barred aides in his district workplace in Colorado Springs from working remotely final 12 months and made few lodging to make sure social distancing or the carrying of masks.
When Mr. Pope instructed Mr. Lamborn and his chief of employees about his issues, the lawsuit stated, they dismissed them and finally terminated him from his job as a protection and enterprise adviser in December. From the beginning of the pandemic, Mr. Pope stated, the message from Mr. Lamborn and Mr. Lamborn’s spouse to the employees concerning the risks of the virus had been clear.
“Each claimed that COVID was a hoax and asserted that the pandemic was getting used to change the course of the congressional and presidential elections,” the lawsuit stated.
Cassandra Sebastian, a spokeswoman for Mr. Lamborn, 66, who was first elected to the Home in 2006, denied the allegations in an electronic mail assertion on Thursday.
“The office security allegations made by Mr. Pope are unsubstantiated and didn’t end result within the termination of his employment,” Ms. Sebastian stated. “Congressman Lamborn seems to be ahead to full vindication as all info come to gentle.”
Along with accusing Mr. Lamborn of flouting security protocols, Mr. Pope leveled numerous different allegations of impropriety by his former boss. One particularly was that Mr. Lamborn had supplied his son, whose title was not talked about, entry to a basement storage space within the U.S. Capitol as a spot to dwell for a number of weeks when the son moved to Washington for work.
Mr. Lamborn’s spokeswoman declined to remark additional concerning the different allegations within the lawsuit, which stated that Mr. Lamborn’s aides had additionally been required to arrange Mr. Lamborn’s son for his job search with mock interviews.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, stated Mr. Pope was employed to work as a Wounded Warrior Fellow in Mr. Lamborn’s district workplace in August 2019 after he retired from army service as a captain within the Marines who had served in Afghanistan. Mr. Pope was then employed final Could to a full-time place as a protection and enterprise adviser to Mr. Lamborn, based on the lawsuit. He labored in Washington in June and July of final 12 months, the lawsuit stated.
Mr. Pope, who lives in Colorado Springs, stated within the lawsuit that Mr. Lamborn and his chief of employees, Dale Anderson, had principally thwarted requests to permit district workplace aides with underlying well being situations or members of the family who might develop into compromised by the virus to work at home. The lawsuit stated that Mr. Lamborn and Mr. Anderson repeatedly mocked employees members who raised issues over the virus.
“Consultant Lamborn had a reckless and harmful method to COVID-19, and he retaliated in opposition to Mr. Pope for searching for to guard workers from unsafe situations within the office,” the lawsuit stated.
Mr. Anderson didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Thursday evening.