DOH/DEP asbestos fact sheet draft, 105 Duane Street

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Jenkins v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 88-SWD-2 (ALJ July 10, 1998) Page 20 of 34

1988, complainant wrote a memo to then-EPA Administrator Lee Thomas requesting that the EPA Order banning secret tape recordings be immediately retracted (CX 222). In this memo, complainant stated that:

A few years ago, I was informally advised by law enforcement officials and legal associates that carrying a surreptitious tape recorder was legal and a good idea since I was receiving death threats associated with my professional duties.

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(Id. at 1) (emphasis added). She also stated in a letter she wrote to several Congressmen that she was a victim of "inferential death threats"(TR 1021), and informed co-workers of these death threats as well (TR 1022). But she admitted on cross-examination that she never received any death threats (TR 1025-26; see also TR 2083). In fact, she never received any threats at all.

Complainant also contends she was unaware that it was impermissible for her to send out her own unauthorized letters to members of Congress, government agencies, the media, and environmental groups on official EPA letterhead stationery (TR 656; see CX 151, 157, 250). In fact, she argues that EPA policy permitted it (TR 1059-61). But she is lying. She admits that Scarberry, who was her supervisor at the time, informed her that her April 13, 1988 memo to EPA Region 9 was improperly written on EPA letterhead stationery because it contained her personal opinion (TR 1068-69). Further, she admits she used EPA letterhead to give her letters more authority (TR 1066); and her testimony that she accidentally used the letterhead stationery of the EPA Administrator in her February 7, 1990 letter regarding the Toth study of dioxin toxicity (CX 250) is laughable (TR 1070- 71). It is clear that complainant deliberately used EPA letterhead stationery to make it appear that her letters stated the position of EPA and did not care that it was improper to do so, in effect daring EPA to do something about it. Nothing was done.

Similarly, complainant was called by Special Agents of EPA's National Enforcement Investigations Center in November 1990 to set up an interview to discuss her allegations that Monsanto Company falsified health studies regarding the effects of dioxin (see, e.g. CX 301). Apparently, based on this telephone call, complainant adduced that NEIC was conducting a criminal investigation of Monsanto, and almost immediately disclosed this in a speech to a Vietnam veterans organization (TR 1201-04).9 Although on December 22, 1989, EPA had issued a series of memoranda informing its staff not to disclose the existence of ongoing criminal investigations (CX 332), complainant alleges that at this time she did not know it was against EPA policy to do so (TR 737-38, 1210-12). However, she met with the NEIC agents on November 14, 1990, and at that meeting she was told not to discuss the investigation with anyone (CX 326; TR 1575). Notwithstanding this instruction, complainant prepared a memo for the NEIC agents on November 15, 1990 reiterating the substance of her complaint against Monsanto, and sent copies of this memo to 16 people or organizations outside of EPA, including environmental and veterans' groups (CX 305). Although complainant contends -- I believe untruthfully -- that she was not informed of the non-disclosure policy until after she sent out this memo (TR 1207), complainant concedes that she was aware of this policy by January 24, 1991 when she wrote a follow-up memo to the NEIC agents (CX 307). Nevertheless, she sent copies of this memo to the same people and organizations to whom she sent her November 5, 1990 memo (TR 1207-08). Complainant's tortured explanation of why she made this memo public despite specifically being instructed not to make further disclosures regarding the investigation is

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