Greetings:
Well,
it’s been over a year since I posted an entry in this “clubbing” series. This
will be the last one, the nail in the coffin so to speak. A lot of activity
since last spring that took up time and energy. Rather than write about the
bits and pieces along the way to a resolution – advances and set-backs – I
thought I’d hold off until I had something final. That moment came in March – four
months ago. And four months getting to this because of my teaching load –
three undergraduate courses and two graduate seminars – just didn’t have the
time. But those moments when I did give it a shot, it just sent me off the charts
thinking about it. The semester ended last week, so here you go – kind of long
(surprise).
I’ve
mentioned how painful this whole event has been. A personal attack, initiated
by one American Peace Corps Volunteer (with three others following the leader)
– and then hit with a railroad of events which forced me out of the service
due to a laughable “application irregularity.” And then, lo and behold, all of
this crap appropriated by a self-serving ex-volunteer to promote her
self-proclaimed status as savior to Albanian and American women.
Reminiscing
now. I number three life-events that jarred my faith in the human condition;
that is, that not all people are driven by an obscene desire to pursue their
own self-interest at whatever the cost. Of course there are immoral and
unethical people, but I’ve done my best to stay away from them. I haven’t
written about these other two events that put me too close to dishonest people;
but I will here – just to underscore the lasting fallout this “clubbing” experience
has had on me. These two events fade in comparison but they were pretty damned tough
at the time.
***
I
sold my half of my business a little over fifteen years ago to my partner,
James Larry Hall II – he had bought out my original partner a couple of years
before. We thought he was a good guy, about twenty years younger than me and it
looked like a great fit.
By
the time Jim came on board, my former partner and I had built up a solid,
profitable, and highly respected employee benefits company (TWM Insurance Group).
With one secretary and hard work over the years we had hospital clients in
about fifteen states. Jim showed up with bigger plans and he had the talent, energy,
and was hungrier than hell. We took the name of his old company National
Benefits Partner – which I didn’t have any problem with since I was exiting in
a few years anyway. It was years later that I discovered that his former
Arizona company had gone bankrupt, and that he had seen the move to Salt Lake
City as a fresh start and a way to regroup, especially given the unique
corporate model we had developed over the prior ten years. As one of Jim’s associates
told me later “TWM was a cash cow.”
From
our first introduction, I considered Jim one of the best salesman I had ever
met in my long career as a capitalist. It looked like one of those heaven-sent
matches. Over the next couple of years, Jim built up the company to where, by
the time I left, we had a staff of thirty, business in over forty states, and insuring
close to a half-million hospital employees.
This
is not a full expose on the crap he pulled on the way, promises made without
respect to provider contracts, questionable premium accounting records, burning
bridges with carrier associations, his malfeasance with fiduciary accounts, his
less than honest P&L statements to qualify for construction loans on his
new canyon home and the new company airplane (!), or the six felony charges
brought against him in Salt Lake City courts charges stemming from
misappropriation of company funds. With the help of a high-power PR firm he’s
pretty much erased all the web evidence, so this is, well, a small bit of
uncovering.
As
soon as his felony charges became public, he defaulted on the remaining $1.5+
million dollars on his buy-out with me. It took another year for the trial, and
irony of ironies, he got word to me just before the verdict that he wanted to
make me whole – what wasn’t expected was the "not guilty" verdict – so
predictably, there was no “whole”. And other than the civil claims I made on
the default, we never spoke another word. A paltry settlement driven by a
horrible contract – “Bill, why waste your money having your attorney to review?
We have an in-house lawyer now, and he works for both of us.” So damned funny.
The lawyer told me years later that as he drew up the agreement he knew I’d be
screwed over – he was sorry. Seriously, I’m laughing now. There are promises, and then there are "promises".
Remember
that rumor going around Peace Corps circles during my first months of service?
I was the only millionaire volunteer? Yeah, that really pissed me off; but
volunteer rumors and gossip – God, what some small people live for.
***
The
second event happened my last year at the University of Utah about six years
ago. The university had put in a program, Global Pathways, to funnel foreign
students to American universities. It was sponsored by a for-profit educational
services company, Kaplan. By some measure, it’s probably a pretty good program,
apart from questionable bona fides regarding testing student proficiency in
English. Nonetheless, all of these students were required to take six ESL
courses during their first two years of study to help them along the way.
But
here’s where the worm turns. The various colleges and departments were asked
what general education classes might be available for these students. The College of Humanities
and the History Department came up with the great idea to acclimate these new
students – most of them from China – require them to take the mandatory
semester in United States history in their first year! Motivation? Ahh, immediate
tuition dollars coming into the department.
For
any student attending the University of Utah, this general education course
could be taken anytime during their undergraduate study. It’s a tough course
and many of American students put it off until their last semester. The basic prerequisite
to get into the course was meeting the language requirements to get into first
semester English. But the university, college, and department now required these
Asians to take American history in their first year! Now picture this: their
English was zip and they were expected to navigate a class taught in English,
dealing with American institutions (think democratic elections, political
parties, Electoral College, Bill of Rights, American foundations, etc., etc.).
What kind of connections could they possibly make when stuff like “kitchen
cabinet” or “dust bowl” comes up in the lectures? Much less understanding the
English. These kids didn’t stand a chance
So,
in 2011-2012 I’m teaching classes in world history and assisting another
professor in U.S. history sections. The spring semester had nearly a third
Asian students out of 100. Yeah, I spent the semester doing everything to help them pass – forget the work on my PhD dissertation. My summer
assignment that year, besides teaching, was to grade two summer sessions of the
same class. With a total population of 158 students, 83 out of the 95 Asians
failed the midterm. Holy hell. For some of these kids, it was there second or
third attempt – a cool $3000 international tuition for each shot. Damn. What a
money machine for the College of Humanities and the History Department.
My
professor and I visited too many times on how screwed up this was – ESL
students thrown in U.S. history without even completing their required six ESL
courses; and American students really burned on how slow the class was going. I
told him I was going to write up a report on how bad this was and pass it on to
the department chair at the end of the term – someone needed to reevaluate this
policy. But in the middle of the term all hell broke loose.
Shortly
after the midterm, I got a call from the professor that one of our Asian
students had committed suicide. Holy hell. The Dean of Students Office had
contacted my professor regarding counseling services for friends and
classmates; he asked me to give their office a call. I did. I identified myself
and I was told there was a meeting in progress on the situation – before I
could say anything I was put through. On the speaker phone, we discussed the
counseling available, and then, “It sounds like these Asian students are having
a difficult time adjusting.” “Well, yeah, I think the Global Pathways could be
improved; I’m submitting a report at the end of the term to my department
head.” “We’re meeting on this next week; would it be possible to get a
preliminary report from you?” Silence. “Yeah, but I’m still working on it.”
“That’s OK, whatever you have would be helpful.” Silence. “Sure. Who do I send
it to?” “You can send it to me.” “And who are you?” “Oh, sorry, I’m Ann Christensen, the Dean of Students.”
To this moment I thought I had been talking to someone in the counseling
office. Crap. Silence….. “OK. But I need to contact my department head about
the report since I hadn’t planned on getting it to her until the end of the
semester.”
Well,
the chair was out of town, we had a perfunctory meeting when she got back and I
followed up with this – yeah, name included since she deserves recognition of the
totally spineless, self-serving way she dealt with this:
July 20, 2012
Isabel A. Moreira
Chair
Department of History
University of Utah
Re: Global Pathways and Hist 1700
Dear Isabel:
As a result of our meeting on July 19th,
the enclosed document are some preliminary observations regarding the Global
Pathways Program and its connection with Hist 1700. It is important that I make
this clear: I am not bringing into question the benefits of the Global Pathways
Program but simply the practice of having this population fulfill the
university’s American Institutions requirement within the first year of study.
I have only the information available from the Summer 2012 sections of History
1700-1 and 1700-2.
I will offer a complete accounting at the end
of the semester; this preliminary report is simply to facilitate an appraisal
in your upcoming visit with Dean Christensen. However, the conclusions are
pretty much what my end of the term evaluation will be. The end of semester
evaluation will include the final scores, and some exchanges I have had with
the students which I hope will put this on more personal level rather than just
a bunch of numbers. I have not taken the time (at this point) to offer any
non-GP information (i.e., our domestic student population) but simply state
that their results are typical.
Isabel, I have considered the enormity of this
problem and the possible repercussions if the university chooses to ignore it.
I don’t know all the circumstances surrounding the death of [redacted], but all
it takes are letters to home, complaints from the Asian student population,
another death, a good attorney, and all of these files are open – pretty much a
smoking gun.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
William K. Martin
I
need to explain my concern regarding these Asian kids. To this point I had been in countless meetings with these students.
I started hitting the office on Saturday and Sunday mornings just to find time
to get to my PhD research – and after a couple of weeks I’d show up at seven
o’clock in the morning on weekends with as many as three of these students
waiting for me! I gathered from many of them how disgraceful it would be for
their families if they did not do well in their studies. Hell, I had flunked
out of two California universities and my parents and I got over it. Of course
I had some idea of “ancestral weight” but this was an intercultural dynamic
I had only heard about. And here we were sacrificing these kids to a damned
tuition mill.
Well,
Isabel went ballistic. The next day she called me into her office not to
discuss my report on Global Pathways or the academic disaster these kids were going through, but to call me to task for not having authority to use Tanner
Humanities Center stationery on this cover letter! Ha. At the time I was a
Graduate Fellow with the center and immediately upon receipt of the letter and
report she called the director to turn me in and demanded that my fellowship be
rescinded – he thought she was crazy. The Department Director of Graduate
Studies (who was also my doc supervisor) was in the meeting with us and all he
did was lip-sync the party line. I was stunned at their response. In disbelief
I listened to her bull until finally I blurted out, “Are you serious? We have a
suicide in this Asian population, a full 90% of these students are failing
because of this disastrous policy, and you want to talk to me about
stationery?” She repeated her complaint, my doc supervisor didn’t say a damned
thing. Remember? This is the same professor for whom I subbed on his class
covering Ben Franklin’s take on “how to pick a wife”, which resulted in the
sexual harassment complaint against me by an “offended” undergraduate who
didn’t like the topic; the same professor who abandoned me as soon as the words
“sexual harassment” were spoken. I took this for about another thirty seconds,
and asked both of them if they understood what the “humanities” meant in "College of Humanities" – and then I told them they could go to hell.
At
the end of that summer term I submitted my final report to the Dean of Students
and was asked to meet with the Vice-President of Student Affairs, who
congratulated me on bringing this to their attention. I declined her request to
sit on the university evaluation committee, “No. Everything I have to say is in
the report and I’m sick of these academic politics.” It took another year for
the university to trash-can the program, but in the course of the next semester
I was informed that I had lost my teaching assignments (which I had held over
the previous seven years) and my non-tenured professor of the two history
sections also got the boot – “actions not entirely in agreement with the
department mission statement.” A disgusting disregard for these kids, all for
the sake of a profit center. Certainly not their finest hour as academics.
Now
keep in mind that this is within a year of my income dropping from $25,000/mo.
to zero – ha, and I just remembered, my youngest daughter was studying abroad
in Switzerland at the time. Fortunately, I was able to pick up classes at other
colleges and universities in SLC. God, what a trip.
***
So
back to the “clubbing” – the point of the above is to impress upon you that my
Peace Corps experience was far worse than any of this. Yeah, it was tough losing
$1.5M and experiencing first-hand the incalculable immorality by academic
professionals in my chosen field of study, but, well, these are things you
suffer through, deal with, and pick up the pieces. My faith in humanity was
shaken to a far greater degree in my Peace Corps service with the “best and
brightest”.
So
let me finish this up with a couple pieces of correspondence. Navigating the
Albanian court system has proved costly and horribly time consuming: three attorneys later, two
private investigators, two attempts of service on Bonnie Scott, two dismissals
in Albanian court due to “incorrect paper-work” (God, Albanians love their
paper-work!), my last attorney sent me this final summary:
REPUBLIC
OF ALBANIA
National Chamber
of Advocacy
Chamber of
Advocacy Tirana
Adress: Avenue
“Zogu I Parë”, St. “Urani Pano”, Bld.1/3, 2 Floor; C: +355 67 22 94 308
Tirana, 28.03.2018
TO:
Mr. William Karl MARTIN
FROM: Legal Studio “NEXHI” LTD
OBJECT: Report on legal case against Mrs. Bonnie Scott.
Dear
and honored Mr. William,
With
the signing of the Power of Attorney, date 21.11.2017, based on its object, the
legal studio “NEXHI”, from this time until now, concludes as follows:
The circumstances of the case:
Results that Mr. William Karl Martin came to Albania as a full-time volunteer for the US Peace Corps in March 2015. During his service in Albania, in 2015 he became a victim of criminal offenses, defamation and insult, the acts committed by another American citizen, Ms. Bonnie Scott (another Peace Corps volunteer). On the 04.10.2015 Ms. Bonnie Scott, has published a writing on her personal blog on the Internet (titled "The Lone Pilgrim"), through which she has directly accused Mr. Martin for sexual harassment to volunteers and female workers of Peace Corps. In this blog Ms. Scott has
labeled Mr. Martin as a sexual “extortion”. In addition to her personal blog, she continued her attacks and defamations even in her personal profile on social network "Facebook".
Therefore, Mr. Martin indicted to the Tirana Judicial District Court (Criminal Chamber) for defamation and insult against the defendant Bonnie Scott on 24.01.2017. This court, by its Decision No. 27, dated 16.02.2017 decided The termination of the criminal case No. 27 Act date 24.04.2017, against Ms. Bonnie Scott for committing criminal offenses of "Insult" and "Defamation" frovided by articles 119 and 120 of the Criminal Cod, based on the Article 6 of Law 141/2016 "For Granting Amnesty".
It also results that Mr. Martin sued Ms. Scott to the Tirana Judicial District Court (Civil Chamber). The court issued a descision no. 7429, dated 13.09.2017. "For the return of the lawsuit and the acts", because the lawsuit was found defective by the court, since the address of the respondent was incorrect.
Based on the circumstances of the fact, and considering the process initiated by Mr. Martin, the law firm "NEXHI", studied the case, concluding that Mr. William Karl Martin is injured party within the meaning of Article 608 end sequential of the Civil Code of the Republic of Albania, a provision according to which the person to whom the damage was caused on his person or property illegally and with fault, by another person, has the right to be rewarded. In this context, he has active legitimacy to invest the court in resolving this issue in a procedural sense under Article 176 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and in a material sense, as a subject that is harmed by unlawful and guilty actions to his detriment from the citizen Bonnie Scott.
First, in this case, Mr. Martin and Ms. Scott are both American citizens, and consequently we are in the conditions of applying the law of private international law, as it is a case with foreign elements. The law applicable to the resolution of the case is the law of the state where the damage occurred, namely the law of the Republic of Albania. But an eventual problem is the fact that the event that caused damage, that is, the publications of defamations and insults, happened through the computer. In this way difficulties arise in identifying an exact state where illegal and guilty acts of defamation and insult were committed.
Second, and important element is jurisdiction. As we have mentioned above, we are ahead of a case with foreign elements because the subject, because like Mr. Martin and Ms. Scott, they are not Albanian citizens, but Americans. Meanwhile, based on the Law No. 0 428, date 2.6.2011"For Private International Law", the Albanian Court has jurisdiction to resolve civil-legal disputes with foreign elements, if the respondent has his residence in the Republic of Albania. But in our case, even though the respondent, Ms. Bonnie Scott currently does not have her residence in the Republic of Albania, the Albania court has jurisdiction, if we can prove that the state from where the acts of publishing the insult and defamation (through the computer) that caused the damage were done, in the Republic of Albania.
Thirdly, in terms when this lawsuit would be directed against the citizen Bonnie Scott, who is a US citizen and currently resides in the United States, based on the Civil Procedure Code, Mr. Martin was required to provide in advance the correct address of Ms. Scott, so the court would notify her. On the other had, even the possibility of obtaining a private service, is not a correct way, since the Albanian procedural law does not recognize this way of notification, but only knows the court employee for this purpose, and postal service. The lack of correct address, would cause the return of the lawsuit and other acts without action.
Fourthly, another problematic element of the civil process, would be the validity of the material evidence obtained from the blog or personal profile page on Ms. Scott on "Facebook", since these evidences were not sequestered during the criminal proceedings, because Ms. Scot received amnesty based on Law 141/2016 "For Granting Amnesty".
Legal Studio "NEXHI"
Av. Denada ELEZI
Ha,
ha. Were you able to follow that? Here’s the nuts and bolts: my first private
investigator finally located Bonnie Scott in Seattle. My attorney (now my second) passed
on her address to the court. The Albanian court sent out a notice to the states
for service. Now, get this, they never told me to whom they sent the request (police,
court, Scott, whatever), but after two months with no response (duh), the court wanted to dismiss for
failure of service. I asked: “Did the service go out in Albanian or with an
English translation.” “Well, in Albanian.” You can imagine my reaction. My
attorney cautioned me not to piss off the court.
We
got a continuance, translated the service document and court filing into
English, got the court’s agreement to use a US court service officer, and when
the service was attempted, Bonnie Scott had moved! Yeah. Another private
investigator tracked her down using Facebook photos (“Check out the view from
my new apartment!”), and then another service, successful. So, a file
full of documents delivered to the Albanian court that she was served, had
notice of the complaint, and notice of the court date. But… they now required
that she sign a receipt of service. Are you kidding me? And you are just now
telling me this? Dismissed again. I asked for a written ruling by the court.
And beyond belief, the judge said she could not issue a final statement until
Bonnie Scott had been notified that the complaint had been dismissed.
Seriously, I would have cried if this hadn’t been so damned stupid.
I hired a new attorney (now my third) to refile, pressed her to get the damned rules straight
and we’d start over. Holy hell. The court’s position is in the above letter. Now,
the last evidence bits in the summary above were never addressed any time during my
two-plus years getting through the Albanian legal system, or by this judge over
the previous year. Off-the-record this judge informed my attorney: “You can
refile if you want, but I will dismiss – we don’t want any problems with any
agency of the United States or dealings with any civil actions between US
citizens.”
Remember the day Bonnie Scott (and me and Megi and four Mormon missionaries) got her fame on the Albanian front pages back in December 2015? The same day I gave my job talk at New York University Tirana - yeah, a great reception, but I had to let them know about the reports. The vice-rector's response was simple and direct: "Professor, you have to sue her." Hilarious.
Seeing how the legal was dragging out, a year ago I
filed my own complaint with the Peace Corps – yeah, it names names.
William K. Martin, PhD
Beder University
Tiranë, Albania
April 28, 2017 VIA
EMAIL
John Warren
Assistant Inspector General for Investigations
Peace Corps - Office of Inspector General
Washington DC
Re: OIG complaint – Peace Corps/DC and
Peace Corps/Albania
Dear Mr. Warren:
My name is William K. Martin; I am a
visiting professor at Beder University in Tirana, Albania. My complaint regards
my service in Peace Corps/Albania and my experience with the country staff, the
DC office, and subsequent actions by current and former Peace Corps Volunteers:
·
Sexual
Harassment Complaint filed against me;
·
Peace
Corps delay in processing my criminal background check and using the delayed
report to justify my termination of service;
·
Peace
Corps delay in processing repeated FOIA requests;
·
Peace
Corps/Albania Volunteer Bonnie Scott Media libel against me on Facebook, Lone
Pilgrim Blog and in more than a dozen Albania media outlets;
·
Peace
Corps/Albania pressures on employee Megi Xhaferaj which led to her subsequent
retired because of actions by PC/Albania Language Director Mira Luca, and
inaction by Acting Country Director Cale Wagner.
I applied to the Peace Corps in January
2014 and in August 2014, I received an invitation to serve in Albania. I was
living and teaching in Guatemala City at the time. At great expense, I left a
comfortable life midway in my teaching contract to return to the United States
to make my final preparations to start service March 2015. I took a severe
financial loss to accept the invitation and incurred significant additional
expenses.
I was sworn in on May 2015. Three months
later after moving to my permanent site, Earl Wall, Country Director notified
me that some fellow volunteers filed a sexual harassment complaint against me
in July 2015. Mr. Wall investigated and told me he informed the Washington DC
office that the complaint was unfounded.
Three days after his phone call, August
15, 2015, I received an email Consideration of Administrative Separation
memorandum from Lateefah Burgess, Director of Placement/Peace Corps. The
grounds for consideration were my failure to provide information on my initial
application regarding two charges: shoplifting in 2014 (which was dismissed
because of mistaken identity) and a DUI in 2002 (a charge my out-of-state
attorney informed me was dismissed – less than .02 alcohol level). Both my
attorney and I endeavored to communicate with Ms. Burgess regarding the
circumstances of each, but our efforts were dismissed out of hand.
After my voluntary retirement on September
1, 2015, my attorney filed a FOIA request. Subsequent to interminable delays,
congressional intercession, I received partial reports over the next year. As
recently as March 2, 2017, the office of Congressman Stewart (Utah) informed me
that “Peace Corps is not required to respond further to our
inquiry, and frankly I doubt that they will.”
On October 4, 2015, Bonnie Scott, herself
recently dismissed from Peace Corps/Albania and still residing in the country,
posted libelous statements about me on her Facebook and on her blog, “The Lone
Pilgrim.” I have never met Ms. Scott and she could only have gotten the
information regarding the complaint from Peace Corps/Albania staff and/or other
volunteers. She expanded on what she had heard and claimed I retired from Peace
Corps in order to escape criminal prosecution as a sexual molester. Two months
later, December 1, 2015, her claims were published in interviews she had with
Albania media (which included my picture).
A few weeks after the Ms. Scott’s Facebook
and bog posts, Besmira Rrumbullaku, assistant to Mira Luca, Peace Corps/Albania
Language and Culture Director, visited with Megi Xhaferaj, a Peace
Corps/Albania Language/Culture Teacher and warned her that further association
with me would put her job at risk. Ms. Xhaferaj was also in the media picture
(along with four Mormon missionaries). Ms. Xhaferaj refused to disassociate
herself from me and in November 2015 I contacted Peace Corps/Albania Acting
Director, Cale Wagner, about the situation. Ms. Luca denied the events and Mr.
Wagner accepted her denial and later accepted Ms. Xhaferaj’s resignation.
Mr. Wagner could have easily determined
the facts around all of this had he interviewed Ms. Rrumbullaku regarding the
meeting she had with Ms. Xhaferaj, the pressure she put on Ms. Xhaferaj, and
under whose direction she took this action. A cover-up played out to protect
the Language and Culture Director and alleviate the Peace Corps and Peace
Corps/Albania with having to deal with this. In a very bizarre email to all the
Peace Corps/Albania Education Staff, Ms. Luca slandered Ms. Xhaferaj accusing
her of manufacturing the entire drama.
Immediately upon my separation from the
Peace Corps in September 1, 2015, my stateside attorney submitted a FOIA
request with the Peace Corps Office in Washington, DC. The reports over the
next six months yielded nothing regarding the harassment investigation or
anything regarding the deliberations relative to my termination in respect to
my criminal record. All my attorney and I received were bureaucratic pro-forma
copies of my pre-service application communications and copies of bureaucratic
documents which I already had in my possession.
Immediately upon Ms. Scott’s Facebook and
“Lone Pilgrim” blog postings, I contacted an attorney in Albania to prosecute
civil and criminal action against her for her libel. Upon threats of legal
action, the dozen or so Albania media outlets deleted their reports. I
interviewed with police detectives and, as a result, I was able to file
criminal and civil charges against Ms. Scott. My attorneys needed Peace Corps
reports and findings regarding the harassment complaint. I appealed again to
Peace Corps for the harassment report in order to counter her claims. The
report was not forthcoming. My case was dismissed for lack of evidence and only
after repeated communications from myself, my attorneys, congressman, and
finally a threat to subpoena Peace Corps/Albania personnel, was a report
finally generated in August 2016.
I hired another attorney in the capital city
of Tirana and I refiled my actions early this year; only to discover that the
legislature had recently given amnesty to all minor crimes committed or
accused. Had the August 2016 report been generated in a timely manner, legal
action here in Albania would have been completed a year ago. Shortly after
filing the initial early 2016 action against Ms. Scott, she left Albania and
returned to the United States. The second filing against her in Albania, this
time a civil action, was heard earlier this month, with another full hearing
scheduled at the end of May. It is my intention that whatever the results, I
will travel back to the United States this summer to prosecute civil actions
against Ms. Scott in Seattle, Washington where (I have determined at great investigation
costs) she now resides.
Regarding the August 2016 FOIA report: it
seems clear to me (and with those I shared) that the original complaint was
motivated by personal malice. You will of course come to your own conclusion.
But the report was enough to show in court that there had been no harassment,
no molestation, and no grounds for Peace Corps termination, or indeed, any
Peace Corps retirement in order to forestall criminal investigation or criminal
charges.
That my termination for application
omissions came in the wake of the harassment investigation made the situation
even worse. The fact that I submitted my application for service in January
2014, received an invitation to serve in August 2014, entered service in March
2015, and five months later my Peace Corps background check just comes to light
is remarkable – a full twenty months after I submitted my application. I have
simply attached my letter of August 2014 to Lateffah Burgess regarding
considerations for separation.
As recently as January 2017, I was still
requesting information regarding the Peace Corps deliberations regarding my
separation. What I have received was a perfunctory dismissal dated August 30,
2016 from Assistant Associate Director William Stoppel: “The requests for
additional records are not eligible for administrative appeals. It is not part
of the country file. Please note that FOIA does not require agencies to do
research…” His response is nothing short of arrogant, since, by definition (and
by law I would think), gathering information in compliance with a FOIA request
would require a search of existing files; and what I have requested is not in
the country file, but in the Peace Corps/DC offices.
My stateside attorney and I both feel that
there was a connection between the dead-end harassment investigation and my
immediate separation. I suspect that my dismissal from service was effected to
calm the adverse publicity promoted by Bonnie Scott and others regarding sexual
malfeasance by Peace Corps/Albania staff and volunteers, and to refute claims
that Peace Corps/DC turns a blind eye to sexual malfeasance. For lack of
consideration to my personal sacrifices or the facts of the matter, it was just
easier for all parties if one collateral focus, me, just disappeared.
Regarding the harassment investigation, I
have attached my chronological edit of the August 2016 FOIA report – you have
at your disposal the original documents – to the best of my ability I have been
true to all the documentation in the report. I find it unconscionable that an
individual could be under any anonymous accusation and not have the opportunity
to answer in defense. Consequently, feel free to make this OIG complaint
available to any parties.
As I read the report, I was struck by the
lack of any critical processing by the EEO Manager of the Office of Civil
Rights and Diversity/Peace Corps, Laura Manler. She directed Earl Wall, the
Peace Corps/Albania Country Director, to investigate. Mr. Wall notified me and
submitted his report; he called me to tell me he interviewed all the staff, a
dozen volunteers, and that he communicated with Peace Corps/DC that the
harassment complaint was without foundation. Despite my irritation with the
whole matter, he simply told me to let it go and return to work. With no time
at all to recover, I received the “Consideration” memo from Ms. Burgess. The
consensus among volunteers was that I was given “a way out.” Others who knew me
better responded that I was simply the victim of the toxic environment in Peace
Corps.
Ms. Manler’s communications to serving
Peace Corps volunteers is bereft of any objectivity; she had her own notions
and preconceptions, and these dictated her processes. Her response of August
18, 2015 to Mr. Wall after receiving his report is especially telling: “the
message isn’t quite getting through.” By this time, I had had no visits and few
communications with any volunteers since we were free to depart for our
permanently assigned sites of service over a month before. At no time in all of
my experience had anyone, volunteers or staff, communicated any message to me
whatsoever regarding sexual harassment. The only word I got on any of this was
through the anonymous complaint just the week before.
I won’t summarize the points in this
complaint, they should be clear enough; my complaint to your office is my last
attempt to set these matters straight with Peace Corps. I will be happy to
address any questions or considerations you have, but I won’t take the time or
effort to follow-up as to how your deliberations are progressing. By December
2015 I got very tired of answering questions regarding the whole situation and
my outrage with the arrogance evident in Peace Corps/DC and Peace Corps/Albania
was increasing. Consequently, I decided to recount the on-going situation in my
blog “Living and Teaching in Albania.” I started the blog in February 2015 in
order to communicate my Peace Corps experience to my family. My narrative
regarding these events are entered under “A Club in the Hands of the
Politically Correct” posts. These, I think, will more fully explain.
This month should have been a moment to
reflect on a successful and fulfilling two-year service in the Peace Corps.
Instead, my Peace Corps experience was horrific, and these last two years have
been somewhat wasted dealing with all of this. But the real loss is what I
could have done with my work at the Albanian university in my Peace Corps site.
So many of my professional and personal relations have been disrupted and disaffected
because of Ms. Scott’s actions and Peace Corps decisions driven by expediency –
frankly, the whole thing is almost impossible to fathom even now and I wonder,
far too often, how in the hell all of this transpired. Things are out of whack.
Thank you for your time.
William K. Martin
Attachments:
FOIA report 08.26.2016 edited for
chronology
Lateefah Burgess email to 08.20.2015
Lateeah Burgess email to 08.22.2015
Bonnie Scott Facebook post from Steve
Coryelle Saturday, October 10, 2015, 610 PM
Cale Wagner email to 11.17.2015
TV KLAN accessed December 07, 2015
And
you will never guess the response from John Warren or the Office of the Inspector General…over a year later, right? Well, Virginia, I’m still waiting. Nothing; not even a confirmation of receipt. Ha, ha. An ever-so fitting end to the whole damned thing. I really am
laughing now, bitterly.
Well, munchkins, I gave it my best shot. My
best to all you. Later. XO
