Whistleblower gets $1M – after 20 yrs.
A whistleblower triumphed in a 20-year battle with City Hall, winning more than $1 million to compensate for a pay cut and demotion he suffered after reporting corruption.
As a Department of Transportation official under Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1996, John Tipaldo alerted authorities to a plan by his bosses, DOT Commissioner Christopher Lynn and first deputy Richard Malchow, to award a contract for 100 “Don’t Honk” signs to Lynn’s buddy.
The two officials tried to cover their tracks by publishing a notice seeking public bids after awarding the contract, a probe found. They also issued a memo claiming an urgent need for the signs required bypassing normal bidding rules, it confirmed.
After Tipaldo tipped off the city Department of Investigation, Lynn and Malchow set out to destroy his career, the DOI confirmed.
While Tipaldo was due a promotion to assistant commissioner, the two bad-mouthed his job performance and demoted him, slashing his salary by $25,000 a year.
Tipaldo sued. While the DOI found him the victim of retaliation, city lawyers argued that the whistleblower law required him to report wrongdoing to his bosses — the same guys engaged in the scam.
“This is an example of how pub- lic officials, when challenged by the integrity of a whistleblower, will waste unlimited public resources to delay justice,” the National Whistleblower Center said in 2010, when an appellate court found in Tipaldo’s favor.
That court ruled Tipaldo deserved a raise, back pay for salary he would have received if he hadn’t fingered the two — plus 9 percent a year in interest.
But it wasn’t over yet. The city Law Department appealed to the highest tribunal in the state, the Court of Appeals, which in 2015, unanimously upheld Tipaldo’s win.
The city finally is paying off its debt to Tipaldo, now a DOT assistant commissioner, in installments.
Last fiscal year, he was NYC’s highest-paid employee, collecting $672,700, including his $176,700 salary, records show.
“It started out by screwing him out of a raise of $25,000 a year. It wound up costing them over $1 million, plus the time and effort of the Law Department for over 20 years,” a source said.
Law Department spokesman Nick Paolucci said, “This case has a complicated procedural history . . . that prolonged the litigation.’’
Lynn, who left the DOT when a probe concluded he violated procurement rules, insisted he did “nothing illegal or immoral.’’
And he questioned what Tipaldo did to justify his big award.