Caltech 'whistleblower' told false stories, HR official testifies

LOS ANGELES -- Officials from the California Institute of Technology testified Thursday an in-house investigation found no evidence a researcher had been retaliated against for reporting misconduct to the federal government.

During the second day of a wrongful termination case brought by researcher Farshid Roumi against Caltech in Los Angeles County Superior Court, associate vice president of human resources Julia McCallin said she upheld the findings of an internal, human resources investigation into allegations Roumi had been harassed and later banned from his lab. Farshid Roumi v. California Institute of Technology, BC654132 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Mar. 14, 2017).

The report found none of the other researchers on Roumi's team, including supervisor Michael Hoffman, harassed or banned him from using his lab after Roumi reported Hoffman misrepresented research and misappropriated funds from a Department of Energy battery project running through 2015 and 2016.

But McCallin later testified she believed Roumi thought he was acting as a whistleblower when he reported the misconduct and acted in good faith.

"I assumed that Dr. Roumi brought these charges because he believed them," she said. "I believe people come to me honestly. I want to give our employees every opportunity."

But McCallin testified Roumi did play fast and loose with some truths. She testified Roumi claimed he was terminated when he was laid off after the energy department ended the battery project in 2016 and halted funding.

McCallin also testified Roumi claimed he had been banned from the lab he shared with Hoffman, an environmental sciences professor at Caltech and Roumi's principal investigator on the project, after reporting the misconduct. The in-house investigation found Roumi never lost access.

"He said he was terminated, but he wasn't," McCallin said during direct examination by Roumi's lawyer, Mark T. Quigley of Greene Broillet & Wheeler LLP. "He said he didn't have access, but he did."

Quigley questioned McCallin as to whether the internal investigation actually looked into Roumi's claims of misappropriation and misrepresentation of research, but McCallin testified those aspects of the investigation were handled by other departments within Caltech.

The university's audit services and internal compliance division handled the misappropriation claim while the office of research compliance investigated the misrepresentation, McCallin testified.

"HR looks at the retaliation claim," she said. "Otherwise, any other claim would go to the subject matter expert's department."

Earlier in the day, former executive director of human resources April White Castañeda testified she led the internal investigation, which ran through late 2015. It concluded that October and found, while there was no evidence of retaliation, the working relationship between Hoffman and Roumi had soured to the point they could no longer work together.

The department then set about finding Roumi a new lab space and principal investigator to replace Hoffman, according to Castañeda.

"We were trying to be helpful and remove as many barriers as possible to help Dr. Roumi get the work done," Castañeda said.