Ex-Caltech researcher cries on the stand in trial over his job loss

An emotional Farshid Roumi took the stand Friday and testified his life has changed since his ouster from the Pasadena-based California Institute of Technology in 2016.

"I never cry," a distraught Roumi said. "This is not who I am. I used to enjoy life as a normal person. Now I don't have anything in my life."

The researcher, who filed a wrongful termination suit against Caltech in 2017, testified the school destroyed his reputation by making him seem difficult to work with and untrustworthy.

Roumi alleges in the suit he was harassed at work, banned from his lab and later terminated after reporting misappropriation of funds and research misconduct on a U.S. Department of Energy battery project to school and government officials. Roumi v. California Institute of Technology, BC654132 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Mar. 14 2017).

Because of his tattered reputation, Roumi and his sister, Mahshid Roumi, said they cannot find investors to fund his work on a more efficient lithium-ion battery for electric vehicles. The siblings co-founded Parthian Energy LLC, a startup looking to commercialize Roumi's battery technology.

"In 2014, I had investors knocking on my door," Roumi testified. "And after Caltech fired me, my sister and I ... have spent years trying to get investors. They disappear after they look at my reputation. They don't trust me."

Roumi also denied testimony given earlier in the week by Grace Fisher-Adams, Caltech's director of research compliance, alleging he plagiarized work by other professors in a quarterly report. Roumi said he merely cited similar research being conducted in the field as a matter of reference.

"Do you believe you were plagiarizing?" asked Roumi's attorney, Mark T. Quigley of Greene Broillet & Wheeler LLP.

"No," Roumi said.

But on cross-examination late Friday, John Hueston of Hueston Hennigan LLP got Roumi to admit he copied and pasted sections of research papers to his report and failed to properly and correctly cite the sources. In one section, he forgot to cite a source entirely.

"It appears that I forgot," Roumi said.

Earlier that morning, Roumi responded to evidence given last week that two reports created by members of his research team were connected to his work on the energy department battery project. Roumi testified he had not seen the reports until they were entered into evidence, and neither were connected to his research.

Caltech's chair of the engineering and applied sciences division, Guruswami "Ravi" Ravichandran, testified the reports verified the researchers' work on the battery project in May and June 2015, countering Roumi's initial charges to officials that the researchers were erroneously paid through the energy department grant.

Roumi also rejected Ravichandran's claim he was let go because the energy department stopped funding the project in 2016. Roumi had two additional projects at the school funded by a Caltech award and a Wells Fargo grant.

When Roumi inquired about the additional funding after leaving Caltech, school officials produced a summary of charges against the awards that contradicted his own records but refused to give him a copy of the report, Roumi testified. Later, Quigley entered into evidence an email from school auditors claiming their records also contradicted the summary Roumi saw.

When Quigley showed Roumi the summary provided by the school, Roumi balked.

"This is not what they showed me," Roumi testified.

Trial resumes Tuesday before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Monica Bachner.