LANL Whistle-Blower Beaten in Cheeks Parking Lot 

DIANA HEIL / The Santa Fe New Mexican 7jun2005

Tommy Ray Hook had boot marks on his face. He could barely open his swollen mouth at the hospital to tell his wife what had happened.

Tommy Hook lies in his hospital bed Sunday after being assaulted outside a topless bar in Santa Fe, N.M. — photo: ROTHSTEIN, DONATELLI, ET AL Mindfully.org note: In later days, the official police story changed to claim that Tommy Hook backed into someone in the parking lot, thus causing him to be beaten. Both Tommy and his wife are sticking to their original and unchanged version of what happened.  Knowing how unreliable police accounts are, we would instinctually chose Tommy's version. We'd still listen to the police, but it's difficult to believe what they are presently stating as a cause of the beating.  Considering the record of the nuclear industry and the University of California — inaccuracies, distortions, lies, slandering, mismanagement, and so on — it is extremely easy to believe that someone related in some way did actually beat Tommy.  It is vitally important not to defend whistleblowers because they perform a greatly needed service of watching out for our best interests. Being that this is a nuclear-related operation, the severity of the consequences of not listening to people like Tommy is quite intense.  It is quite easy to find a great deal of terribly incriminating evidence against nuclear research and the nuclear industry. For an excellent example of crimes, please read Eileen Welsome's The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War. Dial Press 1999, 580 pp.

In a low mumble, he told her someone identifying himself as a Los Alamos National Laboratory auditor had called him at home late Saturday night and arranged to meet him at Cheeks, a Santa Fe topless bar on Cerrillos Road, she said. Hook knew of the auditor through a friend, she said. They were supposed to have met on Friday, but the auditor had been a no-show .

Hook went to Cheeks on Saturday while his wife was in Albuquerque with their two grown sons. It was business, she said. He was preparing for a congressional investigation, tentatively scheduled for late June in Washington, D.C., and the auditor purported to have key information about fraud at the lab.

Hook, 52, is known at the nuclear-weapons lab for taking strong stands against fraud and abuse, and he has a lawsuit pending against the lab’s operator , the University of California , alleging retaliation. As the lab’s former officer in charge of dealing with whistle-blower complaints, he had access to internal investigation reports and high-level officials.

The University of California is competing to keep the management contract, and many employees want UC to win it. Bringing up problems now could jeopardize that, his wife said Monday.

Hook didn’t get what he came for. After the auditor didn’t show up, the slight, 5-foot-8-inch Hook went to his car in the strip club’s parking lot, where four to six assailants attacked him. They fled, leaving him injured, with his car’s motor running and his wallet untouched.

“This weekend, Tommy was preparing to meet with congressional investigators,” Susan Hook, his wife, said Monday at a news conference at a Santa Fe attorney’s office. “That’s why this Saturday he got out of bed to meet with someone he believed was a whistle-blower . Instead, he was brutally beaten.”

She continued: “The attackers told him to keep his mouth shut. They didn’t take his wallet or our car. It is clear to us that this was a message. I can assure you, however, that Tommy will not be stopped by these thugs. He will continue to tell the truth.”

Though the assailants never mentioned Los Alamos lab or the upcoming competition for its management, the FBI is looking into the possibility that Hook’s assailants hurt him to muzzle him.

“They made statements to him during the course of the attack, which indicated that they were trying to intimidate him from continuing to engage in disclosure of wrongdoing. They left him in the parking lot for dead,” said attorney Bob Rothstein, who alerted the FBI to the situation.

Members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce were scheduled to meet with Hook today to prepare his testimony for the congressional investigation. In spite of what happened, they still plan to interview Hook and others. The hearing will cover broad management concerns such as worker safety, whistle-blower protections and the restart of the lab after a seven-month shutdown last summer.

“We certainly aren’t going to make allegations at this point,” said a committee staffer, who listened to the news conference on the phone. “It sounds like they have enough leads to go on.”

Santa Fe police say officers were called to the Cheeks parking lot about 2 a.m. Sunday. Hook was taken by ambulance to St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.

“He was conscious when an officer first made contact with him,” Deputy Chief Eric Johnson said Monday.

“We don’t know exactly where this case is going at this point,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out exactly what happened .”

The University of California and lab Director Robert Kuckuck denounced the attack, saying any form of violence toward a person is unacceptable.

Susan Hook cried as photographs of her disfigured husband were shown to news reporters. She said today is their 30th wedding anniversary . She said she had to cancel a Hawaiian cruise they had planned to take. When a reporter asked whether her husband could be lying, she said he was not the type to go to bars. “We just aren’t dancers or bar people,” she said. “And he’d been in bed.”

He usually accompanied her to Albuquerque, but he was too tired and overwhelmed with the upcoming hearing, she said. He suffers from a heart condition , and he is recovering from a stroke and shoulder surgery. He had been back to work just three weeks. When she talked to him on the phone after 10 p.m. Saturday, he told her he had a last-minute meeting with the auditor at a bar.

Chuck Montaño , a co-plaintiff with Hook in his lawsuit against UC, thinks his co-worker was set up. “Whistle-blowers usually suffer financial and emotional consequences when they speak out. But violence, physical attacks, is something I guess I was a little naive (about). I didn’t think it would happen,” he said. “But we’re talking about a major contract here. We’re talking about people that have strong feelings about the University of California continuing to run the laboratory, so I guess now in retrospect it doesn’t surprise me that it would become violent.”

Montaño plans to testify about lab abuses in Washington, too. “I’ve known Tommy for many years, and this is not in character with him to be going to bars,” Moñtano added. “He’s been my boss, and we’ve never even had a drink together.”

source: http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/14538.html 14jun2005

Tommy Hook

Lab Auditor Assaulted Before Testimony

Whistleblower’s Wife Says Attack Aimed at Protecting UC’s Bid for Los Alamos Lab

JOSH KELLER / The Daily California 9jun2005

An internal auditor preparing to testify to Congress about UC’s fiscal mismanagement at Los Alamos National Laboratory was severely beaten outside a Santa Fe, N.M. bar early Sunday in what his wife called an effort to silence him.

Tommy Hook, 52, was pulled out of his car and assaulted by between four and six men outside the Santa Fe topless bar Cheeks, said his wife, Susan Hook, at a press conference Monday. Hook was hospitalized with a broken jaw, a concussion and other injuries

Hook went to the bar to meet an anonymous tipster who said he would give him evidence of fraud at the lab, his wife said. The attackers fled when the bar’s bouncer intervened, said Beth Daley, spokesperson for the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit government watchdog group that held the press conference, in an interview yesterday.

Hook was preparing to testify about mismanagement at the lab to congressional investigators on Tuesday, Daley said.

Hook’s wife said Monday that the beating was a warning for Hook not to testify against the lab.

“The attackers told him to keep his mouth shut,” she said. “They didn’t take his wallet or our car. It is clear to us that this was a message.”

So far, Hook’s claims are uncorroborated. Officials from the FBI and the Santa Fe police said they were investigating the incident, but Santa Fe Deputy Police Chief Eric Johnson would only say yesterday that “We’re seeing some positive results.”

The UC and the lab issued a statement on Monday saying the lab would cooperate with any investigation.

“The University of California and the laboratory are outraged that a laboratory employee was the victim of a weekend assault in Santa Fe,” the statement said, adding that “any form of physical violence toward an individual is unacceptable.”

UC is competing with Lockheed Martin Corp. and the University of Texas to continue managing the lab. The U.S Department of Energy put the lab up for competition for the first time since its inception in World War II after a series of security lapses under UC management.

Hook’s wife suggested a motive for the beating on Monday, saying that if her husband had brought up further problems, UC would be more likely to lose the lab contract.

Hook returned home from the hospital on Tuesday, Daley said.

“He was not really able to speak very clearly until his swelling started to go down yesterday,” she said.

A report in yesterday’s Albuquerque Journal called into question one element of Hook’s story. A dancer at the bar said she saw Hook receive a lap dance from a waitress earlier in the night.

Daley said a private investigator hired by Hook’s attorney in Santa Fe was told by five witnesses that Hook did not appear to interact with any of the dancers. She added that the owner of the bar told Hook’s attorney he did not believe he was intoxicated.

Hook’s attorney, Bob Rothstein, declined to comment yesterday.

Hook has a long history of speaking against what he saw as bad management at the lab. Daley said Hook issued a series of reports from spring to fall of 2003 that alleged lab officials for allowed 9,600 unauthorized purchases, $1.4 million in excess freight charges and several donations to Princeton University in violation of UC’s contract.

In March 2003, Hook and fellow auditor Charles Montano sued the UC Board of Regents and five lab officials for first amendment and California Whistleblower Protection Act violations, alleging that they were threatened and that their work was silenced while they were auditors at the lab.

Lab officials could not be reached for comment late yesterday.

Daley said that after Hook’s reports, his offices were moved to the basement and some of her work was taken away.

“The classic whisteblower treatment,” she said.

source: http://www.dailycal.org/particle.php?id=18832 14jun2004

CORRECTIONS:

Thursday’s article “Lab Auditor Assaulted Before Testimony” incorrectly stated that Beth Daily, spokesperson for the Project on Government Oversight, said Los Alamos National laboratory lab auditor Tommy Hook has accused lab officials of allowing donations to Princeton University.

In fact, Daily said Hook has accused lab officials of allowing donations to Purdue University.

The same article incorrectly stated that Daily said that the owner of the Santa Fe, N.M. bar, Cheeks, told Hook’s attorney he did not believe Hook was intoxicated.

In fact, Daily said the owner of the bar told the Santa Fe New Mexican he did not believe Hook was intoxicated.

The Daily Californian regrets the errors.

Police Unraveling Cheeks Beating 

DIANA HEIL / The Santa Fe New Mexican 9jun2005

WHITE ROCK — By the end of the week, police detectives and FBI agents might be able to unravel the mystery behind the brutal beating of Tommy Hook in the parking lot of a Santa Fe topless bar early Sunday morning.

Hook, 52, is a Los Alamos National Laboratory auditor who told his wife he went to Cheeks bar late Saturday night to meet a secret source who knew about fraud at the lab, but the person never showed up. He left in an ambulance with a broken jaw, a back injury, damage to his teeth and a concussion. He spent two nights at St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.

No arrests had been made as of Wednesday evening. And investigators came to the conclusion it was premature to release details about the incident.

“It has made it a little bit hard on the investigators, being that this case has attracted so much media attention , not only on the local level but the national level,” Santa Fe Police Deputy Chief Eric Johnson said. “That has created a situation where a lot of information is coming in, and we have to follow up and verify the information. That’s why it’s taking a little bit longer than usual before we can release a lot of information.”

Johnson said by the end of the week he hopes to have enough solid information to clarify what happened. “The investigation is progressing very well at this point,” he said.

The wait is hard on everyone. After two doorbell rings around noon Wednesday, Susan Hook, wearing a pink terry-cloth robe, opened the door of her White Rock house. Fed up with the conflicting reports in the media, she politely declined an interview and her eyes welled up with tears as she returned inside to her husband, who was released from the hospital Tuesday evening.

A sprinkler was watering the immaculate front lawn of the Hooks’ two-level frame house marked with a prominent, green ‘H’ above the front door. Their red Subaru Legacy GT, the vehicle Hook reportedly drove to the bar, was parked in the driveway.

Hook’s wife, his attorney and a co-worker theorize he was beaten because he is a whistleblower and someone wanted to silence him before he met with congressional investigators this week to talk about problems at the lab and prepare for a testimony in Washington, D.C. In March, he and co-worker Chuck Montaño filed a case against the lab for alleged retaliation for speaking out on such matters. It likely won’t go before a federal judge for another year.

As an auditor at the lab, Hook has been in high-level positions where he fielded reports of fraud and waste. Recently, he focused on what he considered irregularities in business functions, such as procurement.

He still plans to testify before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, his wife has said.

The sooner police get to the bottom of what happened at Cheeks this past weekend, the better, said Terry Hawkins, as he untangled an American flag outside his garage across the street from the Hooks’ residence. “When all the facts are out, we’ll be able to make a decision,” he said.

The climate in town has grown tense, Hawkins said, because the laboratory has been going through tough times. The federal government is holding a competition for management of the lab, and this case has added more tension.

“The community is really tighter than a drum right now,” said Hawkins, a senior fellow at the lab.

Hawkins couldn’t believe the original story he heard about his neighbor’s attack — that it happened on his street at the Hook house. He never heard sirens or commotion Saturday night.

Now that the story has gotten more complicated — a clandestine meeting on lab fraud at a strip club — he isn’t sure what to think. He knows Hook has had issues with lab business practices for quite a while, but, he added, “the primary issues had been aired out before.”

Hawkins described the Hooks as an all-American family. “They take care of their house and their yard,” he said.

The last time Hawkins saw Tommy Hook, he was wearing an apparatus to keep his shoulder immobile after surgery. That was before Hook was beaten.

Even for Cheeks attorney Roger Prucino, there are some loose ends in this case. “Already, inconsistencies are existing or being created,” he said.

After the club closed Wednesday, Prucino planned to meet with as many employees as possible to gather more facts.

source: http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/28860.html 14jun2005

Beating of Auditor Not Tied to Lab Bid
               . . . Police Say

JOSH KELLER / The Daily Californian 13jun2005

Police contradicted an internal auditor’s claim that he was assaulted last week because he was about to testify against the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Congress.

Instead, police said on Thursday that the incident started after the lab auditor, Tommy Hook, backed into a pedestrian with his car.

Hook was severely beaten June 5 in the parking lot of a Santa Fe, N.M. topless club. Hook was preparing to testify to congressional investigators about alleged fiscal mismanagement at the lab and has said the attack was an effort to silence him.

But Santa Fe police, who are investigating the incident with the FBI, said the fight was not tied to Hook’s whistle-blowing activities at the lab.

“Mr. Hook backed his car into a pedestrian,” said Santa Fe Deputy Police Chief Eric Johnson in an interview on Friday. “At that point, it escalated into a physical attack.”

The fight put Hook in the hospital for two days with a broken jaw, a concussion and other injuries.

All three males besides Hook who were involved have been identified, but no arrests have been made and no charges have been filed, Johnson said.

Police are forwarding the investigation to the district attorney’s office in Santa Fe, Johnson said.

The statements from police sharply contradicted Hook’s story, in which he said he was lured to the bar by someone who wanted to keep his congressional testimony about fiscal mismanagement at Los Alamos lab secret.

Hook has a long history of speaking against what he saw as wasteful spending at the lab. He and another auditor sued UC and five lab officials in 2003 for First Amendment and California Whistleblower Protection Act violations, alleging they were threatened for their claims.

In a press conference Monday, Hook’s wife, Susan Hook, said the incident was a warning to Hook not to testify. She said Hook went to the club to meet an anonymous tipster who said he had evidence of fraud at the lab.

“The attackers told him to keep his mouth shut,” she said. “They didn’t take his wallet or our car. It is clear to us that this was a message.”

Hook, who could not be reached for comment over the weekend, is on vacation with his wife, said Danielle Bryan, executive director for the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group who supported his story.

Bryan said in an interview that Hook is a “credible, serious guy” and that the police had not fully investigated Hook’s story. She said they have not looked into a call Hook said he received from the man asking to meet him at the club.

“The truth is going to be a long time in the coming,” Bryan said. “This is not something that’s going to be solved in the short term.”

source: http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=18840 14jun2005

Police: No LANL Link in Beating 

DIANA HEIL & JASON AUSLANDER / The Santa Fe New Mexican 10jun2005

The weekend beating of a whistle-blower apparently had nothing to do with lap dances or laboratory troubles, Santa Fe police said Thursday.

After investigating Tommy Hook's claim that he was lured Saturday to a local topless club to meet a fellow Los Alamos National Laboratory auditor, police found no reason to believe it, according to a news release.

"The altercation involving Mr. Hook is an isolated incident and is in no way related to Mr. Hook's whistle-blower status at the Los Alamos National Laboratories," the release said.

Instead, the brutal beating was the result of an altercation in the parking lot of Cheeks topless bar, in which Hook allegedly backed his red Subaru sedan into a pedestrian while trying to leave.

"A verbal exchange of words occurred after Mr. Hook exited his vehicle at which time the confrontation escalated into a physical attack," the police department release states.

Santa Fe Deputy Police Chief Eric Johnson said three men were involved in the attack, but declined to release further details. Police were led to the men by a license plate number, he said.

The results of the investigation will be forwarded to the district attorney's office, which will make a determination on who, if anyone, will be charged in connection with the incident.

All four men, including Hook, may be charged, Johnson said. He refused to release further details of the investigation, including who the aggressor in the altercation was.

In a phone interview Thursday, Hook, who is recovering from multiple injuries at his White Rock home after three days in the hospital, seemed surprised by the turn of events.

"I just met with them (police) for three hours, and that's not the impression I came away with," he said. "They told me they were going to arrest four guys."

Hook said he recalls starting the car but has no recollection of driving it or striking anyone in the parking lot. He has told his attorney he was dragged out of the sedan before it began moving.

"We stand by Tommy's original contention that he was lured to Cheeks by a phone call," said Bob Rothstein, his attorney. "We want to know who beat him up, why they beat him up and why they're not in custody."

Rothstein said his office will continue to conduct its own investigation.

Doug Couleur, a local attorney, said he is representing one of the men involved in the incident, though he refused to identify him.

"This was an altercation in the parking lot of a topless bar," he said. "It had nothing to do with whistle-blowers or LANL or this guy being a witness."

Hook refuted that, saying this wasn't an ordinary rumble. "This is beat this guy to an inch of his life or further," he said.

The FBI, which has shadowed police detectives during the investigation, plans to conduct more interviews today.

"It appears we do not have federal violations, but we want to clarify that with the U.S. Attorney's Office and have them review all the evidence and all the statements," said Bill Elwell, an FBI spokesman in Albuquerque.

On Monday, Rothstein called a news conference to present his client's side of the story. He said Hook, 52, received a late-night call from a man he thought was another whistle-blower. Rothstein and Hook's wife, Susan, said Hook had tried to meet with this unnamed person the previous day, but the person didn't show up. They said Hook had been put in touch with this person through a friend. Late Saturday evening, someone who might have been posing as that person called Hook and asked to meet with him at Cheeks, they said.

Hook's wife said the couple doesn't frequent bars, and her husband probably didn't even know Cheeks was a strip club.

After waiting at Cheeks, Hook climbed into his car and started the engine sometime after 1:30 a.m. Sunday, the wife and lawyer said. A group of assailants dragged him out of the car, told him he better keep his mouth shut and punched him and kicked him until he was nearly unconscious. After a bouncer broke up the attack, Hook was hospitalized with severe trauma to his head and an injured back.

In sharp contrast, employees at Cheeks have painted a picture of Hook as a newcomer to the bar who had just won $500 at a casino and was looking for some fun. He drank six light beers, tipped generously, bought drinks and dances for two female patrons who sat on either side of him and paid $50 for a lap dance for himself with a waitress in the VIP room, according to Cheeks attorney Roger Prucino

No violence seemed to be brewing inside the club, Prucino said, and club employees didn't see what precipitated the attack outside.

"The car was running. It had been backed completely out of the parking space and was in the line of traffic," he said. "So he had come all the way out of the parking space and then, for whatever reason, stopped the vehicle, put it in park, got out."

District Attorney Henry Valdez said Thursday that he doesn't expect to receive the results of the police investigation until next week.

"They claim they didn't find any evidence of any connection to Los Alamos. The question is: Did they actually look for any evidence?" said Pete Stockton, a senior investigator with the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group in Washington, D.C.

As planned, both Hook and his co-worker, Chuck Montaño, met with investigators from the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce this week to prepare for their testimony in Washington, D.C. Early this year, both men appeared on CBS Evening News to talk about alleged patterns of financial irregularities in the lab's procurement division.

In March, they filed a lawsuit against the lab for alleged retaliation against them for whistle-blowing.

After Sunday's beating, Hook had his wife call Montaño immediately to warn him he also might not be safe. Montaño said he still believes it was no coincidence that Hook was attacked on the eve of the day he was supposed to meet with a congressional investigator.

"There's a lot of logic from where I sit in what Tommy has said," he said.

source: http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/28895.html 14jun2005