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Judge Dismisses Ex-MTA Security Chief's Lawsuit

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May 3, 2008 8:27 am US/Eastern

Judge Dismisses Ex-MTA Security Chief's Lawsuit

Anemone Claimed He Was Fired For Trying To Expose Corruption

NEW YORK (AP) ―

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A judge has thrown out a former Metropolitan Transportation Authority security chief's federal lawsuit claiming he was fired for trying to expose corruption in the nation's largest mass-transit system.

Instead, Louis Anemone was dismissed because of a "long history of disruptive and insubordinate behavior," U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska said in a ruling Friday.

Lawyers for Anemone and the MTA did not immediately respond to telephone and e-mail messages early Saturday.

The MTA hired Anemone, a former high-ranking NYPD official, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. His responsibilities included making sure the agency's contractors had no ties to terrorism.

While doing that, he and a deputy said, they stumbled onto questionable contracts and other signs of corruption. They said it was costing the agency millions of dollars.

Soon after they went public with claims that the agency was thwarting their investigations into fraud and influence-peddling, the two were suspended and then fired in spring 2003.

The MTA said they had invented a confidential informant to back up a corruption probe. They denied it, and Anemone said he was being punished for being a whistleblower. He argued that his free speech rights were violated.

But the judge said Anemone had been uncooperative with the agency's inspector general, had disregarded bosses' instructions and had failed to discipline his deputy for doing likewise.

"No reasonable jury could conclude that (Anemone) was terminated for an impermissible reason," Preska wrote.

The MTA oversees the city's subways and buses, as well as some commuter railroads, suburban buses, bridges and tunnels. Its system transports more than 8.2 million riders on an average weekday.

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