Relationship With Witness Questioned : Testimony Supporting Caltrans Cashier Barred

The former No. 2 man in the state Department of Transportation’s San Diego office said Friday that he initiated a surprise “follow-up audit” after Linda Silverthorn told him in confidence last January that the chief cashier was regularly cashing personal checks for a friend and holding them for weeks at a time.

Michael Northeimer, testifying on the second day of an administrative hearing at which Silverthorn is trying to win back her $1,755-a-month job, also corroborated Silverthorn’s claim that she complained to other Caltrans managers about sloppy bookkeeping practices months before the investigation that showed state funds missing from the district cashier’s office.

But Administrative Law Judge Bryon Berry ordered Northeimer’s testimony stricken in its entirety after his lawyer refused to let him answer any questions about his “personal relationship” with Silverthorn.

Berry’s ruling culminated a day of disappointments for Silverthorn and her lawyer, Leroy Davies, who are trying to show that Caltrans officials are blaming her for the missing funds to retaliate for her outspokenness and because she launched a discrimination complaint against an agency manager in 1983.

Although Silverthorn and witnesses supporting her have testified that agency officials were retaliating for the complaint, Davies has so far been unable to show a clear link between the discrimination complaint and charges against Silverthorn related to the disappearance of funds from the agency cashier’s office during 1985 and early 1986.

In the absence of a definite link, Berry has limited testimony, and the admission of documents, pertaining to the discrimination charge and claims that accounting department employees were subsequently being punished for bringing the charge.

Department officials say they can document that $20,000 disappeared from the district cashier’s office during 1985. Spot checks also show there were losses during 1984. Silverthorn and former chief cashier Karen Knight have been fired for the losses, and Northeimer has been demoted from his post as deputy district director for inadequately supervising the cashier’s office.

“The motivations for these actions are abundantly clear,” said Caltrans lawyer Jeff Joseph.

But earlier Friday, a former accounting department employee, who helped Silverthorn expose attempts to rig a promotional examination in 1983, said she was verbally abused and harassed on the job after the complaint was filed.

“I finally got to the point that I didn’t want to take it anymore,” said Kathleen Woolery-Ray who resigned from Caltrans in October, 1984. “I feel if I had stayed with Caltrans, I’d be sitting there next to Linda.”

Woolery-Ray said Silverthorn had a reputation at Caltrans for being “very outspoken.”

“A lot of people didn’t like her,” Woolery-Ray said. “But she was very efficient. When it came to cleaning up messes, she was at the top of the list.”

Joseph surprised Silverthorn Friday by introducing court records showing that Silverthorn made the last installment on a $705 criminal fine the day after one of those deposits in which $150 was missing and three days after another in which $2,155 was missing. Joseph said the criminal charges, related to a drunk driving incident, could show that Silverthorn needed money at the time of the losses.

Silverthorn, testifying in her own defense, said she never took money from Caltrans.

She said she complained about sloppiness, lax security and the lack of controls in August, 1985--the very first day she was reassigned to the cashier’s office after a two-year absence. Only minor changes were instituted as a result of her complaints, she said.

Silverthorn, who says she is being “set up,” said she was frequently asked to complete accounting paper work and bank deposits that had been begun by Knight or someone else. She said she suspects that is the reason some of her bank deposits came up short. But she said she did not know or suspect there were fund shortages when she went to Northeimer, “my boyfriend,” and complained about check cashing.

Silverthorn’s hearing was recessed indefinitely Friday after Northeimer’s appearance. The hearing, which probably won’t resume until next year, is likely to last another two days, attorneys estimate.

Attorney Tom Adler, who is representing Northeimer in a similar appeal of his demotion, said it would violate Northeimer’s right to privacy under the state constitution if he had to respond to questions about his supposed involvement with Silverthorn.

District Director William R. Dotson, who also testified Friday, said Northeimer and Silverthorn’s relationship had become an embarrassment for him because it brought complaints from other district employees and managers. It became even more of an embarrassment, he said, when audits disclosed that state money was missing.