Valley Interview : Tarzana Whistle Blower Finds Victory in Lawsuit Bittersweet

In 1986, Congress amended the federal False Claims Act to encourage more “whistle-blower lawsuits,” in which workers in defense-related industries testify against their employers to root out fraud in government contracts. Since then, more than 500 such cases have been filed and more than $500 million recovered, much of which was kept by the whistle blowers.

Tarzana resident Sohrab Haroonian didn’t go straight to the government. He says he objected when his supervisors at Elmo Semiconductor Corp. in Burbank asked him, a senior test engineer, to write false reports saying that components had passed inspections when they had not. He told upper management he had seen his supervisors change test results to conceal defective parts and witnessed the improper disposal of parts that had failed electrical tests.

After bringing up the discrepancies several times, Haroonian says, he was demoted from his $48,000-a-year position to a job in the company’s inventory department, and in July, 1990, he was fired.

Last month--more than four years since Haroonian’s termination--a Glendale Superior Court jury ordered Elmo Semiconductor to pay him $200,000 in lost wages and $150,000 for emotional distress. But Haroonian, 38, says the victory is bittersweet. Despite having a degree in electrical engineering and 14 years experience in his field, he says the stigma of being a whistle blower who filed a wrongful-termination suit has been a major obstacle to finding new work.

Elmo Semiconductor procures semiconductor parts, tests them for military and civilian use and distributes them. It also procures, tests and distributes parts for medical devices. Attorneys for the company have said they intend to appeal the verdict.

In a recent interview, Haroonian, who has lived with his parents since losing his job, described what he saw taking place at the company and the effect his legal action has had on his personal and professional life.

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Question: When did you first sense that something illegal was occurring within the company?

Answer: It was a lot of incidents, not just one or two. Sometime late in 1989 I realized that people in management were cheating and trying to have the engineers falsify documents. I was in charge of the testing in my department, and I complained to them that they could not do that, because these parts were going to be used for military applications.

One of the first incidents I complained about was a test we conducted on parts for General Dynamics. Then there were some more incidents that I confronted them with, and finally they transferred me to a position in inventory. And later they fired me.

Q: What led you to believe you should pursue legal action?

A: What I did at the beginning, while I was still working for Elmo, was consult with an attorney as to what I should do, because I really cared about the people out there. These parts were not going to be used for trucks or toys. I was especially concerned about the shipping of parts that are used in the medical field, for pacemakers and heart valves. I have a good friend whose father is like my own father to me, and he had a heart valve. And every time I would look at him, I couldn’t bear it because one day one of these parts could end up in his heart--I would be responsible. Elmo was shipping these parts untested, and it was a really bad feeling. While I was consulting with the attorney, I also reported these things to the Department of Defense. I had a meeting with one of their agents, and he looked at some of the documents I had at the time, but I’m not aware of whether there was any further investigation.

Q: How did your co-workers view your actions?

A: I had several engineers reporting to me, and one problem was that the upper management would bypass me and tell my engineers to falsify documents. They didn’t like it, and they were complaining too. And as I said, there were a lot of incidents. One day I confronted them and said, “You cannot tell my engineers to falsify documents.” I think most of them supported me.

Eventually, a couple of my engineers quit, and one of them came to court and actually testified against the company in the trial. He said he saw the falsifications, exactly as I did.

Q: One of the attorneys for Elmo Semiconductor described you as a person who “sees a conspiracy behind every bush.”

A: What they’re trying to do is cover up what’s going on, but I’m 100% sure of what I saw. It was my job, and I have a lot of experience in engineering. I’ve worked with RCA Corp.; I’ve worked with Rockwell International, and I know exactly how to test parts, and I know when there’s falsification. And that’s what Elmo was doing--falsifying documents and cheating, because they wanted to ship parts, that’s all they wanted to do. And it was wrong to do that.

Q: How has becoming a whistle blower affected your personal life?

A: Because of the lawsuit, I am not able to find an engineering job. Elmo is a company that distributes parts to a lot of companies, including other contractors, and every single one of them, they know about the case. Prior to the lawsuit, when I was still working for Elmo, I had offers every two or three weeks. Headhunters called me all the time. But now no one wants to talk anymore. And of course the economy is tough now, so it’s a combination of the job market and the lawsuit.

Q: How have you supported yourself since leaving the company?

A: My family and my parents have helped me a lot. And I had some savings at the beginning, but that’s gone now. But if it weren’t for my family I could not have done it. There were other engineers that had the same feelings, but they couldn’t do it because they had their families to support.

Q: What does the future hold for you?

A: I’m still looking for an engineering job, believe it or not. I sent out a bunch of resumes last week, and I’m hoping something will come of that. Even though I have a settlement, I was hoping I would be working again. My life has changed, it’s not the same anymore.