Whistleblower: A timeline of the media spectacle

Your support has allowed me to endure these last four years. Let this serve as an overview of what you’ve helped me survive.

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For nearly four years I’ve lived my life one viral news story after the next. 

On May 19, 2020, I was fired from my job with the Florida Department of Health, where I was leading the COVID-19 public data and surveillance project since the start of the pandemic.

The reason for my termination became the subject of major news investigations and lawsuits – a still-ongoing melodrama driven by politics and the destructive nature of social media.

The official letter I received  stated no reason for my termination, but I asked who made the decision and was told it was the Deputy Secretary - the very person I was filing the whistleblower complaint against. 

The decision was not that of my immediate supervisor or even his immediate supervisor, but of the politically-appointed bureaucrat who had just weeks prior asked me to manipulate the publicly-available data I managed about the pandemic.

The state offered me a settlement if I agreed to resign and not sue them for retaliation. They gave me a deadline of Thursday, May 21, 2020 to make a decision.