Update 12-11-09: Could the AOC be on the hook for the contract snafu, too? California Business & Professions Code gives the Contractors State License Board registrar the authority to fine public "officers or employees" who "knowingly" award contracts to unlicensed businesses up to $15,000 for each citation. State law requires public officials to check a contractors' license status before issuing a contract. AOC officials have said that didn't happen.
The Judicial Council has sued Aleut Global Solutions LLC, the Colorado Springs company that maintains Northern California courthouses, for performing work without a contractor’s license.
The suit (.pdf), filed in San Francisco Superior Court on Monday, says AGS breached its three-year-old contract with the judicial branch. The complaint seeks disgorgement of “all compensation paid to them by the Judicial Council,” a sum totaling more than $14.5 million over the life of the contract, an Administrative Office of the Courts spokesman said Thursday.
Carole Hurst, a public relations coordinator for AGS, said the company was aware of the lawsuit but she declined to immediately comment on the allegations Thursday.
After the jump: Downside of being an LLC, who messed up, and why is AGS still doing the work?
The strange tale of the missing AGS license surfaced last week when AOC employee Michael Paul went public with claims that judiciary officials never acted on his complaints that AGS and another private building contractor, Jacobs Facilities Inc, were working on court facilities without proper licenses. The attorney general’s office is investigating the matter. Paul is now pursuing a claim under the False Claims Act.
AOC officials say they took AGS executives at their word that they possessed the right papers. But no one in the AOC ever checked. AGS does not have a contractor’s license and, by law, the state doesn’t issue such licenses to limited liability companies like AGS, said Contractors State Licensing Board spokesman Rick Lopes.
So why didn’t anyone ever check on AGS? And who should have? AOC Chief Deputy Director Ronald Overholt said he doesn’t know.
“We’re anxious to find this out,” Overholt said. “That’s what the attorney general is tracking down.”
The AGS contract snafu raises a lot of questions about the branch’s ability to oversee the hundreds of courthouses and other buildings that have recently transferred from county control to the Judicial Council. So far, the AOC hasn’t provided a lot of answers, other than noting that litigation is now pending.
Perhaps surprisingly, AGS continues to manage its fleet of courthouses, even though the AOC is not paying any invoices pending the outcome of the attorney general’s investigation.
“The dispute is not about the quality of their work,” Overholt said.
The AOC has a contingency plan in place for building maintenance should the attorney general advise the branch to stop working with AGS, Overholt said.
— Cheryl Miller
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Setting the record straight –
A whistleblowers effort to expose malfeasance within California’s judicial branch of Government
By Michael Paul
There will be a lot of my coworkers and people that know me that will read this article. To some I will be admired, others will wonder if I am brave or just stupid and to a third group, I represent something that can potentially rock the very foundation of an entire branch of government. I am writing this article so that I may set the record straight before it becomes obscured by half-truths.
I work as a Senior Technical Analyst for the Administrative office of the Courts Information Services department. I am a seasoned Microsoft and Lotus specialist having come to the AOC from 20 previous years of mostly government and defense systems consulting and I additionally have in-depth systems integration & construction background.
When you work with the feds, you’re required to take repetitive training on detecting contracting abuse, waste and fraud annually.
I am tasked to support the Center for Judicial Education & Research, The Office of Emergency Response & Security and the Office of Court Construction & Management to tackle some of their specialized data systems and design issues while still remaining attached to information services as one of the Senior Microsoft Engineers.
One of the projects I was tasked from with OCCM Design & Construction, those who build the courthouses, was to work on IT integration of building management systems. These are the computerized systems that control lighting, heating, ventilation and air conditioning. I worked with an engineer in OCCM to design a specification, a new standard for building automation services that the AOC lacked. We were both very excited about this task because as engineers, we knew that these systems had the potential of producing a vast amount of savings to the Judicial Branch in terms of building operations and energy usage. When you own an extensive real estate portfolio, your number one cost of ownership is the utilities that heat, cool and light the buildings. Getting control of these, we felt, was critical in leveraging savings that did not otherwise exist. We and our energy guy calculated potential judicial branch savings in the high 9 figure range amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
While we would define a standard applicable for new construction of new courthouses, we would have to approach our facilities management unit and get them to buy off on the standard. The series of events that would transpire after we approached the Facilities Management Unit regarding building management systems was the one thing that caused me to come forward and blow the whistle.
Three years ago my associate in Design & Construction and I approached the Senior Management of FMU or the facilities management unit with our plan to integrate the building management systems on a common platform utilizing a common backbone, having already had Design & Construction give their tacit approval of a non-proprietary open lon configuration for building systems integration. We chose open lon because other protocols were manufacturer specific and open lon was manufacturer agnostic and offered the greatest flexibility with respect to network systems integration. Since the Bay Area Rapid Transit System had been utilizing LON for over 30 years, we knew it to be a proven and flexible technology.
We brought our vision of building systems integration to FMU management and were shot down without so much as being able to make our case. We were told in no uncertain terms, by email no less, that building management systems do not work and that one of his first order of business upon inheriting these buildings from the county would be to remove them .
We were floored. Not only would we not have the opportunity to save the branch hundreds of millions of dollars a year in building management and utility costs, we were looking at the possibility of having to pay double or triple current utility bills with their removal and sky high building operations costs.
Later, my associate would be transferred into Design & Construction and we would essentially be told the vision was dead. The ‘service providers’ would take care of us.
About 2 ½ years ago, we got the call from above. The courtroom temperatures in Larson Justice Center, the very first building to transfer to state control were hitting temperatures of 120 degrees inside the courtrooms. Having the most knowledge of building management systems, my OCCM associate and I regrouped to meet the needs of the trial court. Our plan was to issue a request for proposal to get the systems fixed. As we were writing our RFP specifications, we were interrupted by FMU’s senior management and told that they would go to the ‘service provider’ and ‘commission a study of the building management system’. Okay, we thought to ourselves. Someone wants to take a different direction and we’re not in charge.
It was some time later that our service provider, “Team Jacobs”, a joint venture between Jacobs Engineering and ABM managed to produce this study and as I recall, this study cost OCCM $20,000.00 and was about a month late. We got copies of this study to evaluate it with respect to the task at hand. To our utter amazement, this study had no applicability to Larson Justice Center whatsoever.
Moreover, this study was an old, draft study commissioned by the Army Corps of Engineers that was word for word pulled off the internet. It was plagiarized and as I recall, well over a month overdue. I was told by my associate that OCCM paid for that study and that is where things started to fail to pass the sniff test.
FMU management was willing to award “Team Jacobs” a contract for the work despite this plagiarized study and my associate and I pointed out that “Team Jacobs” was unqualified to perform this work and their plagiarized study underscored this. We suggested that they contact the contractor that had done a majority of the county of Riverside’s work and had familiarity with the building itself and see what he could do. That company was AirMetrx of Walnut, California. While our suggestion was accepted, we were told that AirMetrx would be issued a subcontract by the service provider. This would be the second issue that failed to pass the sniff test. This contract, worth millions of dollars, was not going out to public bid. I wasn’t nearly as familiar with state law as I was with federal law so I figured there was some provision of California law that would permit this to happen. I didn’t work for OCCM and didn’t know what the contract said or how things worked with respect to California law. However, if this were a federal project, what was happening would indeed be against federal law.
During the course of the project, I traveled down there for a few project meetings and some training on the new system and this is where I met the principal at AirMetrx. During the course of the training that I took, we had the opportunity to go out to lunch together and ‘talk tech’.
It was at this lunch in December 2007 when I first heard of “Team Jacobs” lack of a contractors’ license. This licensed contractor had said something I couldn’t believe my ears heard. “Team Jacobs has no contractors’ license” he said.
In disbelief, I asked him to repeat what he just said. “The court appointed contractor has no contractors’ license” he repeated. I asked if he had brought this to the attention of OCCM. He indicated that he had brought it to the attention of several people in OCCM but were told these decisions were made way above their head. Having worked in the construction industry early on in my career, I knew that it was unlawful for anyone to do any work on any public building that did not have a contractors’ license. I assured this person that I would look into it as I was outside of the OCCM chain of command.
I contacted several of my peers in OCCM about this. All of them knew “team Jacobs” had no contractors’ license but did not know why they were working on public projects without one. I was floored. I asked OCCM management and they indicated that the judicial branch is not subject to the same laws as the rest of California’s government and "it is what it is, they are our service provider"
I would check with those peers and they had been told something similar – the judicial branch is exempt from California’s fraud, waste and abuse laws. Needless to say, that which smelled before was becoming an unbearable stench.
Okay, having never worked for the state judicial branch, I figured there might be some odd rule of court that permitted this – but it nonetheless failed to pass the sniff test. This is about the time I started casually researching California’s laws regarding fraud, waste and abuse and looking for the fraud, waste and abuse hotlines that I had grown accustomed to seeing in every governmental or defense contractors offices.
Oddly, not only did the AOC not have any postings whatsoever regarding fraud, waste and abuse, those required postings that existed in break offices around the AOC had that specific section regarding whistleblower protections covered by white sheets of paper and carefully taped on all 4 edges so it couldn’t be pried up.
I would learn that, in essence, no public agency in California government had any oversight responsibilities over California’s judicial branch and slowly, with the transfer of trial court facilities from county control to state control we were becoming one of the largest public works agencies in California and it appeared that we were exempt from oversight. Being a separate branch of government, we were entrusted to police ourselves. In my own mind it seemed to me that the perfect conditions existed for fraud, waste and abuse to run rampant and unchecked. I had learned years earlier that we had an internal auditing department when I was migrating computer operating systems for the AOC and that this internal auditing was a part of our finance department. Much, much later, I would learn by visiting that internal auditing also served the role of the ‘confidential fraud, waste and abuse coordinator’ within California’s judicial branch.
Over the following 18 months, I would have all sorts of issues with the competence of operations at Larson Justice Center. As the system was configured to send me “critical” alarms, I was getting critical alarms daily, sometimes all day long every 10 seconds. Email after email would arrive telling me something was bypassed, disabled or failed. The local O&M supervisor would contact me and have me look into the IT portion of the system and ask the building systems contractor what was going on. The building systems contractor was telling me that the operators lacked competence and a fundamental understanding of the chiller plant and the building management system. Since we required system auditing turned on, I requested the log records to be sent to me so that I could view what the system operators were doing and what was happening. These log records indicated that the operators were intentionally bypassing parts of the system which caused other parts of the system to fail and send out an alarm. I would discuss my observations with my OCCM team members and we universally agreed that this was the fault of the system operators and not the control system. The competency of “Team Jacobs” personnel was not only coming into question, their competency was coming under direct fire by my OCCM peers and myself.
Additionally, during this eighteen month period, I would collect other information about public works projects being steered to them as a ‘service provider’ and not a general construction contractor. Competitive bids were non-existent. Public works laws were being ignored. Prevailing wage laws were also ignored. Buildings were being turned over from county entities to the Office of Court Construction & Managements’ Facilities Management Unit at a record pace. As I learned more about California law, I learned more and more laws were being broken by AOC employees in addition to “Team Jacobs” In the chaos of transfer came to Team Jacobs major unchecked profits. Not only was this work being steered to them but the costs of performing this work was off the charts of anything any of us would ever consider a usual and customary charge.
My peers in OCCM would describe to me the staggering costs of them performing work for us on individual projects. County entities would send me email indicating that work was not being done to code and violated other building system warranties. I would hear from subcontractors that work that Team Jacobs performed would not be completed but they were still paid for the work. Team Jacobs was being permitted to pull in their own telecom and data lines into courthouses and establish business offices inside courthouses across California and the stench became unbearable.
It became a sad, inside joke amongst the engineering staff I worked with that having Team Jacobs change a light bulb not only took 4 people to accomplish - but the cost of changing that light bulb cost 2 grand – the minimum value of a service work order from the Facilities Management Unit.
The final straw that caused me to blow the whistle came in the form of an email from an engineer in OCCM who to this day, I highly respect for his integrity. His task was to develop plans for expensive whole building systems evaluations that would cover only a few of the 533 structures inherited by OCCM and take 3 years. I vehemently disagreed with this approach as this 3 year plan to evaluate only 52 structures would leave the remaining 478 structures falling into a state of disrepair at a rapidly accelerating rate.
While we both disagreed with this approach, his job was simply to do as he was instructed to do. I responded back that this course of action was not a prudent course of action and that if something more was not immediately undertaken to protect the taxpayers, I needed to escalate the matter to someone in an attempt to protect those employees in the trial courts and to protect public funds. I then outlined much of what I had learned about their operations that included at least two years of reporting to OCCM that these contractors were unlicensed and that they were being improperly steered the work at astronomical costs, among many other allegations that were made to me since people caught on that I was concerned about this and worked outside of the Facilities Management Unit Chain of Command.
I talked to a representative of IAD before I sent this email and let him briefly know of what is going on. He provided me with the “confidential fraud, waste and abuse hotline” and in my email, I indicated that I was encouraging IAD to post this number on the web site so that we could begin to build the public trust that we were willing to do something about fraud, waste and abuse.
On July 24th 2009, I blew the whistle on Team Jacobs and OCCM's use of unlicensed contractors and the cover-up began. 5 months later I would expose AGS, the other unlicensed contractor and then 48 hours later, I escalated my complaint to Chief Justice George, Bill Vickery, Ron Overholt, Senator Ellen Corbett (my representative) as well as Assemblymembers Hayashi (my representative) Strickland and Lowenthal
The balance of this article is being withheld due to pending litigation.
If you are an investigative reporter anywhere in the State of California or a court official outside of the AOC that wishes me to make a detailed presentation, feel free to contact me at 510-684-8706
As of Saturday, December 12, I currently work for the AOC and two weeks ago I requested ALL records regarding the Facility Management Units operations as a state employee conducting an independent investigation under Government Code 12653. The AOC is stalling this investigation and is not producing the requested records and is drilling me to disclose eveything else I know.
On behalf of the People of the United States, I am represented by the two law firms.
The law firm of Hersh & Hersh as well as the law firm of Moss & Hough are working to uncover concealed facts in this matter. While the AOC has gone after AGS, they're currently and inexplicably covering up for Team Jacobs - and have indicated to me and my counsel that Team Jacobs (an unlicensed joint venture) never existed, nor was the AOC ever doing any business with Team Jacobs.
Posted by: Michael Paul | December 12, 2009 at 10:22 PM
* Minor correction
Later, my associate would be transferred into Design & Construction and we would essentially be told the vision was dead. The ‘service providers’ would take care of us.
Should read:
Later, my associate would be transferred into the Facilities Management Unit and we would essentially be told the vision was dead. The ‘service providers’ would take care of us.
Posted by: Michael Paul | December 13, 2009 at 11:56 AM
From: Paul, Michael [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2009 8:36 AM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]; George, Ronald; Vickrey, William; Overholt, Ron
Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]; Judnick, John; Gyzmo
Subject: I am a Judicial Branch potential qui tam litigant
Dear Senator Corbett and Assemblymembers Hayashi, Strickland and Lowenthal, Chief Justice George, Executive Director Bill Vickery and assistant director Ron Overholt,
(Senator Corbett and Assemblymember Hayashi are my representatives. Assemblymember Strickland and Assemblymember lowenthal introduced whistleblower protections for AOC employees.)
My name is Michael Paul and I am a senior technical analyst for the Judicial Council of California, Administrative office of the Courts. I am a design engineer that works for information services and one of the the senior systems architects that designed the microsoft network utilized by the AOC, the Supreme and Appelllate courts. In my current role I support the Office of Court Construction & Management.
I have been employed by the AOC for the past 4 years and have a 7.5 year relationship with the AOC. I am also the principal designer for IT facilites statewide. I am a resident of San Leandro California and I am contacting you about something that should be of grave interest to you during the budgetary and investigative process regarding California's Judicial Branch of Government. While I am aware that we are currently embroiled in a 1.something billion dollar controversy called CCMS or the Court Case Management System, unfortunately, this controversy is not what I am contacting you about.
The controversy that I am contacting you about is called the Office Of Court Construction & Management's Facilities Management Unit, who is using unlicensed contractors to perform tens of millions of dollars of work to all 533 court buildings statewide.
Nearly overnight, this same branch administrative office has become one of California's largest public works agencies with the transfer of some 533 courthouses from local county control to state control. These transfers involved inspections that were far less detailed than an appraisal inspection that one might get when refinancing their home. I know because I went on several of them to evaluate vairous building management systems. The issue with this is that these buildings were immediately turned over to service providers who provide a wide variety of operations, construction, remodeling and facility mod services for the AOC and are entrusted to operate these structures.
Well over 5 months ago, I blew the whistle on the Office of Court Construction & Managements Facilities Management Unit for using "Team Jacobs" as an unlicensed contractor to perform and provide maintainence, remodeling and construction services to 2/3rds of all courthouses in California and grossly overcharging us to do so. Since then, I have additionally learned that the other contractor maintaining the other 1/3rd of courthouses in California also lacks the requisite licensure that would permit them to act in the capacity of a contractor. This company, named AGS or Aleut Global Solutions maintains the other 1/3 of courthouses that "Team Jacobs" does not maintain, wrapping up the entire state with contractors that have no contractors licenses getting unlawfully diverted tens of millions of dollars in construction work. When I ask why this is, I can hear a pin drop amonst the many dozens of employees across the AOC who are cognizantly aware of this, including our own so-called "Confidential Fraud, Waste and Abuse Coordinator" who lives up to his title, John Judnick.
I am writing as a concerned citizen and in my capacity as a state employee as I am witnessing tens of millions of dollars of false claims being made against the states judicial branch for work they should not be paying for under Business & Professions Code 7031. (Unlicensed contractors work for free) Under Business & Professions Code 7028.15, this mandated use of unlicensed contractors by management has subjected dozens of Facilities Management Unit's employees for citations of up to $15,000.00 for repeatedly granting work to unlicensed contractors under the instruction of their management. Of course, they don't have to worry about getting these citations from an executive branch office such as the Contractors State Licensing Board because the CSLB, and in fact, no one in state government is empowered to act upon any complaint. I have called for an investigation of these matters that not only went through the "confidential fraud, waste and abuse coordinator" but they additionally went through my chain of command in Information Services all the way up to the directors level and the director of OCCM, Lee Willoughby is cognizantly aware of this.
It was short-circuited back to John Judnick in an effort to shut me up.
No dice.
More than a hundred people across the AOC are cognizantly aware of this and a few have worked to provide me additional proof and evidence of malfeasance.
I have suggested to the AOC that they should WELCOME ME to file a false claims suit as to indemnify members of the Judicial Branch from being implicated in being an accessory to the false claims but they have suggested below that they have already made a referral to the Attorney General. Frankly, I don't believe the AOC has done this and have asked for proof. My reasoning for suggesting that the AOC has made no such AG referral is because the AG is entrusted to diligently investigate any such complaint and under prevailing laws and statutes, there is no immunity whatsoever for AOC employees being implicated in participating and colluding to unlawfully direct this work to unlicensed contractors that are often the highest or only bidders. Absolutely no aspect of public works laws is being adhered to with respect to Team Jacobs and AGS.
Since the AOC has allegedly made this AG referral as they have suggested, my attorneys and I seek to suppliment this complaint with all of the evidence we possess that we don't believe Mr, Judnick has in his posession as while we have been investigating these matters for over a year, all he is doing is standing in the way for the past 5 months. We have asked for proof that he has filed. We have asked for his AG contact that is working the matter so we can forward evidence.
We believe Mr. Judnick is bluffing as to deter us from investigating and prosecuting the matter further.
Pursuant to government code 12653(a), I have requested the right to independently investigate these matters as perscribed by state law as an employee of the judicial branch that has uncovered malfeasance and so far, the AOC is playing pass interference and doing most everything possible to attempt to disqualify me as a potential qui tam litigant. They have adopted the policy and procedure of silence and inaction to thwart any attempt to further my complaint, they have attempted to assign the unlicensed contractor to my datacenter remodeling project at a price more than 150% of cost estimates and other quotations and have told me if I wish to have my project completed, this unlicensed contractor, team jacobs is whom I must use.
I reject that coersion categorically and pointed out to my coworkers in FMU that I will never approve the work of an unlicensed contractor under Business & Professions Code 7028.15 and suggested they did not either.
We.
Oh yes, perhaps I forgot to mention....
I am also President & Chief Technology Officer of an Interactive Media Group - a company that owns hundreds of websites, news and trade sites that are interlinked to hundreds of other websites - we manage yet hundreds more other websites for clients from offices worldwide. For all intents and purposes, I'm not only an AOC employee, I am the media as well and work with other media groups worldwide. Collectively, we have been working this story for well over a year and I have exercised vast restraint for the judicial branch in not publishing it in an effort to wake people up and say that these activities, from the very branch of government that is entrusted to protect the public from unscrupulous unlicensed contractors, is themselves utilizing unscrupulous unlicensed contractors statewide to maintain, remodel and renovate some 533 public buildings. They can get away with this because they are not required to pull county permits for the work (which only a licensed contractor can do) or undergo county inspections of that work. Because the AOC lacks their own competent construction code inspection team that inspects every single project, the AOC does not inspect the work either and there are allegations and some proof that some of the work the AOC was billed for was work that was either never completed or presents code or safety violations.
With that being said, except for bearing witness to continued malfeasance, I cherish my job and do not wish to lose that job. However I am stepping forward in an attempt at an immediate resolution to these matters. I would suggest that the AOC needs some competent, independent oversight and an entirely new investigative body to oversee their operations that is entirely independent of both the AOC and the Judicial Council themselves and that such a body should be created immediately and a forensic audit should be conducted and if they won't permit us to move forward because they allege they are looking into a complaint they are not investigating, then the whole state and even the federal government should be asking why.
I suspect the reason the complaint itself is being stonewalled is the fact that the AOC's FMU team is supposed to perform this due diligence before presenting it to judicial council members, standing members of the Judiciary, before any such approvals are made. The fact that the Judicial Council Subcommittee likely has no idea that any of these entities is unlicensed is a cause of grave concern for the AOC and this is the reason they will never act upon my complaint in a prudent and responsible manner just like they have not been doing for over 5 months.
Instead, they have been giving the unlicensed entities even more work!
Understand, I'm not a potential (state or federal) qui tam litigant for the money. I'm a potential qui tam litigant for the protections afforded me since the AOC exempts itself from the California Whistleblower Protection Act. Any judicial official has the right to not reward me for doing my job as a qui tam litigant even though my legal counsel should be paid, although in light of the extraordinary effort I have made to protect the Judicial Branch, all the stress, headaches, sleepless nights, threats to my continued employment and even my life, I probably deserve some compensation for 5 months of enduring this.
Below is a message thread, one of many with Mr. Judnick.
I am requesting for paid leave from my official duties to thoroughly investigate the extent of these false claims and am further requesting my legal counsel have full access to everything to conduct that investigation.
This cover-up needs to see some sunshine.
Michael A. Paul, MCSE, MCITP
Senior Technical Analyst, Information Services
IS-TSG | IT Facilities Design & Integration
Judicial Council of California
Administrative office of the Courts
455 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, California 94102
O:415-865-4073 |Cell 510-684-8706
P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul, Michael
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 6:12 AM
To: Judnick, John
Cc: [email protected]; Gyzmo; [email protected]
Subject: RE: Records Request
Dear Mr. Judnick,
Im confused and I'm hoping you can answer six simple questions. If you look at the history of my allegations, not once will you find any recordation of me making any previous allegation against AGS or Emcor to you before the first email in this thread.
I've forwarded the allegations to my attorney regarding the unlicensed AGS, I have forwarded the allegations to the FBI regarding the unlicensed AGS.
I've never shared those allegations with you and, well, I'm ancient and blonde. I don't recall sharing those with anyone you might have had any contact with.
1. Are you telling us that you took action and made an AG referral against a party I never previously mentioned to you in response to a complaint I never previously made to you?
2. Can you kindly explain how all four of these unlicensed entities (Jacobs Engineering & ABM DBA "Team Jacobs") and aleut global solutions (AGS) are still getting millions of dollars worth of overpriced work unlawfully directed to them on a sole source basis 5 months after I filed my "Team Jacobs" complaint?
3. For clarification purposes: How many more months do you anticipate these unlawful diversions of public works and public funds to continue to unlicensed contractors?
4. Can you kindly explain how the AOC can make any claim or referral of false claims while the AOC themselves is involved in the unlawful act of employing unlicensed contractors on over 500 public projects?
5. Can you kindly show us the AG referral or provide us the name of your contact so we can verify that you have made these filings?
And now for the single most important question:
6. In whose hands does the decision rest to obey the law and fire the unlicensed contractors? Who is the responsible party because I need to be asking those people these questions.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul, Michael
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 4:47 PM
To: Judnick, John
Cc: [email protected]; Gyzmo; [email protected]
Subject: RE: Records Request
Mr. Judnick,
I have scheduled my attorneys time twice to find you unavailable when presented with times and dates that you previously gave me. I have a busy schedule this week and will get with you after next Monday on a possible meeting. They have busy schedules and can’t afford to be rescheduled or hold blank spots in their schedules. It has been suggested that you put these questions in writing as there is less opportunity for misunderstanding or your own interpretation of what was said.
With respect to the State Attorney Generals’ referral, I am the relator. Perhaps you can share a copy of that referral with my attorneys and I because there is a credibility gap that is growing by the day – most especially when the AOC assigns the unlicensed contractor as the sole source for my project in an attempt to implicate me as participating in a fraud, thereby disqualifying me from pursuing the matter further while still employing that contractor and taking no action on the complaints.
If you still wish to meet, it will only be with my attorneys present. I would suggest contacting them via monica pena via the above email address to set up a 3rd appointment with me after ignoring two previous requests for an appointment until after the dates had passed.
Michael A. Paul, MCSE, MCITP
Senior Technical Analyst, Information Services
IS-TSG | IT Facilities Design & Integration
Judicial Council of California
Administrative office of the Courts
455 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, California 94102
O:415-865-4073 |Cell 510-684-8706
P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
From: Judnick, John
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 4:25 PM
To: Paul, Michael
Cc: [email protected]; Gyzmo; [email protected]
Subject: RE: Records Request
Mr. Paul:
I am referencing your information request to the appropriate AOC Divisions for review.
Be advised that the AOC has not concluded its inquiry into these issues. As you know, I have been attempting to get you to meet with me to discuss “Team Jacobs” issues for more than a month. This meeting as previously advised to you would allow me to put some parameters around the items you have provided to me and to define the scope of your complaints. As I have told you previously, the purpose of the meeting is for me to obtain all information relating to these matters so that I can fully investigate them as necessary. I continue to reiterate the request. The need is to meet in person and I can reasonable allocate time if given some notice with the caveat that other matters come up that affect my schedule as they do yours. Can you provide me some dates and times in the next week or two where you are available to meet.
You should also know that documentation gathered on the AGS and Jacobs matters have been referred to the California Attorney General for review and possible action on behalf of the AOC.
I will advise you once the AOC internal review has been completed.
John A. Judnick
Senior Manager
Internal Audit Services
Judicial Council of California - Administrative Office of the Courts
455 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102-3688
Phone (415) 865-7450, Fax (415) 865-4337, [email protected]
www.courtinfo.ca.gov
"Serving the courts for the benefit of all Californians"
From: Paul, Michael
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 9:18 AM
To: Judnick, John
Cc: [email protected]; Gyzmo; [email protected]
Subject: Records Request
Dear Mr. Judnick,
Pursuant to Government code 12653 (a), I am requesting copies of any and all records to include but are not limited to contracts, email, correspondence, invoices, copies of bid announcements, copies of bid awards, copies of actual bids, for all projects, any and all files, service work orders, proposals, contracts, cost estimates, disputes, warnings and claims made by any third party regarding any relationships between Jacobs Engineering or any affiliate, subsidiary or joint venture, including Team Jacobs, American Building Maintenence (ABM) as well as Alieut Global Solutions or AGS AND Emcor that exist between the AOC (California's Administrative office of the Courts) or the Judicial Council of Califonia for the past 5 years.
Specific email is all current and archived evault and .pst files email going back for 5 years where @jacobs.com is the sender or recipient or @att.net is the sender or recipient (as used by "team Jacobs") or the email addresses of AGS employees are the sender or recipient and @jud.ca.gov is the sender or recipient or any intteroffice email where the word "Jacobs", "Team Jacobs" "ABM" or "AGS" or "Emcor" is in any part of the email.
This is not a fishing expedition as the contractors state licensing boards website clearly indicates that not one of the entities currently providing construction services in over 500 buildings statewide under various contracts has a valid contractors license to do so and it appears the AOC quietly got rid of Emcor alleging false claims but chose not to pursue the matter.
I am the one of the branch enterprise systems administrators and one of the Microsoft architects that designed this electronic computer network here in the AOC. As such, I hope to work with all parties on the "email team", which I am a part of, to produce, restore and preserve these records for purposes of furtherence of a false claims action against various respondents. As such, I know the production of a majority of these records to be an effortless task while others will require more effort. If you have been actively investigating this matter then you should be able to abbreviate this search considerably.
Interestingly, you have made no such similar request of my team nor do you have the proper permissions over networked systems to retrieve all those records yourself.
1. As I understand things, your cooperation in providing these records is obligatory under prevailing law because "fixing a license soon" after 5 months of inaction does not rise to the level of pursuit of false claims already made and you failed to pursue Emcor altogether.
2. I am a government employee investigating what I believe to be crimes against the state. After 5 months of inaction from the AOC I am moving forward under 12652(d)(4) on my Team Jacobs complaint and you've taken no action whatsoever against Emcor so I expect that the AOC intends to resolve the licensure situation by simply not renewing the contract and not exposing the AOC's ignorance by not pursuing the false claims made.
3. As I am a government employee when I made this lawful request, there should be no charge for me to retrieve or reproduce these records as I am making this request as a government employee. Should that employment status change, these records should still be produced at no charge as I made this request as a government employee in furtherance of the prosecution of false claims made against the judicial branch.
4. These records will be held in the same degree of trust and confidence that I hold all information in my capacity of being an enterprise systems administrator. However, they will also be shared with my legal counsel and may be shared with appropriate investigators and state and federal law enforcement.
Please be kind enough to "reply to all" with your reply.
Thank You
Michael Paul
Senior Technical Analyst,
Information Services Division
510-684-8706
California Government Code section § 12653. Employer interference with employee disclosures, etc.; liability of employer; remedies of employee
(a) No employer shall make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy preventing an employee from disclosing information to a government or law enforcement agency or from acting in furtherance of a false claims action, including investigating, initiating, testifying, or assisting in an action filed or to be filed under Section 12652.
Posted by: Michael Paul | December 13, 2009 at 03:21 PM
And finally in closing - I have sent everything I have to the FBI -
If you have *any* pull with the FBI please urge them to look into this as soon as possible.
Posted by: Michael Paul | December 13, 2009 at 04:57 PM
On December 15, 2009, two things would occur.
First, I was called into a meeting with my manager and assistant director and an ‘employee relations’ specialist.
In this meeting, my broad responsibilities over branch information technology would be curtailed and I would be stripped of my administrative permissions over networked systems under the guise of ‘my skills being needed somewhere else’. This was retaliation for blowing the whistle, regardless of what anyone says. Furthermore, I was assigned to serve the very unit I blew the whistle on – with a caveat. They already had this three year plan I objected to in place. Without a change in course, I was being assigned to irrelevance.
Some thank you for saving the state 600+ years of my salary.
I would then get a letter from an OGC attorney indicating that the records request I was making was to be treated as a public ‘administrative records request’ pursuant to the new rule of court. The broad scope of my request would result in a substantial cost to me. I was being given an opportunity to reduce the scope of my request so that the AOC could give me an estimated cost of this request.
Posted by: Michael Paul | December 18, 2009 at 01:52 AM
AGS was well aware of the fact that they needed a contractor license since they were awarded the contract and also knew that a LLC could no get one in the state of California. If they stated they had a license to the AOC is was a blatant lie
Posted by: Former employee of AGS | December 31, 2009 at 11:01 AM
Seems it's government coverup and crazy pocket-lining for those in control, aka bussiness as usual, to me, see it all the time every day. But what do I know I'm just a tax paying working person? Automated systems work, cost less, and are proven. Of course if AGS is lining the pockets of those who make those decisions, of course they will look the other way when license issues arise, of course they will demote and bury the people who are looking out for us taxpayers, they have a T-time at 10am and can discuss their corrupt intentions and plans.
I'm not nearly as smart as my brother, and god bless his courage for stepping up to the plate for the working people of California. I am however a licensed Journeyman Electrician, and would really like it if I could change the lightbulbs in the courthouses in California. Sadly, the pocket linees will not be happy because I only charge $50.00/ hour.
Posted by: Jeanne Paul | January 30, 2010 at 09:56 AM
I pointed out that “Team Jacobs” was unqualified to perform this work and their plagiarized study underscored this.
lol - sing it Mr. Paul! !
Posted by: Jennifer Ani | March 06, 2012 at 11:55 PM
Retired AOC MEP Engineer Dennis Leung – Promoted the concept that the judicial branch should only take on building technology it can afford to support. Attempted to get a grip on and by extension, place cost controls on automated building management systems being inherited from the counties and move them to a lower cost non-proprietary model. Promoted the use or Recovery Act funds to fund most of it. Had he executed on his plan, the judicial branch would have had the most energy efficient real estate inventory in the State of California.
Posted by: how to become HVAC certified | September 03, 2012 at 05:57 AM