The Whistleblower Who Won't Shut Up

EmptyThreats or Just Bullying Whistle Blowers? We ran a story in early summer that a whistle blower had written exposing financial misdoings of Aztec Charter Schools. How ironic that someone can come forward with actual facts and allegations against a charter school only to have the OSBI and the State Education Dept simply ignore the allegations. Of course Aztec's lawyers and owners are doing everything possible to shut the woman up yet the woman isn't being intimidated. One of the costs of taking public money or being in the eye of the public is that you become a public person under the law. Meaning it is very, very, very difficult to win a libel case as long as the information is not an outright lie told in a malicious manner. The whistle blower or blogger can be dead wrong and there is still zero protection as long as they don't deliberately lie. When they have facts on their side a libel suit is just a chance to dig through every bit of their life, financial records, tax returns, diaries, computers, records, nearly anything is discover-able once a lawsuit is filed. Below is a threatening letter that was sent by Aztec Charter School's lawyers on the behalf of Freda Deskin to the whistle blower Lorraine Grula. Here is a link to the original story we republished where the whistle blower exposed the corruption and possibly even crimes committed by employees or management of Aztec Charter Schools. And here is the response that Lorraine sent these crooks: You claim I released the report due to being a “disgruntled former employee.” I assure you, I am not disgruntled and I do not have a vindictive bone in my body. My motivation is justice for the students and parents of ASTEC Charter School, who have never been given what they have been promised for decades. I also do not like seeing the destruction of our public school system by greedy opportunists whose main talent is creating a facade and conning people into believing it is true despite ample evidence to the contrary.  Your letters to me were filled mostly with cut and paste libel law text. However, you left out the part that clearly says TRUTH IS A DEFENSE AGAINST LIBEL. You claim my report is full of “false, destructive, defamatory and baseless allegations against the School.” But it isn’t. Every word is true Or as near to truth as I could get without snooping through your records. You might remember from my job interview that I worked about twenty years as a journalist. I wrote this as a reporter. I interviewed at least twenty people with direct knowledge of ASTEC, all of whom wished to remain nameless but would no doubt testify in court if forced to. Lots of people can, and will, verify everything I wrote. Those doors WERE left unlocked for years. The computers and other equipment DOES disappear. The students have virtually NO resources or equipment. The new school is nothing but an empty field after 15 years (minimum) of promises and fundraising. ASTEC Charter School is clearly mismanaged and not even remotely as described in advertising or fundraising copy.  That is easy to prove. Don’t make the mistake of believing your own propaganda. Since all school fundraising and other financials are theoretically public files, any attorney of mine in a lawsuit would pick over your financial records with a fine-toothed comb. You know, to prove I am wrong. I am referring to the financial records normally kept locked away, hidden even from top school administrators. Those would be open for examination and reporting. To everybody. Decade’s worth of ALL your financials, forced into the sunlight! I predict no libel lawsuit will ever be filed. Not just because you would resoundingly lose due to basic First Amendment rights, but because a public trial would means dozens, if not hundreds, of people would be called to testify. Wouldn’t that be a field day for the press as your decades-long, gross mismanagement of the school and its funds is verified by person after person?  Yes, there would be a few sycophants who would back up the lie that ASTEC is a terrific school but they would be quickly outnumbered. I had at least fifty people contact me after the report became public. Most were folks I did not know personally but they knew ASTEC. Former employees, students and parents all contacted me, thanking me for exposing the truth and shared their own ASTEC horror stories. Some of them were in tears.  Some were terribly bitter. It was sad. Two told me they had passed the report on to the OSBI, an investigative body I had left off my mailing list. Since this would be a First Amendment case, and I am such a huge believer in the free press and the First Amendment, and because today the free press is under attack from Trump and his ilk, I have no doubt that many top-notch, nationally recognized civil rights attorneys and media organizations would jump at the chance to defend such an easy-to-win, cut and dry case as this. Heck, they’d probably even do it pro-bono just to make it into the journalism history textbooks. The case of the observant, and somewhat nosey school teacher/journalist who passes around a well-researched and carefully written expose on obvious red flags for fraud, against the charter school administration that clearly uses the school as a personal cash cow, would be a slam dunk for journalism and the First Amendment. Because: TRUTH IS A DEFENSE AGAINST LIBEL.