Jury awards whistle-blower $250,000 in suit against FAMU
By Nic Corbett • DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER • February 5, 2009
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A woman who was fired from her post at Florida A&M University in late 2003
won a whistle-blower's lawsuit against the school today after a jury trial,
said her lawyer, Marie Mattox.
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A jury awarded Dedra Azonobi O'Neal, 47, more than $258,000 for lost wages.
Azonobi O'Neal, the coordinator of the Life Gets Better Scholarship program,
reported the mishandling of hundreds of thousands of dollars that were
supposed to be deposited in an endowment for scholarship money but was
instead put into an operating account and elsewhere, Mattox said.
"I am just elated," Azonobi O'Neal said, about the jury's verdict. "I feel
vindicated. And it was a long process, but if you see someone doing
something wrong, you shouldn't be afraid to stand on the side of right."
When Azonobi O'Neal reported her concerns to the state Inspector General's
Office in 2002, FAMU officials retaliated against her, according to her
lawsuit.
"They started making recommendations to fire her within a month," Mattox
said.
A precedent was set last year, Mattox said, when the First District Court of
Appeal overturned an earlier ruling by Circuit Judge Thomas Bateman, in
which he denied her client had a right to a jury trial in a public
whistle-blower case. Bateman had ruled against Azonobi O'Neal after a bench
trial.
Check Tallahassee.com later for more on this story.
--
"I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of
control, and at times hard to handle, but if you can't handle me at my
worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." ~Marilyn Monroe
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