By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
Department of Safety Commissioner Robert Quinn did not retaliate against the former employee who alerted supervisors to his reported improper use of the state’s Gun Line system to help a friend, according to a new motion filed with the New Hampshire Department of Labor.
Quinn wants former Department of Safety Tiffany Foss’s whistleblower complaint dismissed, in part, claiming that she resigned her position as proof she was not pushed out.
Department of Safety Attorney Allison Greenstein, writing the motion to dismiss, said Foss’s complaint is short on details.
“(Foss) had failed to allege any particular facts of circumstances which would constitute harassment, abuse, intimidation, or discrimination under (the law,)” Greenstein wrote.
Foss, who now works for another state agency, has said she still fears Quinn’s reach. According to the complaint she filed in December, Foss left after realizing Quinn was going to make her life with the agency too difficult to continue after she raised concerns about the improper check.
“Life for me at work thereafter was extremely more difficult than it already had been,” Foss wrote in her complaint. “(Quinn) used everyone around him to work against me … Even though I am at another agency now, I am still fearful of his power and reach.”
Foss alerted her supervisors in 2020 about Quinn’s alleged actions to bring pressure on Gun Line staff to run a background check for an acquaintance. The acquaintance was not seeking to purchase a firearm in New Hampshire and had not submitted an official background check application.
Instead, the man had been denied a license to carry in Massachusetts and Quinn was reportedly trying to find out why.
The Department of Safety’s response does not deny that this background check took place. Instead, Greenstein claims that Foss’s whistleblower complaint does not specify any laws that were broken by running such a background check.
“Because she has failed to sufficiently identify the law or rule that the Justice Information Bureau colleague was asked to violate, (Foss) does not meet the pleading standard to establish that the Complainant engaged in a protected activity under (the whistleblower law,)” Greenstein wrote.
However, Foss’s complaint makes clear the heart of her complaint was Quinn’s orders for state employees to misuse the State Police On-Line Telecommunications System. Police officers typically face harsh penalties including criminal charges if they are caught misusing the system.
This week, the New Hampshire Department of Justice announced it moved against former Franconia Police Officer Gary Pilotte for doing just that.
Pilotte won’t be charged criminally, but he was forced to give up his police certification and agree to never seek employment in law enforcement again as part of the deal reached with the Attorney General’s Office.
In December, the Attorney General’s Office reached a similar deal with former Ossipee police sergeant Justin Swift, who was also accused of misusing the background check system.
Quinn has so far not faced any consequences for the reported misuse of the system. An investigation led by the Public Integrity Unit of the Attorney General’s Office fell apart when the State Troopers interviewed refused to talk.
A date for Foss’s whistleblower hearing has not yet been scheduled.