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Lindberg v. California Dep't of Education10/31/2005
tin did not respond.
On December 23, 1996, Lindberg suffered a "mild" heart attack. As a result, he underwent six-way bypass surgery and was put on medications for congestive heart failure. When he returned to work in March of 1997, he was assigned to the Educational Options division, where he again was given nothing to do.
At a department-wide meeting in March 1997, Lindberg again passed Eastin two notes about the fraud and the retaliation against him. She ignored both notes. Determined to confront her, Lindberg waited for her on J Street after the meeting, and approached her as she was exiting the building. When he was sure she acknowledged him, Lindberg asked Eastin why she was permitting retaliation against employees who found fraud and why the agencies that had committed the fraud were continuing to receive money. Eastin turned and walked away.
Lindberg kept all his investigative materials pertaining to fraud at his computer at work. On Friday, April 4, 1997, CDE employee Olga Uribe entered Lindberg's unit and asked the computer technician, Laura Martin, for access to Lindberg's computer. Martin refused, saying it was against department policy. Uribe insisted that she had to have Lindberg's computer. Despite Martin's refusal to give her permission, Uribe ended up with the computer. Martin was "shocked."
When he came into his office the following Monday, Lindberg found out that Uribe had seized his computer. When he finally got it back, he discovered that all his word processing files, including his investigative reports, had been destroyed.
The Federal Investigation and Shredding of Documents
In April of 1998, the FBI became involved in the investigation of misuse of federal funds by the CBO's. Consequently, the CDE received federal subpoenas for documents relating to the ESL-Citizenship program. Polster, who was put in charge of retrieving subpoenaed documents , promptly obtained a paper shredder. In doing so, she managed to circumvent the normal procedures for purchasing equipment. Two Adult Education employees spent three to four weeks in Zimmerman's old office shredding documents.
Bartlett thought the shredding was highly unusual, especially since she had never seen a shredder in the Adult Education division. She picked up some of the shredded pages and noticed Cervantes's name on them and that they pertained to the ESL-Citizenship program. Bartlett notified the FBI; at its request, she recovered some of the shredded documents and gave them to the FBI. Subsequently, the FBI questioned Polster about the shredding of documents.
Polster Retaliates Against Lindberg
Polster became head of Adult Education in April of 1998. By this time, Lindberg had been transferred to the Educational Options division doing jail program reviews, a program that Polster oversaw. Polster prevented Lindberg from receiving the train
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