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The sometimes-messy game of economic development has bitten another Florida community, this time in Lee County — twice.
First, three executives allegedly duped Lee County officials into awarding their business $5 million in economic development incentives, for what turned out to be a bogus business opportunity. The executives, behind VR Labs, a Fort Myers-based botanical extract and herbal drink company, face a litany of criminal charges in the case.
Now Lee County is on the hook for at least another $1 million — potentially owed to four former employees, who, according to a recent court ruling, were wrongfully fired by the county for questioning the veracity of the VR Labs incentive package. Three employees, John Brock, Susan Noe and Eileen Schuman, sued Lee County in one case, while a fourth former employee, Lisa Wagner sued in a separate case.
All the employees, according to court records, worked at one point in the Lee County Economic Development Office. That's where they were asked to participate in an audit of the potential incentive package for VR Labs in 2011, before the funds were doled out.
“My clients were in the unhappy position of having to tell their bosses about the issues,” with VR Labs, says Fort Myers attorney Geralyn Noonan, who represented Brock, Noe and Schuman. “My clients were told they had to participate in the audit. They were required to. Then the county shot the messenger.”
Part of the lawsuit Noonan filed alleged whistleblower law violations. A jury agreed with the plaintiff after a trial, and a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit U.S. District Court of Appeals upheld the jury verdict in June. Lee County officials, in the trial and in court records, say the firings stemmed from a round of layoffs due to budget cuts — a claim the appellate court in its opinion dismissed as “a hell of a coincidence.”
Lee County Commissioners were scheduled to vote on a potential settlement for Wagner at an Aug. 15 meeting. The settlement offer, according to Lee County records, was for $108,044, including attorney's fees and costs. County officials, in the potential settlement documents, say the proposed “settlement eliminates the uncertainty and expense of continued litigation and provides finality to the case,” but it's not an admission of “liability or any wrongdoing.”
The plaintiffs Noonan represented, Brock, Noe and Schuman, could receive at least $1 million, in total, after settlement conversations, Noonan tells Coffee Talk. (Noonan is essentially a wrongful termination expert, having been in practice 25 years and is also the former acting director and investigator with Lee County's equal employment opportunity office.)
The VR Labs executives Kay Gow, Robert Gow and John Williams Jr., meanwhile, were charged in March with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, wire fraud and illegal monetary transactions. Those criminal cases are pending.
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