The problem with this story is that it is simply so outrageous that it is difficult to believe that adults actually behave in this manner.
The underlying problem, however, is that it was very serious.
The first I knew of any assault was when I was contacted by the Special Investigations Unit of the Department of Safety and Security. They wanted to interview me. I had not applied for a job there, so I was more than mildly intrigued as to why.
This involved a possible assault in the OIOS office.
A possible WHAT?
By this stage, I was of course very used to having the tiniest perceived infraction blown out of all proportion, but this was a new one on me.
In the past week, Dan Wilson had come to me – not once but TWICE – asking about “incidents” that were supposed to have taken place.
One of these had been an alleged “incident” involving Roberta Baldini. The second one was about an alleged “incident” involving Vlad Dzuro. On both occasions, my answer had been the same; I didn’t know what he was talking about. Given the parties involved, of course, I had little doubt I would find out in the fullness of time, confident that it was yet another spectacular waste of time and effort, based on something like failing to put my initials in the right box on a form that serves no useful purpose and will never be referred to again.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, to learn of a possible assault in the office.
So I went back to Dan and asked him what it was all about. His very brief e-mail, and our subsequent conversation would have made Franz Kafka pack his bag and go home. Baldini and Dzuro were now saying that I had walked along the corridor in such a way that I might have bumped into someone, namely (On the First Occasion) Roberta Baldini, and (On the Second Occasion) Vlad Dzuro, BUT, on both occasions, I did not actually bump into either of them on account of some sort of “evasive action” being taken which averted the minor inter-personal collision that might otherwise have taken place….. had it not NOT taken place.
How this meets any definition of “assault”, either civil or criminal, under any definition, in any jurisdiction, I just don’t know, but hours of amusement were had trying to find out.
More significantly, why had Baldini reported this to the DSS? Having tried and failed to have me investigated at the behest of OIOS for “sabotaging cases” (and just about anything else she could think of) one could guess she was now trying top shop around for anyone who would take her seriously. The DSS provide the uniformed Security Officers who guard UN Buildings, and while their own investigation unit may investigate their own staff, they certainly had no business investigating me for anything, and certainly not for something that the UN designated as a “Category 1 Misconduct”, because that fell under the jurisdiction of OIOS; so I asked what i considered a not unreasonable question about what jurisdiction this DSS ‘Special Investigation Unit’ claimed to have.
That, curiously enough, was filed under ‘Too Hard’ and never answered
The whole things was insane, even by the standards of OIOS which were very far from rational, even on a good day……. and I was well past the stage of expecting common sense from any of the clowns in positions of authority.
So, to put this on record, I e-mailed Stefanovic, with an appraisal of this latest farce and I even provided a voluntary statement for the investigation, which – unsurprisingly – recorded (1) that I had not a bloody clue about this latest piece of nonsense, (2) that it was just that, a LATEST piece of utter nonsense, and (3) that I was willing to co-operate with any investigation on order to clear my name.
I then went on leave for a couple of weeks and went to see the SIU investigator when I got back. It was then that I learned that the complaint against me was not limited to an allegation of criinal assalut, but that I was also accused of bringing a firearm into the office.
A what?
This is not even funny. Given such incidents as the Sandy Hook School Massacre, to accuse someone (particularly in the United States) of being mentally unstable and bringing a firearm to the workplace is about as serious as it is possible to get.
This is what the SIU Investigator was required to ask me……
The interesting observation about all of this is that – again – nobody would ever respond to me. Nobody ever got back to me to tell me I had misunderstood anything. Nobody would would answer my questions about SIU’s jurisdiction. Nobody would ever explain to me why Vlad Dzuro had complained to Dan Wilson about an allegedly “possible assault” on 29 January, but had not followed Baldini and make this complaint to the DSS Special Investigations Unit.
When, on 12 March, my attorney wrote to the UN on my behalf, the UN would not even grant her the courtesy of an acknowledgement…..
The OIOS website proudly extolls the office’s virtues of Integrity, Impartiality, Objectivity and Professionalism. Pardon me for laughing out loud.
Having had by professional reputation thoroughly ruined by Dzuro and Baldini in their attempt to import a PIP that they could not justify, and having repeatedly been denied any opportunity to defend myself, I was now being accused of being a potential security threat. I had no option but to try to defend my professional reputation by whatever legal means might be open to me.
I had no option but to try the New York Supreme Court.
And still, the UN would not even acknowledge that I might have even the tiniest of grievances to be addressed.
Oddly enough, when she found out about the Supreme Court Writ, Baldini did not deny having accused me of assault and did not deny having accused me of bringing a firearm to the office. She only wanted to claim immunity.
While I do not know what was given or said to DSS/SIU, I would later receive a copy of Baldini’s e-mail to Stefanovic. In it, Baldini alleges that I did physically push her. Had I done so, that would have been a criminal assault, but had I done so, I also think I would have remembered…..
Wait a minute, in her e-mail, Baldini tells Stefanovic that she would be “asking the courts for an order of protection.”(I am only sorry that she did not do so, because all I ever wanted was an opportunity to have my reputation cleared, and to defend myself in open court.)
When I tried to take the matter to court, however, Baldini screams for immunity; so it is fine for her to ask for the US court for an order of protection against me – but it is not acceptable for me to have access to the US courts to defend myself from accusations leveled at me by her.
Am I the only one having some intellectual difficulty with this?
Lapointe, who had not been interested when I complained that the PIP was harassment and an abuse of authority. Never having been to university, she may be excused for never having heard of the nemo iudex in causa sua concept,and demonstrated that she shared Baldini and Dzuro’s very strange ideas about what an investigation was supposed to be, when she picked sides and supported Baldini and Dzuro in trying to impose the very thing I had complained about,
She clearly has a very strange and tolerant ideas about the standards of “integrity, impartiality, objectivity and professionalism required of an OIOS/ID Section Chief. The Deschamps Panel Report later to find that Lapointe abused her authority in taking action against Anders Kompass, but this did not come as a surprise.
Kompass was stitched up by an unholy alliance of Lapointe, Dubinsky and Malcorra. That would be Lapointe who had failed to handle my original harassment and abuse of authority complaint in accordance with ST/AI/2008/5. Dubinsky who refused to make a finding that I experienced thereafter was “retaliation”, because to do so would involve throwing her friend Lapointe under a bus, and Malcorra who did them both a favour by doing absolutely nothing…..
Having been accused of serious criminal offences, and although the SIU closed the file on the matter, there was clearly not a snowball’s chance in Hell that I was ever going to receive a Clearance Letter……… and of course I never did. The UN did not care about the fate of little children sexually abused in the Central African Republic; because Laws do not apply to senior officials of the UN, and OIOS exists to carry out the will of the Chef de Cabinet and her coven. Why should I expect the UN to give a flying damn about me or my professional reputation? I could be accused of literary anything, the UN was certainly not going to stop it. The UN was certainly not interested in taking action against Baldini for making misconduct reports in bad faith.
Accountability in the UN? Don’t make me laugh.