Collateral Damage – the Hidden Pain of the Whistleblower

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When people think of Whistleblowing – at least, in my experience – they generally picture a conscientious person willing to reveal corporate evil-doing in spite of the likely repercussions.

What this definition does not encompass is what I “Collateral Damage” – the profound impact on that person’s family.  Once the job is lost, and the income disappears, what happens next may not be predictable but it cannot but be painful.

Our guest today on “15 Minutes of Fact” is Alicia Marie Almonte, daughter of a widely-known corporate whistleblower Linda Almonte.  She will share her personal experience with you…an ongoing emotional, physical and economic storm that has tossed her and her brother and sisters’ lives about like matchsticks for almost three full years…and it is still taking its toll.

For those who aren’t aware of Alicia’s mother, Linda Almonte, this woman has been involved in an ongoing battle with JPMorgan Chase over her dismissal from that banking firm for refusing to sign off on the sale of bad credit card debt totaling just under a Quarter-Billion Dollar.

Her case has received national attention and press, including the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, American Banker, locally with the San Antonio Express-News, and a visit from 60 Minutes.

(One of my earlier blogs on this can be found here:  http://onforb.es/rBcd07.  The original NYTimes article in which Linda first introduced the term “robosigning” is here:  http://nyti.ms/95nybU.)

This is not an easy subject for Alicia to discuss.  When her mother lost her job she was only 10 years old, and now – three years forward – she is 13 and struggling to recover her equilibrium.

Her calm recitation (“It was hard” is repeatedly used) of the pain of leaving behind school friends and a school which she attended from the second grade, knowing that there was “never enough” money, and that there was no guarantee that they could keep the roof over their head, is remarkable for its maturity.

A maturity reached in a fashion that I don’t believe any of my listeners and friends in social media would wish on their own child…tossed about like a matchstick in an emotional, physical and economic storm as “collateral damage” of her mother being fired for being a whistleblower.

As always, feedback is appreciated, as is your helping to cause this story to become viral.  You can reach Alicia Almonte by emailing me at: WrittenOffUSA@gmail.com or tweeting me at @WrittenOffUSA.