You might have come across various harassment cases but this one is different. It also involves the Waste Management Authority.
So, today I’ll be uncovering the Roger E. Merritt Jr. case and explain this entire lawsuit unfolded:
Lawsuit Alleges Harassment, Retaliation by Roger Merritt and Waste Management Authority
At the beginning of this month, a civil lawsuit was submitted to the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands. The complaint contains startling allegations of sexual harassment, intimidation, retribution, and mismanagement at the Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority. The allegations revolve around the behaviour of Roger E. Merritt Jr., who is the executive director of the VIWMA.
Counsel Lee Rohn, acting on behalf of Nadine Noorhasan, has filed a lawsuit against Merritt, claiming that Merritt harassed her by engaging in an inappropriate romantic connection with his junior officer. This relationship is said to have come to an end when he resigned from the agency in 2018, although Noorhasan alleges that he attempted to renew things with her after his return two years later. As a result of her refusal, Merritt allegedly began to exact retribution, which included generating disciplinary issues and finally demoting her in favour of someone who, according to her, was entirely unqualified to fill the job from which she was removed. This is according to the lawsuit.
Both Merritt and WMA are named as defendants in the 25-page complaint that was submitted earlier this month. The complaint asks for a jury trial on six counts, the first of which states that Noorhasan was subjected to discrimination on the basis of her gender by the defendants. The second count states that she was subjected to sexual harassment by Merritt with the knowledge of WMA, which allegedly endorsed said conduct by doing nothing to stop it. A jury trial is requested on all six counts.
Third, that Noorhasan was subjected to retribution by Merritt as a result of her refusal to accept his approaches, and that Waste Management was allegedly complicit in the retaliation that was committed against Noorhasan. In addition, Noorhasan asserts that Merritt and WMA violated their obligation to treat her in a fair and honest manner through their interactions with her.
As part of her complaint, Noorhasan asserts that the Waste Management Authority violated the territorial Whistleblowers Protection Act when it suspended her after she reported the authority’s violations of prevailing regulations and the consent decree that is currently in place against WMA. This broadens the scope of the complaint beyond the treatment of herself as a professional and employee of the agency.
Furthermore, she stated that the agency’s personnel shuffles, which included the removal of her from her position as Compliance Management and Enforcement director in favour of someone who was not qualified to fill the position, have resulted in economic losses for taxpayers in the Commonwealth of Virginia, including Noorhasan.
In the complaint, Noorhasan’s employment history at VIWMA is detailed. It was in October of 2013 when she started working as a Compliance Manager, earning a yearly salary of $65,000 in addition to benefits. 2016 was the year that Roger Merritt became the executive director of the company. Noorhasan was working as the Compliance Management and Enforcement director by March 2017, and her remuneration had been commensurately increased to $85,000. This was due to the advice of the previous head of the WMA, who had recommended that she be hired for this position.
She admits to having a personal interaction with Merritt, who was her supervisor at the time, and claims that he presented her with the impression that it was a committed romantic relationship. According to Noorhasan, she gained an understanding very quickly that her relationship with Merritt was not exclusive in any sense. She claims that she came to the realisation that Merritt was using her as a pawn despite the fact that she was completing the majority of his work as executive director in addition to her own.
By the middle of 2017, according to Noorhasan, she was authoring Merritt’s presentations and representing him at meetings, all while attempting to convince him to agree to settle down into an exclusive relationship. However, she was unsuccessful. She claims that he misled her into thinking that he would have done so, but she now understands that this was never his purpose.
It was sometime between the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, according to Noorhasan, when Merritt was dragged before the board of directors of the Waste Management Authority because of his engaging in romantic behaviour with his staff. On March 1, 2018, the board members voted to request that Merritt quit, and he subsequently submitted his resignation. Concurrent reporting from the Consortium reveals that when WMA announced Merritt’s departure at the time, they did not disclose the conditions under which he had left. This was the case when they publicly announced his departure.
Noorhasan claims that her relationship with her boss came to an end concurrently with his employment at the agency. According to her, they did not communicate with one another for a period of time until she felt it was safe enough to restart communication with him.
As a result of a lateral shift from her previous position as Compliance Management and Environmental Enforcement director, she was given the additional responsibility of Compliance Management director in May of 2019.
The granting of permits for the usage of landfills was one of her many responsibilities. Despite the fact that she no longer desired anything more than a pleasant relationship with Merritt, Noorhasan declares that she gave in and resumed communicating with her in January of 2020. She did this because she was under the impression that they could be amicable towards each other.
Noorhasan submitted his application for the position of Interim Executive Director of the World Management Association (WMA) in May of 2020, and he was set to be interviewed near the end of the month. She asserts that Merritt had been making covert advances to the board at the same time in the hopes of returning to his post, and she also asserts that he met with Governor Albert Bryan Jr. in Government House on May 21, 2020. Both of these allegations will be discussed further in the following paragraphs.
According to the complaint filed by Noorhasan, Bryan was allegedly working behind the back of the majority of the board to coordinate with Merritt and somehow managed to get Merritt re-appointed as the executive director of the WMA. This occurred despite the fact that Noorhasan herself was allegedly receiving the majority of the support from the board for her appointment to the post. She mentions Norbert Rosado as an individual who resigned from the board due to the issue, and she also mentions that Rosado reduced his argument to paper as well. Noorhasan’s complaint represents the missive as making reference to the governor’s interference with the selection process for the executive director position. This is despite the fact that journalists from the Consortium have not been able to get their hands on a copy of the letter to verify its contents or to get in touch with Rosado himself.
Noorhasan asserts that she was subjected to a campaign of harassment and retaliation when Merritt returned to the VI Waste Management Authority. This campaign began when Merritt returned to the organisation. First and foremost, she claims that Merritt made an unsuccessful attempt to reignite their illicit professional affair. According to Noorhasan, the event that marked the beginning of her work-related trauma was when she declined his advances.
She claims that she was informed in October 2020 that she was required to restart the Compliance Management component of her work, and that Merritt and the chief administrative officer both agreed to a pay raise in order to compensate her for the increased responsibilities that she was taking on. It was stated that the agreement was terminated in January of 2021. At that time, Noorhasan claims that she was informed that there would be no pay raise in the near future, but that she was still expected to carry out the new responsibilities as they were allocated to her.
In addition, she claims that she was advised that the return to the job of director of Compliance Management and Environmental Enforcement would also require a probationary term, despite the fact that she had previously held this particular role. In her attempt to negotiate better terms and conditions, Noorhasan claims that Merritt did not take her into consideration.
In the year 2021, Noorhasan reports that Merritt was still attempting to convince her to consent to the continuation of the personal relationship that they had previously shared. She describes an incident in which he approached her while she was seated and placed his hand on her leg. This caused her to recoil and roll her office chair back so that it was out of his reach. According to Noorhasan, the campaign of vengeance started in earnest after this failure to meet expectations.
During that campaign, Merritt allegedly lied about how the organisation was managing electronic waste, made unfounded criticisms of Noorhasan’s performance, and reprimanded her for faults that were not related to her job responsibilities, according to the lawsuit.
After that, in July of 2021, a job announcement for the position of Environmental Enforcement Manager was distributed by the Works and Management Agency (WMA). It was eventually decided that Vince Hendrickson would be employed not as the enforcement manager but rather as the director of Compliance Management and Environmental Enforcement, which was the post that Noorhasan had previously held.
Hednrickson, on the other hand, is said to lack both the qualifications and the experience necessary to operate well in such a technical job. This is in contrast to Noorhasan, who possesses a doctorate in analytical chemistry and has collected several years of experience in the post. Prior to beginning his employment at WMA, it is said that he worked as a security guard in the office of the governor; this was his previous position. Despite this, Hendrickson is said to have been offered a salary of $100,000, which is an increase of $15,000 from the income that Noorhasan received when she was working in the role. According to the allegations, Hendrickson also took pleasure in driving a brand-new automobile.
Merritt allegedly maintained his campaign of harassment and retribution against Noorhasan, who claims that he demanded control of the licencing process and then allegedly delayed her work for weeks, leaving her with only one or two days to examine and approve the permits. Furthermore, Noorhasan claims that Merritt’s campaign of harassment and retaliation against her continued at the same time. According to her, she was demoted from the position of Compliance Management Director to that of Compliance Manager in November 2021, and she was subjected to a pay loss of $8,000 as a result of the promotion. According to her, her job description was changed such that it now includes “having to do everything she is told” at the same time as other responsibilities.
More on the Roger E. Merritt Jr. Case:
On November 22, 2021, Noorhasan filed a grievance with the Human Resource Department at WMA, opposing the recent changes, which included a demotion, a wage decrease, and an amended job description. This was a bridge that Noorhasan could not cross. According to her, the response from HR was that Merritt, in his capacity as executive director, had the authority to do “whatever he preferred.” The fact that Noorhasan was getting ready to go on vacation is the reason why she claims that she stated that she would be able to deliver an answer once she had returned from her trip. It has been claimed that Human Resources has stated that it will delay the demotion and the pay decrease that would be associated with it until further enquiry is conducted.
This message was made on November 29th, but according to Noorhasan, the demotion and salary cut were pushed through on December 3rd, which was her second day of vacation, and they became effective on December 16th. According to Noorhasan, she requested that her attorney write a letter to WMA detailing these events, and the attorney complied with her request on Christmas Day, December 23, 2021. The authority or Merritt himself has not yet provided her with a response, and she is still waiting for one.
Noorhasan asserts that she made a decision in January 2022, informing the executive director in writing that she would no longer perform functions associated with the jobs of Wastewater administrative assistance, compliance administrative assistant, or legal counsel. These were additional responsibilities for which she had never been compensated, particularly in light of the fact that she had recently been demoted.
During the same time period, she claims that she was advised that her previous position would be taken over by someone else. This individual was not Hendrickson, but rather Anderson Poleon, who was one of the former security personnel affiliated with Governor Bryan. According to the allegations, Poleon, who had previously worked as Bryan’s security chief, does not possess any qualifications or experience that would make him suitable for environmental enforcement or compliance work.
According to Noorhasan, the conditions for the position of Compliance Management and Environmental Enforcement director, which Merritt approved, include the requirement that the selected candidate have a background in science and the qualifications to analyse analytical data. Poleon did not meet these requirements.
According to the allegations, Noorhassan’s newly appointed and presumably untrained boss almost immediately joined Merritt’s campaign of harassment and retribution, writing her up for refusing to comply commands while giving no factual basis for those assertions. Merritt’s campaign targets Noorhassan for her refusal to accept orders. According to Noorhasan, she was compelled to participate in an Employee Assistance Programme that was not to be finished until March 2022 or else she would be terminated.
Not only did Noorhasan assert that her work performance did not warrant her placement on an EAP, but she also claims that in order to safeguard her job, she dutifully followed the instructions that were given to her. However, when she contacted the organisation that administers the programme in question, she was informed that WMA had not executed the recommendation on her behalf. According to Noorhasan, the referral was purposefully left unfinished so that the organisation might come up with a pretext to fire her or terminate her employment.
After Poleon joined WMA, Noorhasan claims that his inability to effectively perform the duties of the job, combined with Merritt’s desire to bend WMA rules and regulations from external agencies, caused WMA to improperly issue landfill disposal permits, which resulted in contaminated soil being accepted for disposal at the Bovoni landfill. Noorhasan says that this was the cause of the situation. Noorhasan filed whistleblower complaints with the Department of Planning and Natural Resources of the Virgin Islands and the United States Environmental Protection Agency regarding possible violations of local and federal regulations as a result of this sequence of events, which journalists from the Consortium will detail in subsequent reporting.
According to Noorhasan, this conduct led to the completion of Merritt’s harassment campaign against her. At some point on June 27, 2022 or shortly afterwards, she was suspended with pay due to what Merritt purportedly claimed was her lack of effort on the job and her restriction of agency operations. Noorhasan claims that this action made the harassment campaign against her more effective. Noorhasan claims that she promptly filed an appeal against the suspension and presented the board with proof to back her side of the story; however, she has not yet received a response to her appeal.
In order to obtain relief, Noorhasan made the decision to file an appeal with the courts because she was unwilling to wait for a response that, similar to the letter she wrote in December 2021, might never arrive.
Roger Merritt, when reached for comment, directed journalists from the Consortium to the legal team of the VI Waste Management Authority. He stated that the legal staff will handle queries on his behalf as well as the agency’s.
In response to several of our enquiries, Governor Bryan has provided an answer. He informed our St. Croix news desk on Tuesday that he did not intentionally intervene with the decision of the WMA board to rehire Merritt as executive director, but that he did support their decision to do so. In addition, Bryan refutes Noorhasan’s assertion that she was the preferred candidate for the role in 2020, when she was being considered for the position.
When asked about it, Bryan informed our news desk that there was another contender who was also ahead of her. The individual arrived, took a look around, and ultimately chose not to accept the position. In his statement, the governor did not elaborate on the reasons why he agreed with the board’s decision to rehire Merritt rather than taking into consideration Noorhasan, who did not have the same background as Merritt. When it comes to her legal action, Bryan shared with us that “everyone deserves due process.”
