MGMT 6213: Managing Ethics in the Workplace and Market Place

David Scher of The Employment Law Group® on Citigroup Whistleblower Sherry Hunt

Hello, my name is David Scher, and I am an attorney with The Employment Law Group law firm. The purpose of today's video blog is to honor and celebrate Sherry Hunt, a former employee of Citigroup, who blew the whistle on hundreds of millions of dollars of mortgage fraud. As a result of Sherry Hunt's brave actions, over a hundred million dollars was returned to the US treasury. Tax payer fraud committed by Citigroup over a number of years.

What happened here is really interesting. There really are three key facts that are important to know. First of all, Sherry Hunt, who was an employee of Citigroup, and her specific job was to disclose and ferret out fraud, had reported that fraud to all of her employers, all of her supervisors through the chain of command of the company. Instead of acknowledging her efforts and correcting the fraud, Citigroup kept the fraud ongoing, kept persisting and tried to bury it, and in fact, that led to Sherry Hunt's ultimate demise from the company. The second interesting fact here is the return of over 100 million dollars to tax payers. The fraud Citigroup committed here was involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government sponsored entities. You may recall, that just recently, government and the tax payers paid over 400 million dollars to bail out Citigroup, and what did Citigroup do? It committed fraud with those dollars; so at least, we have returned some money back to the tax payers and back to the US treasury. The third interesting fact here is that Sherry Hunt was paid 31 million dollars for her efforts. And that may seem like, well it is a lot of money, but that may seem maybe like it seems like it's too much to you. But think about this, Sherry Hunt was inside the company. She disclosed the fraud to no avail.

She risked her job. She risked being blackballed. She risked her entire career, went to the US government and bravely stood up for what is right. That takes a tremendous amount of courage, guts and bravery. We believe that tax payers and individuals, and employees in companies who understand and disclose fraud should be awarded for their efforts handsomely. They should be rewarded and encouraged to report fraud, so that fraud can be corrected, and so that money belonging to tax payers can be returned to them. If you are an employee in a company and you know of government fraud, there is something you can do about it. Contact a lawyer.

The Employment Law Group law firm is experts in these types of cases, and we can help you too. Just give us a call, or check out our website at www.employmentlawgroup.com. Thanks and have a great day!