Pate, Johnson & Church has successfully represented whistleblowers for many years and has obtained a number of very large settlements on behalf of their whistleblower clients.
In this case, our client worked for GardaWorld Federal Service, LLC as a unit support coordinator within the emergency response team in Kabul, Afghanistan. Our firm filed a complaint against GardaWorld and its subsidiary, Aegis Defense Services, on behalf of our client. We alleged that the federal government paid millions of dollars more than it should have for untrained and unfit private security staff that were sent to Afghanistan to protect the United States Embassy and other government facilities. Our firm also filed a subsequent amended complaint, which further alleges that despite the requirements of GardaWorld’s contract with the federal government, which requires guards to receive classroom and hands on training, GardaWorld falsified training records and misled the federal government.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution spoke with Attorney Jess Johnson for his comments on the case. Jess told the AJC that “Fahn, a GardaWorld unit support coordinator, discovered the training deficiencies while stationed in Afghanistan.” Jess also explained that “Fahn and other GardaWorld personnel were involved in vital security tasks to defend the embassy, including armed patrols and searching for suicide bombers,” and “The State Department wasn’t getting what they were paying for…The State Department thought they were getting competent guards.”
The attorneys for GardaWorld have filed a Motion to Dismiss the case and denies the allegations in our complaint, explaining that the alleged fraud was “minor technical issues of the kind that the government has been aware of for more than a decade.”
If GardaWorld’s Motion to Dismiss is not successful, the case is scheduled for trial in March 2023. If successful, whistleblowers like Mr. Fahn generally receive part of the total settlement under the False Claims Act in these types of cases.
