Tara Reid. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
Was a former Blue Shield chief technology officer fired for using a company credit card for an Australian film-premiere tryst with his then-girlfriend, American Pie raunchy star Tara Reid?
Or was he ousted because he was a whistleblower when his boss allegedly cost the company $3 million in excessive expenses on a data collection project, as a plaintiff’s attorney for the fired tech expert told a jury Tuesday.
But a defense lawyer for the insurer countered that the plaintiff lost his job for abusing his company credit card with personal expenses, including the costs of joining then-girlfriend Reid during a movie premiere in Australia and at an outing at a bowling alley where a risque photo of the actress was shot.
David Peter Cwiklo, for Aaron Kaufman, and Barry Lee, for Blue Shield, gave their differing sides of the issue during opening statements in the Los Angeles Superior Court trial of the plaintiff’s whistleblower lawsuit against the insurance giant.
Kaufman was hired in March 2013 as Blue Shield’s vice president and chief technology officer at an annual salary of $350,000, according to his lawsuit. His boss was Michael Mathias, who hired the plaintiff and was the insurer’s senior vice president and chief information officer, the suit states.
According to Cwiklo, Kaufman brought many innovative ideas to the company that saved $60 million. Cwiklo said his client became concerned when Mathias gave the data collection contract to tech vendor MBI Solutions without having the project put out as usual to bid, a company that Mathias had also given work to when he worked at Aetna.
MBI continually missed deadlines on the Blue Shield project and did generally poor work, prompting Kaufman to decide, “We need to remove the cancer,” according to Cwiklo.
Kaufman told Mathias he could get the same job done through another vendor at a cost of $1.5 million, $3 million less than what MBI was charging, Cwiklo said.
“Mr. Kaufman wanted to stop the bleeding,” Cwiklo said.
But Mathias rejected Kaufman’s idea and blamed him for problems with the project, Cwiklo said.
Kaufman became so concerned he asked for a meeting in early March 2015 with Blue Shield CEO Paul Markovich, but that meeting was canceled, Cwiklo said.
Before Kaufman could attend his rescheduled meeting with Markovich and a day prior to when he was scheduled to receive a bonus, the plaintiff was suspended and later fired after being questioned about his use of his company credit card to pay for personal expenses, said Cwiklo, who acknowledged that his client charged some personal expenses to the company card.
Cwiklo also said the company justified his firing in part for a photograph someone took of Reid while she was straddling two bowling balls at the Lucky Strike Lanes in San Francisco in January 2015. Kaufman organized the bowling contest as a team-building event and changed its focus to a personal rather than a business outing when many of the employees brought their spouses and significant others along with them, Cwiklo said.
Reid’s appearance with the bowling balls was related to her appearance in the 1998 film “The Big Lebowski,” in which she portrayed the young trophy wife of a character in the film, according to Cwiklo.
“She was spoofing the movie,” Cwiklo said, adding that Blue Shield believed the photo, still on the Internet, damaged the company’s reputation. Kaufman was elsewhere in the bowling alley when the photo was taken, Cwiklo said.
But Lee told jurors Kaufman was fired for his excessive personal spending on his company credit card, not for reporting any wrongdoing by Mathias. He said Kaufman’s retaliation argument was pretextual.
“There’s no whistle to blow here,” Lee said. “It’s a diversionary tactic, don’t be fooled.”
One of Kaufman’s heftiest misuses of his credit card was his trip to Australia in 2014, where he claimed to have attended a health conference at the G20 summit at the recommendation of former Apple CEO John Sculley, according to Lee.
In fact, there was no such conference at the summit and Sculley did not know Kaufman, Lee said. Kaufman actually went to Australia to join Reid during a premiere of her movie, “Charlie’s Farm,” according to Lee.
Lee said Kaufman spent the entire trip with Reid. He played for jurors a clip of her video deposition.
“He (Kaufman) said he wanted to come and visit and was it OK,” Reid said. “I thought it was strange because I really didn’t know him that well.”
Reid said she agreed to let Kaufman join her after she got advice from her publicist.
“Mr. Kaufman repeatedly violated company policy,” Lee said, who is asking the jury to find that Kaufman does not deserve any damages and that he should reimburse the company the $86,000 the lawyer said the plaintiff owes Blue Shield.
–City News Service
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