The Department of Veterans Affairs Sunshine Healthcare Network is conducting an internal review of how a veteran in the custody of the Bay Pines VA Police Department was able to overdose on drugs, said Bay Pines spokesman Jason Dangel.
The veteran, Carl Giordano, 61, of St. Petersburg, was charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, a second degree felony and possession of a controlled substance, a third degree felony, according to Pinellas County Jail Records.
It is unclear from court records when Giordano overdosed and Dangel didn’t have that information Tuesday evening. Citing an ongoing investigation among other reasons, the Department of Veterans Affairs on July 28 denied a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Tribune two weeks earlier seeking police records for the arrest of Giordano and another veteran, Thomas Stewart, who was charged with one count of possession of hydrocodone and one count of possession of a controlled substance. Stewart, 54, was booked on July 9.
The review is being conducted by the VA Sunshine Healthcare Network, which oversees VA healthcare in Florida, southern Georgia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, said Dangel, who offered no more details about the review or when it might be completed.
The review “takes a look at how we could have prevented something like that from happening,” said Dangel. A common practice, “they are used as an opportunity to learn, improve and validate our business practices in accordance with local and national policy and regulations,” he said in an email last week.
Giordano, in both a video visitation at the Pinellas County Jail and via telephone, has declined comment.
Giordano was released last week after posting $6,000 bond, according to court records.
Stewart, in a video visitation from the jail, said that he has known Giordano for about three years, but that the hydrocodone in his possession was his own prescription and that VA police placed a different hydrocodone pill in his bag when he refused to inform on Giordano.
Tuesday evening, Dangel declined comment about Stewart’s allegation.
The Bay Pines Police also came under fire Tuesday night at a Veteran’s Town Hall held at the VA St. Petersburg Regional Office.
Marla Moon asked Bay Pines VA Healthcare System Director Suzanne Klinker for a meeting to talk about why employees at the heart of a $1.3 million lawsuit settlement were still working at the police department. Moon said that her brother, Chad Di Maria, a former Bay Pines Police Officer and one of those who settled with the department, killed himself last year over stress resulting from harassment by supervisors.
The lawsuit, filed in 2010, alleged the VA engaged in “a pattern and practice of retaliation and hostile retaliatory work environment” toward those making Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints or serving as witnesses on behalf of others.
His ex-wife, Kendra DiMaria, told The Tribune at the time that the stress from the police department was a contributing factor. She uses a different spelling of the last name.
“The events at Bay Pines took a toll on these officers and unfortunately contributed to the end of my marriage. Many would say (friends, family, me) that Chad Di Maria was not the same thereafter,” she said last month in a text message.
Kendra DiMaria, is also a former Bay Pines law enforcement officer and a plaintiff in the suit who settled for $300,000. She alleged in the suit that her problems with management began in the summer of 2009 when a supervisor began making sexual innuendos, according to a lawsuit she and other former and current officers filed in 2010 against the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Moon said that her brother’s life began to spiral downward after standing up for Kendra DiMaria.
Klinker, who did not become director until 2012 – after the DiMarias had left the department – said several reviews of the police department found no systemic wrongdoing. Klinker declined a meeting, referring Di Maria to the VA regional counsel.
After the meeting was over, Moon expressed dismay.
“I just want to know why those people are still working there,” she said. “My brother can’t stand up for himself anymore, so I have to.”