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KHMH's Whistleblower: "Intimidation Won't Work."
Fri, December 23, 2011
When we left you last night, KHMH whistleblower Delroy Herrera was in police custody being investigated for handling stolen goods - namely, over ten thousand computer files that he copied from the KHMH's internal server as a former store-room clerk.

Well, it seems Police didn't quite have enough to hold him and Herrera was released at 7:30 pm. He came directly to out studio to tell us he had been freed, and that he would have to go back to the police station today to get two computers that had been confiscated.

And that's where we picked up the story this morning - except that there was a twist - instead of just picking up his computers, Delroy Herrera got picked up, again. His attorney Arthur Saldivar told us more - and we'll have that shortly, but first, Herrera explains what led to his detention yesterday evening:

Delroy Herrera - KHMH Whistleblower
"So, I called in on the KREM talk show, and I spoke to Mose informing him of the situation. I quoted a document that I had on hand. My wife called me and said that police officers were at the house. She said that they had a warrant to confiscate documents and other stuff. After I got the house, I asked them what they were confiscating from my house. He asked me my name, and I told him that my name was Delroy Herrera. He slammed me into the refrigerator, and he wanted to put handcuffs on me. I told him, 'Listen, don't slam me against any refrigerator, whatever you want to take, you can.' They took the computer and the laptop."

Arthur Saldivar - Herrera's Attorney
"Yesterday, he was released without charges at 7:30, and today he came back on request of the superintendent in charge of CIB, Mr. Dawson, to be present while his wife's computers were being examined to determine whether or not files from KHMH were on those computers. Upon attempting to leave the police station, Mr. Herrera was taken into custody, and now he's locked down again. The situation here is one that is certainly rife with abuse. The Government of Belize, I believe, is doing its utmost best to punish a person who they believe have information that is embarrassing to them. It exposes something of a very sinister nature on the part of the Government because it goes beyond KHMH at this point. The police were involved as of yesterday, and I believe that all of this arose from phone calls made to KREM Radio on the WUB talkshow."

Jules Vasquez
"So essentially, you were arrested for calling into a talkshow."

Delroy Herrera
"Well, I was basically arrested for freedom of speech, not for just calling into the talkshow. That was freedom of speech; I called the talkshow, and I got arrested for that. I guess that we have to think now what we are doing."

Jules Vasquez
"What they are claiming is that you broke into the server, and you stole - they're saying - 30,000 files."

Delroy Herrera
"Jules, we used to use jump drives and so forth at KHMH, and Carlos decided that jump drives are no more assets to KHMH and so forth. So they had decided to create folders and so forth each department, and the folders are there to have access to them and so forth. Upon my looking and trying to figure out what is going on with this -"

Jules Vasquez
"So you had access to all these things? You didn't break into a-"

Delroy Herrera
"I didn't break into anything. This was on the server, you don't use any jump drive. If you want to save, you go back, click-"

Jules Vasquez
"Open access."

Delroy Herrera
"Open access to everybody, I didn't break into anything. I didn't have any password to any server or anything like that."

Jules Vasquez
"Okay, so now they are saying that you stole 30,000 files. Did you unlawfully acquire 30,000 files?"

Delroy Herrera
"No, I didn't unlawfully acquire files. The files were there to be used, and I was doing my own investigation on this company, Skill Solutions. And while going through the documents, I decided, 'You know what?' Because they've always been telling us CYA. For all of you don't know what CYA means, it's cover your own... and I decided to cover my ... by citing documents, I can come back and say, 'See, this was what was happening here. This is what you paid for this item at this raised prices.' Or whatever the case may be."

Jules Vasquez
"Now, essentially you are being - you spent two days in the station. Your wife has gone through all kinds of heartache because you face arrest last night; you face arrest again today, essentially because you are a whistleblower."

Delroy Herrera
"That's not our culture in Belize, to be a whistleblower. Once you are a whistleblower, it tends to be that you're deem a threat to something. I'm not really a threat; I'm just letting people know what is going on with their tax-paying dollars. Do you understand what I am coming from?"

Jules Vasquez
"Delroy, are afraid going into Christmas weekend that you might face arrest?"

Delroy Herrera
"Jules, the way I see it is that every time I open my mouth, I will be arrested. So, what they are trying to do is to keep on arresting me, and I will wake up and realize that if I don't want to spend a next hours here, I need to relax myself."

Jules Vasquez
"Will you be intimidated by that?"

Delroy Herrera
"I will not be intimidated by that."

Arthur Saldivar
"It exposes the fact that whatever he has is of such import and concern to the Government, that they would take out all the stops, go the whole nine, to seek to silence him."

Delroy Herrera
"You guys terminated me unfairly, so you gave me a voice. Now, you are detaining me each and everyday unfairly. Now, you're fueling my fight."

And that fight is being waged with documentary evidence. He discussed one particularly eye-brow-raising piece with us today:

Delroy Herrera
"We sent our first purchase-order to Skills Solutions. When we sent the first purchase-order, the purchases did not come in completeness. It's like you are paying for 100 pairs of shoes; you receive 18 pairs of shoes, but the Director wants us to put in the 100 pairs of shoes. I started to question that, so I started to do my own little investigation on certain little things that are going on. I went on Google Maps, pulled up the 6710 12th South Street, Pembroke Pine, and it appeared to be a bungalow house in a residential area. So I brought it to the attention of the clerk, the President Clerk. I told him they are 'messing around' because it was there that all the money was going. We were paying for an item $245 US that we could have gotten locally for $225. Come on, we need to stop playing around."

We tried to reach the KHMH for comment yesterday but their public relations person did not respond to our requests for information.

We did however get a call from a Crown Counsel in the Solicitor General's office cautioning us that this is a "legal and police matter" and we would get into, quote "hot water" if we pressed on with publishing any information from the Herrera files.

Herrera's hard drive has over ten thousand files - he says none of them are patient files - but many of them do raise serious questions.

Again, there is no comment forthcoming from the KHMH - and we could not reach financial controller Carlos Perrera by phone today.

Tonight Delroy Herrera's Desktop Computer remains in police custody. The hard drive - we have been assured - has been copied to various portable media.

And, before we close off on this story for tonight, an important backdrop to the entire episode is that first, Herrera was terminated in September. At that point he went to seek intercession from various high level functionaries in the UDP. That is because he is known as a UDP supporter. He told them he would rather not release the information - if the terms of his departure from the KHMH were cleared up - so that it would not seem he was fired for fighting.

That didn't work out, which brings us to where we are now...

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