Rhode Island Airport Corporation Investigation Expands

Rhode Island Airport Corporation Investigation Expands

The Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC), through its attorney, is directing a number of employees to preserve evidence and records pertinent to an ongoing investigation tied to employees allegedly violating policies.

On October 1, RIAC CEO Iftikhar Ahmad announced that the board had authorized an investigation and the potential for legal action against anonymous emailers that have engaged in “tortious interference” harming airport operations.

On Wednesday, RIAC issued the following statement: 

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As part of the internal investigation initiated by RIAC last month, various individuals received a notice from attorney Marc DeSisto today directing recipients to preserve evidence in anticipation of litigation. DeSisto is the attorney leading the investigation.

The letter instructs individuals on how they should preserve evidence and the types of evidence that must be preserved related to any potential actions they may have undertaken or actions that they may be aware of by others to cause reputational harm to the airport or impact its operations.  Recipients were both current and former employees as well as union members and nonunion members.

Although there were efforts to create reputational harm in the past, the investigation wasn’t initiated until false information was put into the public domain stating that an employee walkout would severely impact operations at the airport on August 13, 2024.

This initiative triggered the Federal Aviation Administration’s involvement, which required RIAC to activate its federally regulated continuity of operations plan. This action caused RIAC hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff time, contractor pay and legal fees, which continue to accumulate. 

“It is unfortunate that it has come to this, but this investigation is required to ensure that individuals – regardless of their motivations - will not impact our ability to fulfill our mission, provide Rhode Islanders with an abundance of direct routes, fulfill obligations to our airline partners and serve as a true economic engine for the State of Rhode Island,” stated Brittany Morgan, senior vice president of legal affairs and human resources.

This investigation is just one of the personnel issues at RIAC.

Last week, RIAC alleged that Steven Parent, a recently fired top fire department official, trespassed, got into an altercation, and took airport materials without authorization.

The RIAC Police Department is investigating the matter, and GoLocal has learned that the matter is ongoing.

According to RIAC, “At approximately 9:30 am this morning [Friday, November 1], Mr. Steven Parent, a recently terminated lieutenant at RIAC’s fire department, criminally trespassed and gained unauthorized access to a secured area of the airport.”

"Parent verbally attacked RIAC’s deputy fire chief and asked the deputy fire chief to escalate the verbal altercation off airport property. Additionally, he took possession of RIAC property without authorization and removed it from the premises,” said RIAC in a statement.

 

Documents in Question

RIAC says that recipients have a "duty to preserve evidence" - and the following: 

This duty not only includes paper records, but electronic records as well.

This obligation to preserve records applies to documents of every kind, whether in hard copy or electronic form, including e-mails, voicemail, including on personal phones, instant messaging, letters, memoranda, notes, drawings, designs, calendars, correspondence, or communications of any kind, and applies even where retention would otherwise not be required by normal document retention policies and practices. If you have utilized proton.me and/or other anonymous email accounts, you must also preserve these communications.  

A failure to preserve evidence (both records and electronic information, including a failure to preserve metadata - data about when files are created, edited, saved, etc.), may be punishable by sanctions imposed by the Court. The consequences of a failure to preserve will vary depending on the circumstances but may include: regulatory fines and penalties; civil litigation consequences such as increased litigation costs, fines, adverse inference instructions, default judgment and civil contempt; vicarious liability for responsible senior management; and criminal liability for organizations and individuals.

This story was first published at 11/13/24 6:05 PM