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Remember Fleishman-Hillard? The PR agency's former boss in Los Angeles, Doug Dowie, has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit over losing his $370,000-a-year job in January, the L.A. Business Journal reports.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that the public relations firm only fired him because it needed a “scapegoat” and had to “curry favor” with federal investigators who are investigating the firm’s public contracts.Fleishman, “in an act of cowardice, summarily placed plaintiff on paid administrative leave, all the while assuring him that, ‘We are not trying to distance ourselves from you’ and that it was only trying to ‘diffuse (sic) the situation,’” the suit states.
Dowie has been at the center of a storm after allegations surfaced last July that the public relations firm overbilled the city in its $3 million annual contract with the Department of Water and Power. That prompted him to be put on paid leave, while federal investigations are now also looking into public contracting at the city’s airport and harbor departments – a matter that has become a contentious issue in the current Los Angeles mayoral race.
Dowie and his deputy John Stodder were let go at the same time, a week before Stodder was indicted on federal charges in connection with allegedly false billings to the city. Stodder has pleaded not guilty.
Previously: Massacre at Fleishman-Hillard