A Colorado lawmaker, Doug Lamborn, has been accused of breaching covid social distancing guidelines. A lawsuit has been filed against Doug Lamborn for his recent actions which have not gone well with the current state of the coronavirus pandemic. One of the claims in the lawsuit holds that Doug Lamborn has let his son live in a storage area in the U.S. Capitol for over 14 days now after his son had relocated from his workplace.
The lawsuit was filed by Mr Lamborn’s former staff, Brandon Pope, on Thursday in Washington DC. Brandon Pope was a worker in Lamborn’s Colorado Springs District Office. He worked as a defense and business adviser. Mr Pope’s complaint is significantly directed against Lamborn’s alleged poor work ethics on keeping with current coronavirus social distancing measures and how he (Mr Pope) was allegedly badly retaliated against by Mr Lamborn for speaking against his actions.
Lamborn though having denied this claims, has shown special interest in the claim about his son. According to the claim in the lawsuit, Lamborn was accused of giving his son the liberty to live in a Congressional Space even amidst the pandemic.
Lamborn has come out to speak against the allegations. He has denied those claims. According to Lamborn, his son was only given temporary housing permit as his guest and not a permanent stay. Lamborn explained that the housing market in Washington is too tight and so his son needed a place to stay before he gets a new job at the Pentagon. More information were requested but no response was gotten.
Mr Pope’s suit had more claims that Lamborn refused to implement the covid-19 measures in both of his offices and this action resulted in the spread of the coronavirus infection amongst his staffs. Mr Pope further went on to claim that Mr Lamborn had instructed his staffs not to tell anybody that they had close contact with a person that has the infection. Mr Pope claims that Mr Lamborn had referred to the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax and did not instruct his staffs to wear masks and observe social distancing measures.
Further claims from Pope have it that Lamborn was in contact with his deputy staff who had the virus but instead of isolating himself, told another staff that whether or not his staffs got infected was not his concern and that he was not going to wear a mask or isolate himself.
According to the lawsuit, “As of approximately April 2020, Representative Lamborn was operating both the District and D.C. Offices at maximum staff occupancy levels…..Unlike other offices, Representative Lamborn declared all of his employees to be ‘essential’ and instructed them to ignore local and state shelter-in-place rules.”
Mr Lamborn’s spokeswoman, Cassandra Sebastian, in an interview with PEOPLE defended Mr Lamborn’s actions and described Pope’s claims as “unsubstantiated”. In her words: “The workplace safety allegations made by Mr. Pope are unsubstantiated and did not result in the termination of his employment. Congressman Lamborn looks forward to full vindication as all facts come to light.”
Pope however is still seeking justice and has said that he has suffered some form of emotional setbacks because of the damage done by Mr Lamborn’s retaliation.
