Steve Kapani’s good deed didn’t go unpunished. After Kapani, 36, told city officials that he suspected charter school executive Brenda L. Belton was siphoning public money for herself and her friends, Kapani was labeled “disgruntled” by Board of Education President Peggy Cooper Cafritz and relieved of his duties.
He was on paid administrative leave for more than a year, until he hired prominent whistle-blowing attorney Mona Lyons and threatened to sue. He settled for an undisclosed sum and resigned.
Kapani was the key witness against Belton, and the documents he provided to investigators made up the backbone of the case against her. Belton is scheduled to plead guilty to corruption charges today.
But Kapani is still looking for work.
In an exclusive pair of interviews with The Examiner, Kapani said that he was caught off-guard by the way the case unraveled.
“I never expected to be put on administrative leave,” he said. “I had done nothing wrong.”
Short and slightly built, Kapani talks with a slight wheeze from his chronic asthma. He said he thought a long time before coming forward with his evidence. He liked Belton personally and he liked his job. Yet he couldn’t look away from the evidence.
“It was the toughest decision of my life,” he said. “You’re basically alone.”
On the first day of his suspension, he told his two daughters that he would be working from home. He got them ready for school and then sat by the phone, sure that school officials would call him back to work.
“I thought, initially, it was going to be a couple of weeks,” he said. “Then I thought it was going to be a month and then when months went by, I just kept wishing and hoping. I thought, ‘Okay, it’s going to be this week or this month.’ ”
Lyons, his lawyer, said that Kapani reached a “low point” when he read a newspaper story where one of his former employers referred to him as “disgruntled.”
“That was a big blow,” Lyons said. “It really took him down a notch.”
District Council Member Tommy Wells, D-Ward 6, was on the school board at the time. He said he is still angry at the way Kapani was treated.
“He represents the best in a public servant,” Wells said.
Wells said he is lobbying Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration to hire Kapani and put him back into the school system.
“The government owes Steve a debt of gratitude,” he said.
Kapani said he is not sure. Asked whether he would ever blow the whistle again, he was silent for a full three minutes.
“I’d like to believe I could,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “But I’m not sure. I mean, look what happened to me.”
