A federal ethics officer retired from his post after a watchdog report found he drank heavily and visited strip clubs while on duty.
An inspector general report released Friday found that Michael McKenna, the general counsel and ethics officer for the National Credit Union Administration, and his deputy Lara Daly-Sims allegedly violated multiple statutes and federal ethics rules while on the job, including illegal drug use, time/attendance fraud, and misuse of official time.
“The investigation substantiated the allegations that McKenna and Daly-Sims drank alcohol and went to strip clubs during work hours. McKenna and Daly-Sims both stated in their interviews that they drank alcohol and went to strip clubs during work hours,” the report reads.
However, the IG report notes that the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia declined to prosecute McKenna for the violations.
McKenna and Daly-Sims visited strip clubs on multiple occasions, beginning in 2017. McKenna resigned from his post in November 2019, one day after being informed by Executive Director Mark Treichel that he would be subject to drug tests. Daly-Sims attributed all violations to McKenna, claiming it was his “idea” to visit strip clubs and consume alcohol.
“Daly-Sims said that going out drinking or to a strip club was always McKenna’s idea and that she told him that she was concerned about getting in trouble. Daly-Sims felt like she was a target in the office because the employees in OGC had low morale due to a change in telework policy and that she was being swept up in the anger about that,” the report reads.
“As a single mother, Daly-Sims was afraid of losing her job, while McKenna did not have concerns because he was already eligible for retirement. When Daly-Sims raised her concerns, McKenna said that if anyone reported this to the Inspector General, they should just say they were offsite at a planning session.”
Daly-Sims resigned from her post at the National Credit Union Administration in January 2020. Cathy Harris, Daly-Sims’s attorney, expressed frustration with the report, saying it failed to “mention or investigate her complaints of sexual harassment.”
“We are dismayed that the IG investigation failed to mention or investigate her complaints of sexual harassment,” Harris wrote. “We are appalled that the IG publicly released a report with the name of sexual harassment victim without her consent.”
Marta Erceg, the agency’s assistant inspector general, responded by saying, “We generally don’t investigate sexual harassment claims. We focus our resources on misconduct that has criminal implications.”
