Ex-friend files for protection

Sito Negron

Friday, Oct. 10, 2003 | 11:23 a.m.

John Cummings, a former longtime friend of Assemblyman Wendell Williams and a figure at the center of the controversy over hiring a young woman at Community College of Southern Nevada, has filed for whistleblower protection.

Cummings, an instructor and lobbyist for CCSN, has alleged that Williams pressed him to hire Topazia "Briget" Jones, an assistant to Williams who got a job with the college in January.

In return, Williams accused Cummings of using Jones as a go-between in an attempt to sneak through the legislature a bill making CCSN a four-year school. Williams alleged that Cummings did this because he did not want his name attached to the bill.

Jones eventually was transferred to the Green Valley CCSN campus, where she ran into conflicts with her co-workers. Her supervisor fired her before her probationary period was over. Jones was reinstated after she made allegations of improper hiring practices and was told she qualified for whistleblower status at the direction of Chancellor Jane Nichols.

Cummings said in an e-mail to Sun political columnist Jon Ralston that Williams "continues to fail to take responsibility for abusing his position. I continue to wish him well and look forward to his return to a life which will bring credit, once again, to a record of public service, which he has so sadly turned his back on.

"Further, because several individuals continue to try and deflect the behavior from themselves to me, I have applied to the state of Nevada for whistleblower protection," Cummings said in the e-mail to Ralston.

Cummings has attempted to defend himself in the press against his alleged improper hiring practices, but has been asked by Chancellor Jane Nichols to remain silent on the issue.

"The worst thing that can happen is that this is 'tried' in the press," Nichols wrote in an e-mail to Cummings this week, obtained by the Sun. "I will not talk to the press on this issue until the investigation is over. I believe it is wise for you as a CCSN representative at a high level not to talk them either."

But Cummings worried that his silence would be misread as guilt.

"And will you defend me?," Cummings replied. "Will you call my children and explain that their father did nothing wrong -- that his silence is politically necessary?

"I am responsible as are you and others (for the Wendell Williams controversy). But I am not guilty and I will not be perceived that way."

Sun reporter

Jennifer Knight contributed to this story.