NEWS: Los Alamos Lab Whistleblower Beaten

Tommy Hook, one of two Los Alamos National Laboratory whistleblowers who are suing the lab, was attacked and beaten outside the Santa Fe, New Mexico, topless nightclub, Cheeks. According to his wife, one of the assailants warned Hooks to keep his "mouth shut." Hooks, a former internal auditor who still works at Los Alamos in another capacity, was going to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a few weeks.



Problems at Los Alamos Labs have become almost legendary and currently a change in management is underway. The Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, was Secretary of Energy during some of the escapades at Los Alamos. Clearly, someone wants Hook to keep quiet about something, besides embarrassing him by jumping him outside a topless nightclub. Hook's attorney says that he was lured there by someone claiming to have evidence of financial wrongdoing at the lab.

Related News Links:
www.govexec.com
www.sfweekly.com
www.signonsandiego.com
www.sfgate.com

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Proof Of Dulce Base (Finding more and more clues every day)
www.abovetopsecret.com...


[edit on 05/6/6 by GradyPhilpott]

Send this man down to Witness Protection Program Wonderland!
If the person who did this, works at the lab, and wasn't just hired by someone who works at the lab, then it should be a rather simple matter of finding the employees with bruised knuckles.
Assuming they didn't use a big stick to do the dirty deed.

I agree, give him what he wants. Protection, money, a new life. I want to know all about the goodies going on there.

By the way, I don't think even if he goes into the witness protection program he will survive long. Unless.........he goes public and makes this big.

My intuition tells me that Tommy Hooks must not be the only person around Los Alamos with bombshell disclosures. If they (that nebulous 'powers-that-be' thingy) had wanted him dead, there can be no doubt Tommy Hooks would have been room temperature by now, and probably by some 'accident' or 'suicide'.

Maybe the recent Deep Throat nostalgia has some powerful people worried, and indeed that revelation made me ask myself "Why now?"

folk act like this is uncommon--folk this happens all over this country--i work in a local citizens group for reporting questionable action by official /people. over the years working here -there have been many people beat up threatened and killed--my first experience of killing was a lady local that was to teatify about -sherrif office -insureance agent-fire investigator and a scam over burnt homes--she was killed -ran off road into creek- the night before her verbal testimony to a grand jury--the fact that there was a vidio recorded statement made proior and the evidence could not be denied-are the only reason that the case was able to go on after her death-- this is only one case i know i know of lots others including personally being fire bombed and losing my home and 2children over my involvement being an activist. wake up folk--it is the people that get out of mental apathy dispite possible personal frees or repercussions from others-into actions to change a wrong that will save this world if it is possible- temperance

This doesn't surprise me. People in government and big business know to cover their asses. Intimidation and stealing the work of others is how they were able to get the cushy jobs at the top to begin with.

I'm wondering if he's escalating the melodrama.

Guys, he was outside a TOPLESS NIGHTCLUB. In case you're not familiar with the environment, you get lots of fights in these areas, usually over some girl inside. These businesses are regulated, and I'm pretty sure that this one isn't next door to the place where he's working and that he got hopped all over as he was crossing the parking lot.

Honestly, if the guy was my husband, I'd be asking a LOT of questions about why he was there at that time of night and what he was doing. Telling the wife "I was jumped by someone trying to kill me for whistleblowing" would be accpeted by some women... but you've got to ask yourself why he was there in the first place and how they tracked him down.

And if you and your buddies are going to punch someone out, are you going to wait until they're in a fairly public parking lot (where there could be a lot of passers-by) to do it or are you going to pick some out-of-the-way spot for an assault. Isn't it more likely that a parking lot attack outside a bar-topless joint was fueled by something getting out of hand inside the joint (like every other parking lot fight ever recorded at these places?)

I think he's full of hooey, personally. I could be wrong, but I think he's lying (unless it's a regular hangout for him and the guys he blew the whistle on. THEN the assault makes sense. But random stranger violence in a topless club parking lot... no.)

[edit on 7-6-2005 by Byrd]

Originally posted by Byrd
I'm wondering if he's escalating the melodrama.

Guys, he was outside a TOPLESS NIGHTCLUB. In case you're not familiar with the environment, you get lots of fights in these areas, usually over some girl inside. These businesses are regulated, and I'm pretty sure that this one isn't next door to the place where he's working and that he got hopped all over as he was crossing the parking lot.

And a crappy one at that... Cheeks is a poor excuse for that kind of entertainment and is not in the safest section of Santa Fe. It's about 45 miles from Los Alamos on Cerrillos Road, my gut tells me that this probably isn't related to his whistle blowing, and more likely related to a gringo with poor decision making ability, or a propensity for being outspoken in the wrong forum (that would be running your mouth without anything to back it up). There is considerable gang activity in this area, and is a police blotter staple.

LANL Monkeys, not just the entertainment director anymore...

Byrd, it says he was lured there. He recieved a phone call requesting him to meet at the bar. This kind of thing happens a lot when your testifying against someone. I'm surprised he wasn't killed to keep him quiet.

1. Guys goes to strip club and gets drunk and buys lap dances
2. Gets into arguement and leaves
3. Gets ass kicked outside
4. "They told me to keep my mouth shut" is better than "Honey I was drunk and obnoxious spent 300 dollars and got my ass kicked."

I personally think he would be dead if they (Los Alamos) were scared. Threats are for movies. People die and disappear under mysterious circumstance all the time. Witness protection isn't what he needs, but a 12 step program.


Why would you go to a strip club for informtaion, wouldn't Starbucks be safer? The luring phone sounds like bs...

[edit on 7-6-2005 by esdad71]

The guy said he was in bed already for the night when he received the phone call. If that was a lie, Im sure the police and his wife would figure it out quickly.

As esdad said, we're taking this the wrong way.

If someone at Los Alamos wanted to shut him up, I don't think they would slap him upside the head. Why? Because he's shown that he talks already. Why would you beat his ass down and give him the opportunity to talk again.

If you want to keep a guy with a habit of being to chatty from talking, you make sure the opportunity doesn't arise again. Letting him talk is stupid. Finish the job or don't do anything.

This is a guy getting his ass beat outside a strip club for reasons unknown to most of us I'm sure.

Lets give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes all it takes is a little scare to silence people. Maybe they don't want to take a chance on a murder rap or find someone to kill the guy. If the guys that had him beat up are from the lab they will know if he changes his mind about testifying. If he doesn't change his mind, I bet he gets some threatening phone calls or worse.

Maybe the girls at the bar complained that the guy was a real bad tipper (government salary), so the bouncers worked him over as they should do with all lousy tippers! I don't get why they waited until he was IN his car and leaving, before dragging him out and beating him? Wouldn't they just attack him while he's walking to or from his car instead of waiting for him to get into it? What would they have done had his doors been locked?

There's so many things about this story that don't make sense. For all we know this whistleblower thing has created quite an ego for this guy. He probably thought he was worthy of cheating on his wife with a stripper, and the bouncers/owner or the stripper's bf/husband found out and decided to teach this RAT a lesson.

Either way, he should know that loose lips sink ships!

I'm not at all surprised by this. I have heard horror stories in connection to many high tech firms in Silicon Valley whenever someone threatens any aspect of their nondisclosure agreements and trade secrets. They often operate at levels above the law.

Math Error

This story just doesn't add up. You don't “silence” a whistleblower by putting him in the hospital, as the news article, the inevitable lawsuit and this discussion clearly proves.

The idea that lab-sponsored “bad guys” would not know of the obvious consequences of beating up a whistleblower is patently absurd.

I find Tommy Hook's claim to have been “lured to a strip club” difficult to believe. The beating took place outside it at 2 AM.

Yes, his wife backs up his story, but that wouldn't be the first time a wife has covered for her husband's improprieties.

Hooks supposedly got a call late at night to meet someone at the strip club to talk about the lab. Why is a whistleblower playing detective? Doesn't he already have the information he needs? If not, why did he blow the whistle?

Wouldn't his claim to have been tracking down information from other, potentially unreliable sources this way reasonably bring his credibility into question?

I am very interested in seeing what comes from the police and FBI investigations.

While not everything that happens in the world makes sense, most of it does -- once the truth is known.

Based on what I see here, Hooks' story doesn't make sense at all.

His wife didn't cover for him, she said she believed his story. Appearantly she was away visiting her son or something. So Hooks story could be a lie. He might of been bragging about it at the bar. I'm sure the truth will get out. If it was a lie, I'm sure investigators will get someone from the bar to talk.

ah, another incident from the labs co-run by those "peaceful" folks at Berkeley. The college that screams the loudest about military spending and war, is one of the biggest drinkers of the military budget teat. Exoskeletons for soldiers, the control software for the UCAV project, and most of the high-energy weapon work at LLNL. Not to mention most of the skull work for most of the early US Atomic Bomb program.

Tho I gotta wonder, my skeptometer is buzzing. Guy has to meet up with a source at a titty bar late at night. What source? He'd already blown the whistle, he wasn't an investigator of any sort, or a reporter looking for more dirt. All he needed to do was keep safe and testify on what he'd already seen. He wasn't building a case for himself, he wasn't on trial. So why, if the story is true, would he even take a risk for more information?

Probably find out there is a much more sordid, and mundane explanation. But we'll only see that as a blurb on the back page if the truth comes out and is different than this story.

I wonder if the whole thing about "keeping his mouth shut" might have been concocted to cover up some late night naughtiness and keep his image clean.

I also have to question the intelligence of a man who knows he's heavily involved in some serious legal action with a group of people who can't stand him. What would go through his mind to pick himself up out of bed, drive to a seedy area, and meet an anonymous person at 2AM outside a strip club.

This is not the behavior of someone who feels threatened.

Well I'm personally glad someone posted this nightmare. The man did an interview for CBS Evening News about that # at Alomos then got beat within an inch of his life and told 'shut up'.

This is a man's story that really should, in my view, open up a HUGE can of worms for so many such things - let's start with Bioligistsand Scientists outright and maliciously murdered.. in paticular one's in anyway dealing with virus or bacterial agent vaccine or growth.

Dallas