S.O.S. (Stories of Service) - Ordinary people who do extraordinary work

Whistleblower vs. The Military Machine: Sgt. Lindstrom’s Shocking Update - S.O.S. #228

Theresa Carpenter

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What do you do when the institution you served closes ranks—and you’re left to fight alone? We sit down with Marine veteran and former Nevada National Guard member Andy Lindstrom to unpack a hard, complicated story: years of reporting alleged misconduct, a firing justified as “not a good fit,” and a hearing that arrived nearly three years late. From claims of fraternization and sexual harassment to allegations of wage suppression and payroll fraud on the state side, Andy walks through the paper trail, the “inquiry” that wasn’t called an investigation, and why he believes the system is designed to delay until witnesses disappear and the public moves on.

The conversation gets specific. Andy alleges unlawful CJIS access, the wiping of his personal device after termination, and coordinated efforts to block subpoenas and keep key witnesses off the stand. He explains why he chose not to testify in a forum he believed was structurally biased and how the decision letter praised his presentation while ruling that state misconduct wasn’t proven—effectively sidelining the payroll issues he raised. We also explore the FOIA battles, the IG pathways that went quiet, and the venue fight for an impartial court, including questions of recusal and the optics of former military attorneys presiding over Guard-adjacent matters.

This episode is about more than one case. It’s about how self-policing fails without independent oversight, how selective enforcement corrodes trust, and how retaliation—legal, professional, and social—chills reporting. You’ll hear the human cost too: a father determined to show his daughter that truth is worth defending. If you care about whistleblower protections, military accountability, and how state-federal hybrids handle misconduct, this is a detailed, unflinching listen.

If this resonates, share the episode, leave a review, and subscribe so more people can find stories that test systems—and push them to do better.

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SPEAKER_02:

Imagine getting fired, and you know that your firing is unjust, and you are at the beginning of this journey, knowing that you are going to fight this journey by yourself. Welcome everybody to the Stories of Service Podcast. Ordinary people who do extraordinary work. And today I have a three-time returning guest, Andy Lindstrom. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm good. Thanks for having me back. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. I wanted to have you back on and give an update on how your case has progressed along since the last time we had you on, and you were awaiting your hearing finally after what three years of this constant back and forth with the uh state of Nevada and the National Guard. So today we're going to hear more about that. And as somebody who stands up for himself, I really admire what you're doing. I myself have faced just recently an online smear and had to really toughen up and stand up for myself. So I figured you were the perfect guest to have back on and talk more about this. But before we get started, as we always do, I'm going to play an introduction from my father, Charlie Pickard.

SPEAKER_00:

From the moment we're born and lock eyes with our parents, we are inspiring others. By showing up as a vessel of service, we not only help others, we help ourselves. Welcome to SOS Stories of Service, hosted by Teresa Carpenter. Here from ordinary people from all walks of life who have transformed their communities by performing extraordinary work.

SPEAKER_02:

And as I said today, we are welcoming back Sergeant Andrew Lindstrom. He is a United States Marine Corps veteran and former Nevada National Guardsman. And today we're going to talk about his courageous legal battle against the military establishment. After reporting military sexual trauma and financial misconduct within the Nevada National Guard, Lindstrom faced career-ending retaliation, losing both his guard position and his civilian IT role. But unlike most whistleblowers, he chose to take the system alone, representing himself pro se. And so now today he's coming back to share his latest developments in his case, what's changed since that first appearance, or actually, I believe that was the uh last appearance, and the toll, personal, financial, and emotional of standing up for truth and when powerful institutions fight back. Welcome again, Andy.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

So first off, let's uh go back to you were serving in the Nevada National Guard, and you were also serving as a state employee at the Nevada National Guard station. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was the officer, the adjutant general. It's called O Tag. Uh it's uh it's where the main National Guard Armory is in Carson City, Nevada, also the state's capital.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. And you were working in an IT position, is that correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I was working in the um ESS position, which was the electronic security systems role, where I I worked with a lot of the web the security systems for the weapons vaults and you know IP cameras and servers and those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_02:

And this was back in 2022, and at that time you were also serving in the Nevada National Guard at the same time that you were a state employee. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

And during that time when you were serving in that role, you were in a probationary period, right? It was your first year working in that position. Is it correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh yes and no. I mean, that's part of this story, is that I had actually started the position in February of 2021, and I had only and I'd been working as a state contractor, and when you're a state contractor, you have no rights. So the two individuals, the two HR personnel who uh could could not get the position posted in a year, so I had actually only been in the position for about a month, even though I'd been there for over a year.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, gotcha. So during this time, you started to uh see something in your guard role that disturbed you. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, that's correct, and that goes all the way back to 2013 when I had first enlisted in the guard straight out of the Marine Corps.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Well, tell me about some of the things that you were seeing.

SPEAKER_01:

Um there was a lot of fraternization going on. Um, and you have to understand that the Marine Corps enforces rules a lot to a point of insanity. I know you're in the Navy, so you probably worked alongside a lot of Marines. Um there's a lot of hate, not hazing, but there was a lot of fraternization. There was a lot of sexual harassment cover-ups, particularly also with the State Judge Advocates' office, which is the JAG office for the Nevada National Guard. Um, and then there were also a group of Nevada National Guard recruiters that were allowed to retire after getting caught having sexual relations with some of the minors with the state of Nevada's JROTC programs at all the local high schools, at least in northern Nevada, that I know about, including the Nevada Guards RSP program, where you it's kind of like a summer camp or an internship process for incoming Nevada National Guard soldiers where they can drill once a month, you know, while they're still in school and they go do their training and you know over a summer and then they come back and they can go back to school, those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. And so you started to see some of this stuff, and the first thing that you want to do when you see something is to say something. So, did you say something to anyone about what was going on?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh yeah, on a lot of occasions, um, commanders, lieutenants, um the joke is kind of like we we would have a lot of sensing sessions with non-commissioned officers where we would kind of bring up to the commander that there was a lot of fraternization and a lot of sexual misconduct. For example, my last year in the guard, uh my platoon sergeant and my lieutenant were actually sleeping together, and we had actually gone to the field, and uh the lieutenant was actually sitting on this uh sergeant first class's lap while we were out at Camp Williams, Utah, and they just weren't even trying to hide it anymore. And the only thing that ever happened to them was this they just moved the lieutenant to a battalion, and that was kind of the same thing. There, there's no real enforcement, there's what say there isn't enforcement of the rules, there's selective enforcement of the rules, especially when it comes to fragmentation.

SPEAKER_02:

Gotcha, gotcha. So it started off things that were going on in the guard, and then at the same time, while you were a contracted employee through the state, you started also noticing some things in your employment that you didn't find to be proper. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Correct.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, so there the Nevada National Guard has a lot of like, you know, because you can have full-time federal jobs uh as a National Guardsman, which is under a 1960s law called the Federal Federal Technician Act, which creates a federal employment system for National Guard soldiers, uh reserved for National Guard soldiers, that's kind of encourages guard membership. So you can get a guard retirement and you can get a federal retirement uh for being a federal employee and you're technically a DOD civilian. Well, the problem is that there's essentially, especially with the National Guard Bureau state comp troler uh of a lot of deliberate wage suppression where they would keep a lot of the allotted jobs for a lot of the worker bees, a lot of the labor positions, and they would underpay them by a couple of pay grades. And so they would do that so they could create like a GS-12, GS-13, GS-14 job for retired colonels. So you have to understand that the National Guard gets like each state's uh National Guard gets a federal allotment of money every single year. And so at least in the US PFO for the National Guard, there was uh I know there were some issues where there are about four retired colonels walking around that are like GS13, 14 positions, and nobody knows what they do all day. You know, they go up, they're wearing civilian attire, they go work out, they go take a two-hour lunch, they go on Facebook, they go on YouTube, and then they go home and they don't even stay the full eight, the full eight hours, and then they sit, you know, submit their 40-hour time card, uh, you know, and it's a way to kind of pad the retirement. And it's just been this long-running fraud. The other issues when I was a state contractor, there were two uh uh DEM or Division of Emergency Management employees that were committing payroll fraud, and this this one's kind of complicated to explain, but please bear with me. So, yeah, so there's uh in federal employment, you can have three schedules that I'm aware of. You can have uh four tens, which means four 10-hour days, you can have five eights, which means you can have five, eight-hour shifts, you get 40 hours a week, or you can have what the at least the Nevada Guard technicians have, which is a 549 schedule. So one week you work five days, the second week you work four days, and you work nine hour days, and that equals out to 80 an 80 hour, you know, work uh pay period. And it's pretty nice because every every other week you can uh you can get you know, you get a three-day week in every other week. And most of that is flexible, yep. Yeah. So and you know, soldiers and airmen would go to drill, you know, and they would be drilling all weekend, and then you know, you don't want to go back to work on Monday, so you get a Monday off. Well, the problem is when we all worked for the state together as contractors, what would happen is is that we would work five eights. So we would work these five eights, but their boss was a federal employee who was on this 549 schedule. And so I would show up to work Monday morning and they wouldn't be there because their boss wasn't there and who's gonna check on them. So the problem is that I would see their their uh time card because they would submit it to somebody that worked in the office, and we would all have to submit our time as state contractors to get the 40, to get the you know, the 40-hour work week that we get paid by the state comproller, and you would never see them, you know, all day because one of them was a retired command sergeant major and one of them was a retired first sergeant. And the fact of the matter is that they had been running this long-running fraud and scam for about eight years.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So it so they probably embezzled, you know, because some of the stuff is federally funded to make up these jobs for retired, because that was the other part of it, too. You know, you have a retired command sergeant major, retired first sergeant. Uh, some of these individuals, you know, I mean, it it I had estimated it to be about probably or over a hundred thousand dollars that they had skimmed in probably the past eight years of unworked hours. So wow.

SPEAKER_02:

So again, this is this goes back to the see something, say something. So when you saw something and you tried to say something, what happened?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, well, I went to my boss at first, who is the federal facilities liaison, and I told him, and he didn't want to do anything because one, especially the retired command sermon major, he used to say all the time that he had the ear of the general who does, you know, who would do what he says, you know, and he listens to me and he does what I say. Uh so we had that, and so everybody was afraid to say something because this guy had actually, this retired command serm major had actually gotten, you know, uh retired, you know, retired officers, retired senior enlisted had actually gotten them fired from their civilian jobs because they say that they wouldn't say that they liked them. So everybody was afraid to say anything, even though there's this long-running government fraud that's going on that's defrauding you know the state and federal government, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.

SPEAKER_02:

Correct. So what happens next for you? You have saw things in the guard, nobody did anything. You saw things in your contracted state job, nobody did anything. So then what happens next with you?

SPEAKER_01:

So what happens is that somebody who isn't me goes and places a sign outside of the Washoe County Armory on the entrance road off of Nevada National Guard property that tells this lieutenant colonel to stop kissing specialists. So I don't know if you've seen that, like uh the big meme with the Armstrong, you know, CEO where he's caught with the HR director and they've been making a ton of memes about the Coldplay concert. So it was kind of that. And at the time, uh a good friend of mine was getting investigated for fraternization um for a marriage for his marriage as an officer to an enlisted. And the same individual that was investigating him had done his own fair share of fraternization himself. And I yeah, and so and the problem is there were a lot of people that were unhappy about that because everybody knew that this lieutenant colonel had a reputation. He was the ROTC instructor at the University of Nevada Reno. He was sleeping with one of his students' mothers. He went, he was uh he was a commander of a now defunct unit, the 593rd. They deployed to Kabul uh about the same time that I was there in the Marine Corps, but I was in Hellman. We were we were very we were way far away from that, from the city. And uh he was doing some uh he was doing some diddling, and his wife back in the U.S. had actually found out about it and you know it caused a divorce and everything about that. So a lot of people were very angry that a very well-liked you know warrant officer uh was having a relationship with a you know with an enlisted. And the problem is is that in the Nevada Guard, everybody does it. There's so much fraternization that goes on in the Nevada National Guard where you have open officer-enlisted relationships all the time, but it gets selectively enforced. And when somebody in the guard decides in the Nevada Guard decides that they don't like you anymore, then all of a sudden, well, you were fraternizing, and it's like, well, you all are fraternizing. So, but you were, you know, but we're gonna enforce this single case.

SPEAKER_02:

So this sign incident happens, and this sign incident is is blamed on you. Is that my understanding? People think it's because it was you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so there was another, there was actually I had a copy of an email that was talking about the sign, and so this is where it all ties in together because this retired command sergeant major, he and I were having personal issues at work. Um there was a lot, and he and this other retired first sergeant were harassing me just frequently, and just you know, and everybody's like, Well, we can't do anything because you know they're kind of politically tied, and you know, they they have the ear with the general and blah blah blah. Uh so the retired command sergeant major actually lied, and I have the email where he said, An unknown sergeant saw Andy Lindstrom hang the sign. An unknown sergeant. So it was completely made up. And as I had brought up in my whistleblower appeal, I said I I pulled the Google Maps address of where this sign was actually in place and where I lived, and I said, I live 70 miles away from where the sign was placed. So I said I would have to drive 140 miles round trip to go and place this sign. And I said it wasn't me.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And they had no proof that it was you, it was just an unknown sergeant. That was the allegation. So my assumption is that the and I don't know how the state works when it comes to investigations, I only know the military, they launched an investigation to determine whether or not you placed a sign, uh, a defamatory sign uh at this particular location, correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Correct. And that was but after which we can get into later, but after two years of fighting, I finally got the investigation that was 84 pages, which the attorney general's office tried to cover up saying it was an inquiry and it wasn't an investigation, so it didn't count. Because not to jump too far ahead, like the attorney general's office and the guard actually went into the first judicial court of Carson City and the federal court and said that this investigation had actually never existed and they got caught essentially trying to hide it. And now they're trying to say, well, it was an inquiry and not an investigation. It's called an inquiry, but it's a it's an 84-page inquiry. Um, they surrepitously took a picture of my license plate. They illegally ran my criminal background information through a CJIS terminal at the Air National Guard Armory at Breno through a C like it's an FBI maintained database, and you can't just run people's information if you want to. I mean, it's a huge, it's a huge, you know, this is a huge liability. Yeah, and I mean it's illegal and it leads to prosecution in most cases, and the FBI will actually come out and take your terminal away and take your rights away for getting caught for doing so, and that's exactly what they did.

SPEAKER_02:

So, what was the reason that you were told in 2022, what was the reason that your supervisors told you they were letting you go?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, he told me that it wasn't a good fit, and I said, Well, why? You know, and you know, there had been some harassment going on, and I had finally confronted the two individuals, so I thought it was retaliatory about that. And I said, Okay, and you know, I didn't argue with them. I mean, it's pointless to argue by that time you're gonna get fired, you know, you're already fired. I mean, that that's not the the decision's already been made. So I said, Okay, let's go get my stuff. And we're going into my office, and it was really funny because I had some servers in there that I was working on, and they were personally owned because I had just moved at the time and I was just storing them in there because I was between houses and all of that and moving. And I said, Look, I would, you know, let me, I was like, okay, I'll get all my property, maybe we can get this. And they're like, Well, no, you can't take those. And I was like, Well, it's my personal property. And they're like, Well, well, we'll we'll get it to you. And it's like, you can't legally tell me I can't take my like if you're firing me, that's fine, but I'm gonna take all my personal property. And so then they didn't um they didn't let me take my personal property, and then like a month went by. And so I had a former colleague, and I'm like, where the hell are my my former servers that I was working on? Because I'm a tech nerd and I, you know, I work stuff and I was like, you know, I was learning Linux and some whole bunch of different things. And so he finally goes and gets them and he brings them to me, and I just stick them in my garage, and I don't really think anything of it. Well, one of the days I was gonna do something with them and I pull one out and it crashes, and the operating system had been completely wiped, which tells me that as a digital forensic expert, because I am I'm getting a PhD in cybersecurity right now through a through uh online PhD program, and one of the things that had actually happened was the operating system was completely wiped and I couldn't recover it. So I'm pretty certain that they had actually served in the uh or they had actually unlawfully searched and you know wiped my personal computers.

SPEAKER_02:

So Right, right. That's interesting because that's also not mentioned at all in the dismissal. So we're gonna catch the audience up to kind of what happened because after you were fired without any reason, just not being a good fit, the then there was a two-year process before you even got your quote unquote day in court for this administrative hearing. Tell me a little bit about why it took actually more than two years, three years. Tell me a little bit about why it took three years from the day you were let go to the day that you had a state human resources commission hearing.

SPEAKER_01:

Um so the law says that you're supposed to have a hearing scheduled within 30 days, and I filed the appeal in December of 2022. Um, and they were assigned the attorney Scott Husbands, who's a deputy attorney general who no longer works for the attorney general, uh, attorney general's office. He's now a uh associate general counsel at the University of Nevada Reno in their office. But the issue essentially was it was just endless delays and dilatory tactics. And so this appeals process is essentially the state who hires retired deputy attorney generals and retired state attorneys to act as arbitrators, essentially, in a state uh whistleblower hearing. And so it's essentially the state putting itself on trial claiming that, you know, to find whether or not they did anything wrong. And now here's the other part of this the appeals office, um, all of the hearing officers with the state of Nevada, they're all under contract. So if they make rulings that the state doesn't like, they can just terminate their contract at any time they want. So you can see it puts pressure on the heat on the hearing officer to rule in favor of the state. And so this endless, like, dilatory battle with Mr. Husbands ensued, where the first thing he did was try to dismiss it. Uh, I asked for documents, I asked for this, you know, 84-page inquiry, he said it never existed. Uh he says the Nevada Office of the Military is only a state organization, and the Nevada National Guard is federal and it's separate. That's turned out to not be true. Um, and the federal court knows about it as well that the guard was trying this. Uh, so they even filed an affidavit, uh, affidavit under oath and affirmations of perjury, said that we can't get any of these documents and we can't get them to you. So they sent me on this like endless wild goose chase to do a Freedom of Information Act request, which I'll also bring up uh that the some of the individuals that had actually been involved and named as witnesses in the appeals lawsuit also processed the FOIA request, which is another issue that kind of permeates this is the fact that you have individuals who are involved with whistleblower hearing are now getting involved with the FOIA request, and they want to make sure they can screen documents, you know, that's not going to be incriminating.

SPEAKER_02:

And so it just sounds like everybody knows each other, and it's this whole like circular closed system that isn't really working for somebody, especially somebody like yourself who's pro se and doesn't know the law. And I know that there was also some troubles with even getting subpoenas. You you tried your best to subpoena witnesses for these hearings, and you you went through some some some troubles with with doing that.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. I have never seen in my life an attorney that would hide or run away from a subpoena. And the state judge advocate officer, Colonel Remus, who was the same guy who testified in front of the Nevada State Legislature, SB 95, he got himself put on orders and went to northern Nevada and fled Las Vegas where he lives to essentially hide from a process server. I have never seen an attorney do that. Attorneys don't do that. That is that is completely unheard of. And the issue with the subpoenas was normally in the Nevada rules of civil procedure, you can serve. If you know who somebody's lawyer is, you just send them an email. Hey, can I send you this subpoena? Okay, cool, great. Just email it over. All right, subpoena. It's a procedural, it's a preliminary procedural thing. But what the guard did is the guard claimed the attorney general's office says it's not their responsibility to serve subpoenas. They don't represent guard members. Uh, you know, it's the U.S. attorney. We we're we're not involved with that. We don't have to accept subpoenas, blah, blah, blah. But it was funny because one of the dismissal motions that was actually filed uh filed by Scott Husbins himself said that I was engaging in prohibited communications with represented parties with the Nevada National Guard who he represented, and he slipped up and referred to him as his client. So uh so I hired a process server. Uh I kept sending him to Colonel Remus's house. They refused to answer the door, his wife refused to answer the door. I sent him an email. I said, Scott Husbins has said that you're the general counsel of the guard, you're the lawyer, you know, here's here's the subpoena. You can just sign it, return it for me. You know, he doesn't answer the email. I send him back, and I'm like, look, I like this has gone on for too long. Like I have processed.

SPEAKER_02:

You were just trying to have a hearing.

SPEAKER_01:

That's why you believe and going off the information that I was told by the attorney general's office of Nevada, but again, telling me that they don't have to, they don't have to accept subpoenas. And so when I started contacting Colonel Remus, Scott Husbins, the deputy attorney general, found out, and he got very angry and like you can't do this. This is ex parte communication. And I said, You told me you don't represent these people, you know. So, and I asked both of them, and I said, Well, if you guys would like to tell me, like, you know, who's the representative, just tell me who, and I'll go contact that person and leave you all alone. And they refused to do it. And then they kept making all these accusations that you're talking to a represented party and you can't. And I said, Okay, well, I'd like you to tell me when, where, how many times I did it, you know, everything, and they wouldn't answer that question either. And the whole, and it's just, yeah, it's just, and so, yeah, three years of dodging subpoenas.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, so three years, and we finally get to the hearing. And I believe the last time you came on the show, you had not had the hearing yet. I think you we were about a month out until you were doing this hearing. So the hearing happens, and it happens, it looks like, well, at least it was filed on July 23rd, 2025. And I have a copy of it right here. And so yes, I I printed it out. Um because it's just to me, it's like everything sort of revolves around when you had your day in quote unquote court. And the thing that I found interesting about this, and I wanted to ask you, I know that there is no recording available because they didn't you've asked for the recording and and you haven't been able to get it. But what I'm curious about, just to start, is why you chose not to testify at the hearing.

SPEAKER_01:

I chose to not testify at the hearing because I had already experienced enough dilatory, and what dilatory means in the legal system is that playing enough, you know, it's like just games. So, what games are uh in the legal system, you're not supposed to do it as a lawyer. You can get sanctioned, you can get disbarred, you can even get thrown in jail, you can get fined, you can do all these things. Uh, but I chose to not testify because going in front of the court that during the hearing, and I already knew this because I had already known with the hearing officer, Gary Poulium Esquire, who'd been a lawyer in Nevada since 1986 and a former deputy attorney general, he would only ask certain questions. He was not going to ask fair questions, he was not gonna ask certain questions, and as an attorney, there's attorneys do things called entrapment questions, and they ask you a series of questions that are, you know, seem harmless at the beginning, but then they, you know, try to they, you know, it's kind of like you know, a gotcha question or whatever.

SPEAKER_02:

A gotcha game.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, a gotcha game. And so I already knew that I was not, you know, I was not gonna get a fair hearing. And that was kind of the same thing with the day in court, and that's why I made the decision not to testify. The other decision, the reason why I made the decision not to testify was because that three of the witnesses who were directly involved, one of them was the investigating officer. His name was Colonel Parker. He went to he went to Washington, D.C. And I don't know the circumstances of that, but the first the first round of subpoenas that he was served at his house in Breno, he had a paralegal contact the hearing, the first hearing officer we had, which you're not allowed to do. You can't talk to a judge, hearing officer, whatever, all parties have to be included. And they went and called the hearing officer and contacted her, which they should not have done, and asking if he had to have followed a subpoena. So obviously he's nervous. And the other two individuals, uh, one was uh both, you know, uh Colonel uh Curtis Colvette and his cousin Robert Colvette were cousins, by the way. Uh and Curtis Colvette was the one who was, you know, was doing all the cheating and the fraternizing and you know, kissing specialists and whatever. And so his brother, or sorry, his brother, his cousin, Robert Colvette, uh, you know, were the individuals that were involved in the investigation and spurred the beginning of the investigation. Um, they both went out of town and claiming that they were on vacation at the same time and didn't show up to the hearing. And they were claiming that they were and they were claiming that they were never served properly. There's another angle to this because under the Nevada Rules of Civil Procedure, you can serve any individual that you want. You can go down to the attorney general's office and you can serve them. So I went in person and I had subpoenas in hand. And the the administrative clerk, they're just watching, like, oh, are you here to serve us? I mean, it's like, I have no problem with these people. And I walk in there and they get the subpoenas and they walk back there and they come out like, well, we can't accept these ones naming these people. I'm like, what are you talking about? And she says, Well, we have to have their permission to accept subpoenas on their behalf. And I said, Where does that say that in the Nevada Rules of Civil Procedure, it says you can serve any state employer officer in, you know, at the attorney general's office, and like, yeah, well, we're not going to accept these. Uh, and you know, if the court system actually worked that way, then nobody would ever be able to get sued if they chose to not accept subpoenas. So that was the first iteration of that. So then I hired a process server to go to the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Virginia. So a process server went down there with uh with uh subpoenas in hand, walked back to the general counsel's office, he looked at them and he said, Oh, well, uh, we we don't accept subpoenas in person. You have to serve us by mail. So then I go and I go to the US Postal Service and send it USPS serve certified mail. So they were served properly. And the the final counsel, which was Chief Deputy General, uh Chief Chief Deputy Attorney General Cameron Vandenberg, she starts complaining that they don't have to show up because of service. So there were three witnesses who were directly involved with the investigation who did not show up to the hearing, and the hearing officer Gary Pullium Esquire, who has 39 years experience, been a lawyer in Nevada since 1986, former deputy attorney general, didn't do anything.

SPEAKER_02:

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean that's why that's why I did not testify.

SPEAKER_02:

I I mean honestly, like it was really telling when I read the very end of this hearing letter. In conclusion, Mr. Lindstrom has done an admirable job in presenting his case. I thought that was so powerful because they're basically recognizing that you did everything correctly. However, he has not met his burden to sustain his whistleblower appeal because there is no evidence of illegal or improper conduct on the part of any state employee or officer, and therefore nothing to disclose. So they were basically saying that your problems were with the guard, not with state employees, but that doesn't jive with what you're telling me that you were seeing with the time card fraud. So it sounds to me like they just wouldn't consider any of the things. I mean, did you bring up the time card issue to them?

SPEAKER_01:

I did bring up the I think I'm not sure. I interviewed one of the people that was doing it, and uh um what it turned into was a uh yeah I did bring up the time card issue and the only thing that was discussed about it was that they just denied it and then they said then they said um uh the guy one of the guys that was doing it, he said, Whoa, that was a violation that you looked at my time card. And I said, I didn't try to look at your time card. I said that was your boss's problem because he was too lazy to send to walk the time card over to the state comptroller to pay it.

SPEAKER_02:

So did you and you've not seen the in the inquiry, right?

SPEAKER_01:

You still don't have No, I know I have that. That's 84 pages.

SPEAKER_02:

In the 84 page inquiry, does it say anything about the time card issue?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh it doesn't say anything about the time card issue, but what it is was the sign that was posted, and there had been some other signs before that, which I also did post. So that that was the thing that was kind of leading up to this, is that there was a series of signs that were getting put up in random places around the armory that were saying all sorts of things. One of them was about my former first sergeant who covered up a ton of sexual harassment and fraternization um in our unit. And so uh they were essentially looking for any reason to try to blame it on me. And that was when the retired command sergeant major he said that an unknown sergeant saw Andy Lynchstrom hang the sign. They just laughed when I read that. I was like, that is just that was just so made up. Nobody, I didn't even know this investigation had ever existed. Nobody ever talked to me, nobody ever told me I was under investigation. The only tip I got was somebody had called me and says, Hey, there's a bunch of air guard uh inspector generals here asking a bunch of questions about you. And I'm like, Oh, is it about and I said, Oh, is it about the signs? And I laughed and I said, Well, it's not me, so you know, it's gonna be a very short investigation, and they can just go, they can just talk to me whenever they want. Like, I don't care, you know, and they're never and and I never was contacted, nobody ever said you need to make a statement or anything about that. You know, I just showed up to work one day on May 13th of 2022 and didn't even have a job.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I think that what was interesting about this, and we're gonna get to also the the Major General Barry allegation, because that is here in the findings of fact. But before I get to that, I want to address the idea that this other state employee, Valerie Wilson, she testified that there was no evidence of improper conduct on her part or other state employees, and it is unclear as to the alleged improper conduct, supposedly involving any other state employees. But then the very next uh sentence, I found this interesting. Mr. Lindstrom alleges a myriad of facts, and then there in parentheses it says too volume voluminous to detail regarding his observations and experiences with alleged inappropriate conduct with members of the guard. And I thought to myself, well, okay, did you also allege a myriad of facts that were too voluminous to detail regarding your the state issues? Because I can I can see the the separation in in the mind of the for the purposes of the hearing, this was only about state issues. But what you're telling me and what I want to explain to the audience is you did go to them with issues that were happening that were illegal with the state, they just chose not to look at that evidence, is my understanding, correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and it was, you know, the other part of this was workplace harassment, but it would, you know, everybody knew in the office that even the state Ione director, you know, he's retired now, but it's Colonel Clayton Chapel. Like everybody knew that these individuals were not showing up to work and they were falsifying time cards, but because somebody supposedly had the ear of the general, which is what he would go around saying all the time, that everybody was afraid of him. And to me, who also served not, you know, in one of two branches of service, when you take the un when you take the uniform off, you don't have a rank anymore. That's how it's supposed to work. You know, you go back you go back to being Joe Schmo, you don't have a rank, you go to the VA like everybody else. You may be sitting next to a retired one star who's 70 years old, and his name is Tom, you know, and he's a nice guy, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

Did you ever try to get the some of the people that you worked with on the state level to become witnesses? I'm sure they wouldn't have done it. Like, did you ever try to subpoena people that you knew knew about the time card issue?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean it's more of a uh it's nobody wants to get involved because everybody feels retaliation, and the same thing that a lot of witnesses, potential witnesses, have said are I can't afford to lose my job, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

And I said, I just want to stay secret, yep.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I said, I just want to go home and I, you know, I got a mortgage due next month, and whatever. And that's kind of where you know, I think where you're going with this podcast is that that's where the system is broken. Because the system is broken because the government does illegal things all the time, but then the whole point is that the whistleblower appeal process is an administrative process that the government oversees. So that you that's the government putting itself on trial, and essentially, and then the only thing the other branches of the government do is they drag it out for oh, I don't know, if you know, years and years and years and years. And by that point, you know, I mean, are you really gonna appeal, you know, your state job where you made 60k? You're probably not. So uh, and this is the same dilatory tactics, and I mean I've seen it time and time and time again.

SPEAKER_02:

So right, right. So tell me a little bit, just so that we clear the air on this one, just because this is a public document and I want to make sure that we understand it. So you allege that Major General Barry flew a helicopter without proper authorization, but then you withdrew that allegation. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh well, if they're saying I withdrew the allegation, that's false, and there's no evidence for that because a um uh former retired CW5 uh warrant officer was the one who blew the whistle on that, and actually General Armstrong, who's a co-defendant, actually just severely disciplined that CW5 warrant officer. And he's a he's a CW5 warrant officer, he doesn't care. So he actually left the Nevada Guard and went to the California Reserve uh because there was actually a video that was taken on the phone of him landing this Blackhawk at uh Northwest Las Vegas Airport. And you gotta understand these are sixty million dollar black hawk helicopters.

SPEAKER_02:

So is he what did he do? What did what are you what is are you alleging that Major General Barry did when you say flew a helicopter without a license?

SPEAKER_01:

And not trained.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. And you found out about how did you find out about this?

SPEAKER_01:

I found out about that from the warrant officer.

SPEAKER_02:

Gotcha. Okay. All right. Yeah, they say in this here that you that you had since withdrew uh that allegation. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

It's very, it's very interesting because there was also a DOD IG complaint uh after I was fired um and was signed the investigator Mariana Uloa, because there was just a whole bunch of lists of things that had gone on that in the guard that I was personally aware of, and I had put that in a list. Um, and so is one of my supporting documents and my whistleblower appeal with the state, I had put that there, and they tried to argue that you know that none of this applied, and you're saying that, and they were using it as grounds to try to dismiss everything.

SPEAKER_02:

Got it, got it. So this got dismissed. This this uh particular uh hearing, uh that this this issue. So are there still ongoing things that you're waiting on now? Like you have a whistleblower complaint, is my understanding, correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I actually have a federal lawsuit, and I just got an email actually while we were talking from the U.S. attorney that says Chief Judge Andrew Gordon issues blanket stay for all pending civil cases.

SPEAKER_02:

So that's that's so you haven't filed for that that's your next step, but but I'm I'm asking this question. So you've also okay, so you've gotten the inquiry or the investigation. This was dismissed. This this here this uh hearing, correct? You were it was dismissed. Then did you also file a whistleblower complaint?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, prior to prior to the state administrative whistleblower process with the Department of Defense IG and the National Guard Bureau IG.

SPEAKER_02:

Gotcha. Have you heard back from either one of those whistleblower complaints?

SPEAKER_01:

The last communication I received was that the National Guard Bureau had actually escalated, um had actually escalated the complaint to the Active Army's IG and kicked it upstairs essentially, and that was in December of 2023. And I knew that one of the female lieutenant colonels who had actually made a statement under oath that was found to be false, went and um she had to come and make a deposition. Um and it it's all it's all closed door, that's the problem with it, and I've never heard anything back from them since December of 2023.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, so nothing from the whistleblower complaints. What about the FOIA requests that you did?

SPEAKER_01:

The FOIA request was denied, and now we're just kind of in this, you know, landing.

SPEAKER_02:

What are you trying to get from the FOIA? Like what do you what'd you ask for?

SPEAKER_01:

So there's remaining investigations, and a good friend of mine was forced to sign an NDA under threat of his federal job, which can't do because any threat of uh, you know, retali any contract that's signed under duress um is null and void. And they so I know that there are additional investigations out there, and I also know and I've talked to the U.S. attorney, and they just said we're not gonna give them to you. We're we're not we're we're not going to. And okay, and yeah, so so now we have to fight for it, you know, in competing briefs for summary judgment in the U.S. District Court of Nevada.

SPEAKER_02:

So Okay, so now the next step when the federal court is back in session, is that you want to file a lawsuit against whom in federal court?

SPEAKER_01:

Um well, there's like 23 codefendants, so it's quite quite a long list.

SPEAKER_02:

But is it an organization or just the people?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, there's a couple people, but they're named in their professional capacity. So the other thing that the guard did was after I was fired in 2022, I began working for a defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corporation, which is a local defense aerospace contractor in Sparks, Nevada. And the guard successfully um followed me there and had people that worked there and that were connected to the guard, including the wife of the individual that I served with in the unit who was sexually harassing junior enlisted soldiers. Uh they successfully got me fired from from that job as well. So the guard has essentially been following me and put me under some sort of unlawful surveillance for some period of time. They've illegally accessed my criminal record, which I don't have a criminal record. I've, you know, never been arrested. I don't have a DUI, I don't have a domestic conviction, I don't do drugs, you know, clean record, I have a security clearance, you know, all these things. And so they've used every resource within their power to retaliate and harass me. And I know that in the promos that you had actually published to this uh podcast that you had cited the KTNV whistleblower segment that I had done with Darcy Spears, they've even gone after KTNV and like sent threatening letters. And again, it goes back to Colonel Remus, who's act you know, acting as an unlawful and unlicensed general counsel and civil all sorts of matters outside of military justice. And he was sending some nasty, threatening emails to KTNV's attorney. And this is what they do they start going and harassing and intimidating. I know I sent you an email um recently before the show of you know Colonel Remus, you know, harassing Christopher Tinsman, who used to be a subordinate JAG officer to him. They are going after anybody and everybody that they can to possibly you know shut them up.

SPEAKER_02:

And to silence you and to get you to stop. So at this point, uh, the next step for you is to go to federal court. And I would love it if there was a possibility at some point that you could work with a lawyer. I know you've been fighting the good fight by yourself, but at some point it would be wonderful if there were maybe somebody who's watching this podcast or or or somebody who understands guard and state issues really well and has been an attorney in that in that arena. You're not the first person to have ever fought a state issue. And I would like to think that there are attorneys uh who could work with you for for a reasonable cost and try to come to some sort of a conclusion on this issue because I feel that based on what you're telling me that you have a legitimate case, I of course that's for a judge to decide, that's for the legal process to sort out. But at this point, it just doesn't seem like justice was served based on what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that's kind of it. I mean, how and I'll just kind of say that, you know, I've had two deputy attorney generals who come up with me that don't work for DAG anymore, and I've actually had a very senior United States attorney, uh, he's at AUSA, his name's Patrick Rose, very well-respected attorney. Uh, he left and didn't even notify the court, which is that is just unheard of. If you're a lawyer and you leave a firm in the middle of litigation, you have to notify the court. You have to. And I got a letter from you know, an email from his junior attorney saying they need more time because he left the firm two months ago. Which, you know, the United States Attorney's Office, they know the rules. You know, they you can't say that the U.S. attorney's office doesn't know the rules. And the problem is that they've done so much lying and they've lied in federal court, and they've lied in state court, and they've lied in the first judicial court, they lied during the whistleblower appeal, they've lied, you know, in all sorts of things. Even when I was able to cross-examine Colonel Remus, he started refusing, got very hostile with me and refused to answer Army regulation questions because of how much illicit behavior it's done, it meets the elements of RICO. And RICO is uh essentially one of the tenants that we're gonna be filing, and I don't really care talking about it in the in the federal case because it involves the United States Attorney's Office of Nevada, it involves the Attorney General's Office of Nevada, and it involves the Nevada State Militia, which is a, you know, and we've already been, I've gone, I don't need to get into the nitty-gritty details, but when they're not in federal service, they're a state militia. And so there's no way that this case can be filed in the state of Nevada, and it's gonna go directly to the Southern District of New York in their specialty public corruption court. I mean, that's just where it's gonna end up. You know, it's the that's where P. Diddy ended up, that's where Luigi Mangioni ended up, that's where uh Sam Bateman Fried end up because in these kinds of big cases, you know, they take the jurisdiction of these cases far, far away. And the Southern District of New York is like one of the highest jurisdictional district courts that you can take it to. And there's no there's no way in hell that the U.S. District Court of Nevada, who knows, has a personal working relationship with United States Attorneys of Nevada, is going to be able to preside over this case because they're already too connected. And one of the things in my FOIA lawsuit that was quickly identified was the magistrate judge, just uh Judge Denny was a retired army jag who had just retired after a 30-year JAG career in the end of 2024, and he didn't think it was a problem for him to preside over this case. And so we had a motions hearing in February of 2025, and I started bringing up the fact. I said, Your Honor, you know, you didn't disclose this to the court, and you know, you the judicial canons, which all judges have, federal judges who are appointed, have to follow. I said, it's a violation of the judicial canons, and he said, What's that? You know, and I you know, and I can't roll my eyes in court, but you can't tell a federal judge who's had that much experience what the judicial canons are, and it's uh 28 USC 455, and when a judge has to recuse, I even provided the court a 90-page guidance from the Federal Judicial Center that says, you know, when a judge is supposed to recuse, and he met multiple requirements of when he was supposed to recuse. And it's interesting because I know that you've interviewed Felicia Kavanaugh on this case about her deceased daughter, uh star of first class Allison Bailey. He's also the same magistrate judge on that case, including the U.S. District Court Judge Trump. So Felicia Kavanaugh and I both have a retired army jack sitting on our cases, and I find that incredibly suspicious. And I actually filed a judicial misconduct complaint against him with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and it's gotten very quiet, and our proceedings have gone to an all absolute crawl because it's become such a mess. Because you go on the U.S. District Court's website and Judge Denny's on there talking about his illustrious and very long army career, and yet he's sitting there as a judge where it specifically says in the judicial canons that your former government service, if you worked for like a you know, former government service, you cannot, you cannot sit, you know, you have to recuse yourself. And the U.S. District, yeah, and the U.S. District Court of Nevada is just ignoring that rule, just uh blatantly.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's why you have to take this to a federal court that's outside the state of Nevada. And I think I just I really want to bring it back because I know some of this is going to be so confusing to my audience, but the overall bigger picture that we're trying to paint with this case is that you just can't have the fox guarding the hen house or or however you want to say that saying, I'm probably not saying it correctly, but you can't have the same people who are being investigated investigating themselves. And that's really what we're seeing here is that there's not this outside third party, unbiased force outside of this uh circular system, closed system that will really deliver justice. And so, since they can't deliver justice, they use delay tactics to do it. And again, the admiral job in presenting his case, they did not have to say that. So they obviously recognize that you have some skills here and that you are challenging their procedures and their processes. And so I just look forward to what becomes of this, and we'll be tracking this very closely on the Stories of Service podcast because we want to see you get justice. We want to see these allegations properly handled, we want to see when there is evidence of time card fraud or there's evidence of a illegal helicopter flight, or whatever these things are, when there's evidence of these allegations that are out there, that those allegations are properly investigated. That's all we want as people working for these organizations is to know that if we have a problem, if we have a concern within our organization, whether that be the guard, whether that be the state, whether that be within the military, we and we have evidence to show that something is illegal, that those problems are properly handled. And I think that there's a lot of people who are seeing that these problems are not getting properly handled within the military, within the guard, obviously in this case within the state of Nevada. And so we just want to see that happen. And I really appreciate you taking the time once again to coming on the show and explaining this case. Is there anything that I didn't mention about the case that you want to address or a piece of the case that you think is important for our audience to know that we didn't cover on?

SPEAKER_01:

Um no, I mean, obviously I've been fighting this battle on my own for the past three years, but uh uh looking for an activist law firm that can be admitted to the bar in the Southern District of New York to take the RICO case, you know, take the fight into New York. Um and a RICO case, you know, you can file a civil RICO case under 18 USC 1964. And essentially one of the case one of the elements of Reno is an obstruction of justice, and that's exactly what this has been for three years. It's an obstruction of justice. You cannot, you cannot harass witnesses. And that was the thing that one of the things that Colonel Remus had done was I sent you the email that he had sent to Christopher Tinsman and I filed for injunctive relief, which is yeah, which essentially means that like the guard is going around and harassing people that they think are helping me. And the court needs to do something about that. And you know what the U.S. attorney said? Well, it only happened one time, and you know, because it only happened one time, that it doesn't count. I mean, these are mob tactics, you know, these are totally these are total mob tactics. And if the U.S. attorney, if they were prosecuting somebody and mil witnesses were getting harassed and threatened and you know, followed around, I mean, they would be calling, they would be calling for, you know, a crucifix, the you know, bring people out, nail them to the cross, you know, you know, hoist them up for everybody to see in prosecution. You do not mess with anybody that you think is a witness retaliate, you know, witness uh intimidation. And the the law so clearly states it doesn't matter if the person's actually named as a witness, and it was a very it was a very sideways argument that was presented by the United States Attorney's Office. Was well it only happened one time, so it doesn't count. You know, oh I only murdered, I only raped that person one time, it doesn't count. Well, you know, I only murdered that person one time, it doesn't count. I only embezzled and committed fraud one time, so it doesn't count.

SPEAKER_02:

So right, right. Well, I really do hope that you get an activist law firm that will help you fight this case, but I have no doubt that no matter what happens, uh you're gonna continue the good fight on this. And one thing that you mentioned to me on our last call, which really stuck with me, is that you do a lot of this because I believe you have a daughter and you want her to know that this is not something that she should tolerate either. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, my daughter is four years old and she's very intelligent. And uh, I now understand why my high school girlfriend's dad didn't like me when I was 16 years old and rode a motorcycle. Uh it's gonna be a it's gonna be a hard day. My daughter's already talking about in daycare who she's gonna marry. Um kids at the daycare, so it's uh yeah, you know, it's the trials and tribulations of being a girl dad. So, but yeah, I, you know, for uh there's just been too much harassment in the military of females. A pretty girl shows up into the military, uh, you know, and just reading about Alison Bailey's case, you know, and the fact that everybody I didn't know her personally in the guard because she was in Las Vegas from her time there. I never talked to her, but everybody that I've talked to about the case and everything that I've read in the filings is that she was a very attractive young woman, you know, everybody was trying to get in her pants all the time and she kept saying no. And, you know, it's like the it's like the girl in high school where the girl that doesn't want to sleep with somebody, and then that person who's rejected goes around and starts saying that girl's a slut and all these other things. So, and you know, it's the same thing. And like, I just wish that the Nevada Guard, you know, even General Waters, who's the adjutant general, everybody loves him. Like he's the he's beloved by the commoners, the enlisted. Everybody thought the guard was gonna change when he was appointed as the adjutant general, and he's just doing more of the same shit. You know, they just need to come forward and acknowledge that this has been going on. They need to fire the people and hold accountable the people that need to be fired. The fact that they're even dragging this out, you know, for so long, you know, they I mean, at this point, they're just digging, they've dug the hole so deep at this point that I think they're just hoping that if they dig the hole so deep that you can't see them anymore and everybody will just walk away.

SPEAKER_02:

They just want you to give up, Andy. They do, they just want you to give up.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, there's a very good thing that what they do in the United States Marine Corps, especially in the infantry, especially in boot camp. And I don't know if the Army does this because they didn't go to our Army basic training, sorry, it's different. Uh, the Marine Drill instructors will give you an impossible task, and you know it's an impossible task. And if you don't accomplish the impossible task, you're gonna get haze and you're gonna get punished and you're gonna get smoked and take you outside and kick dirt in your face and hazed and you know within an inch of your life and you know, throwing up and whatever. And so what they do is they give you this impossible task and they wait and they sit there and they look to see who could just give up and says, This is pointless, I'm not gonna do this. And the whole point is that once they catch the person that gives up and says, This is an impossible task, I'm just gonna give up. You know what they do is they take the whole platoon outside and they haze them even harder than they would have gotten a haze for giving up on the impossible task. That's what they do.

SPEAKER_02:

So the objective is to just keep doing the impossible task as long as you absolutely have to until you die.

SPEAKER_01:

As long as I absolutely have to. Um, like I said, my house mysteriously caught on fire in the middle of the night. My whole family and I almost died. Uh, you know, they've had two, they've had two forensic fire investigators, one hired by the insurance company and one by Central Line Fire. Nobody can figure out how the fire started. So naturally, I'm concerned. Uh, you know, I've been fired from a jobless here in Nevada Corporation because so very obviously the guard is watching me, they're following me around, you know, they're, you know, and I'm just waiting for what they're gonna do next, you know, they'll, you know, because there's a lot of state law enforcement in Nevada and guard members that also, you know, that are also members of the guard, and they also have very close ties with the the state law enforcement. So all somebody has to do is make a phone call to a detective or their buddy who's a lieutenant with the department or the AG or somebody and say, hey, uh, I heard, you know, at a garage show that Andy Lindstrom does this, you know, or is trafficking drugs or you know, engaging in sex trafficking or whatever, and that's all it takes. So and there's that, and there's actually a KTNB case about that um in Las Vegas where a guy got put into a signal chat with some other officers uh and they were saying all sorts of racist stuff in there, and the guy was black, so he filed a complaint. So he got moved and faced into retaliation, and one of the officers he filed a complaint with said that he was going to be featured on the news later, and you know, not in a good way. And then mysteriously, an anonymous tip was filed that he had child pornography on his computer and they raided his house and they raided his computer. And even his own attorney said, yes, it was on his computer, but it was never opened. And it was an anonymous tip, and it was the individuals and it was the individuals he had filed a complaint against, and he actually just took a plea deal to do four to ten years in prison because he was facing 50 years of prison. And the KT and B, the same thing with Darcy Spears, they had actually run that story.

SPEAKER_02:

So the the fear of retaliation, I mean, it really is he alleging that they put they they implanted that's exactly what that's exactly what he's alleging.

SPEAKER_01:

And I can tell you, as a cybersecurity is getting a doctorate in cybersecurity, yeah, it's perfectly possible. I mean, we don't need to get into the whole science of it, but I mean, we absolutely have hackers have absolutely have the technology to log into your computer, they can download things, they can make it look like you actually down, you know, downloaded things like that, yeah, and it's the same thing. So, I mean, that is the very real fear of retaliation for a lot of these people, and he just like he had to take a plea deal because if he would have fought it, he would be spending the rest of his life in prison because they would have, you know, filed him with the maximum. And one of the and it's funny because one of the individuals he had actually complained with was provoke was promoted in Las Vegas Metro to the internal affairs officer. So every everybody sees this for what this is, but because they're all in the know and they're all buddies with each other, and you know, hey, let's go golfing together on you know on Sunday, and this would be this would be really bad for us if we actually had to do something about this and that kind of thing. And those deals are made all the time.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, well, Jocelyn is Stewart is on the call, um, who is a very highly respected lawyer, and I definitely want to put her comment on here. Uh, she said a person isn't in possession of illegal images if he ever if he never opened them, it must be knowing.

SPEAKER_01:

So maybe there's a little more to that story than than than what than what I'm not I'm not saying I'm not saying he's innocent or guilty, but it is very suspicious to me that after filing a complaint against another officer in law enforcement, and then all of a sudden, four months later, you get and you know, you get arrested and investigated, you know, by a lot of the same people. And I will I will just say for what it is in at least the state courts in Nevada, um, I was told actually by a lawyer that he said the state courts, you know, the state court is not going to find the attorney general's office liable. They're not. You know, they work together, the United States Attorney's Office, they appear before the U.S. District Court judges all the time. If they would have to, you know, if they had to prosecute, disbar, fire, you know, make an example of a bad AUSA or whatever, I mean, there would be retaliation. I mean, and yeah, because you have a local U.S. attorney's office that's doing this kind of stuff. I mean, that's something that I've also in my most recent filing in my FOIA case, because there's been a bunch of lying that they got caught doing in there, I've asked for sanctions in the court. And so now the federal court has to kind of you know consider that as well. So the whole point is that you know, there's this the cyclical period, you know, involves the attorney general's office of Nevada, you know, Governor Lombardo, he's retired, Vegas, man, he's the sheriff, retired sheriff of Clark County. So kind of stuff to go on in his state and he's former law enforcement, you can kind of see how that would impact his election and look because he's up for re-election next year and you know, and go, you know, and kind of go against these people. So that is that is that therein is the problem. And I have definitely seen a lot of malicious prosecution in Nevada. And like I said, I don't mean to, I'm not putting in the plug for KT and B. They were just one of the first people to run my story.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh and right, and I linked to that in the show notes so people can see you know who checked out your story. It was the news organization.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and the guard watched it, and the less than 24 hours I get a phone call from the producer and says, Well, here's all the stuff they're saying about you. Is this true? And I said, No, none of that's true. You know, or you know, and they just ran with it and they started harassing, you know, accusing them of slander and defamation and all these other things. And I had actually asked the anchor Darcy Spears, who had interviewed me originally, because we had talked about the pedophilia that had gone on in the guard. Um, and it they haven't aired it yet, but they do have the raw footage. Um, I had asked her for those emails, and I said, Yeah, like everywhere that I go and I tell this story, the guard comes in right behind me and they start harassing and trying to intimidate people.

SPEAKER_02:

And so that's I'm really sorry, Andy.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm really this is how I'm uh like I said, I'm a U.S. infantry marine, I've been called every name in the book. Um the guard has successfully fired me from two different jobs. It just kind of becomes a game now, you know, where you wake up in the morning and you know what's gonna go on. My family loves me, my kids love me.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, your friends love you.

SPEAKER_01:

My friends love me. I didn't die in a house fire. Yeah, you know, um, luckily my wife was awake and she said, Andy, the house is on fire. And then, yep, sure enough, it's in the electrical panel, and that is extremely suspicious. An electrical fire just starts in the panel in the middle of the night when we're all asleep. I mean, that's that's how exceptionally dangerous it is to be a whistleblower. Yeah, not in the state of Nevada. I mean, you look at the Boeing whistleblower, yeah, the morning of the guy's the morning of the guy's deposition for Boeing, he's found, he doesn't show up to his hearing, and he's found, you know, with a self-inflicted supposedly gunshot wound, case closed very quickly, and he's what he's whistleblowing against uh you know a trillion, you know, almost a trillion dollar company, which is Boeing, you know, which could have some serious impacts to bid and hold federal contracts.

SPEAKER_02:

So well, you stay safe, Andy. We we don't want anything to happen to you. Protect yourself. I say the same thing to myself. I point that finger of protection uh right back at me on some of the things that I cover, but I also want to thank you for encouraging me to stick up for myself. I know that sometimes I face retaliation and harassment tactics myself for the fact that I cover these kinds of stories and I give people like you a voice. So I want to thank you for always sticking up for me and being my friend as well. And we'll follow this very closely. I wish you all the best. I know that it really will come down to good men and women who look at your case fairly and will make good decisions one day. Um I I don't know what will happen with any of this, but I just hope that one day you get the resolution that you deserve. So I thank you so much for continuing to come on the Story as a Service podcast, continuing to share with us your status updates. I would love to see uh Darcy uh Spears maybe cover this again and and and provide an update one day, or if anyone else is interested in covering the story, I'll be sure to pass your contact information along as well as if there's any kind of an advocacy law group that would like to take this on. Uh, I would definitely uh pass your confirm your contact information along. But thank you so much. I'm gonna go full screen and uh meet you backstage to say goodbye. All right, guys, that wraps up the show. Thank you so much for joining us. I know this was a pretty serious and complicated topic, so if you're still with me, uh I really appreciate that. Uh, as I always do to close out these calls, well, first off, I forgot to mention that I do have three shows next week. So it's going to be a very busy week, and I will be providing those uh podcast promos shortly. So please stay tuned as I always do, closing out these calls. Please take care of yourselves, please take care of each other and enjoy the rest of your evening. Bye-bye now.