A former employee is suing DEMA. His story raises questions about the Santa Rosa company’s relationship with its principal customer: the Sonoma County Health Department

Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on DEMA. Read the first story here.

In August 2021, EMT and bodybuilder Kyle Wescott arrived at his boss’s house in Santa Rosa for a gathering of upper-echelon employees at DEMA Consulting & Management.

Though Wescott had worked at the health care company for just five months, DEMA had plenty to celebrate.

The Santa Rosa-based company’s founders first registered the business with the state in January 2020 but got it off the ground in May of that year. Former emergency room nurse Michelle Patino launched DEMA amid the scramble to protect the state’s medically vulnerable homeless population from COVID-19 — and to protect hospitals from patient surges.

Patino’s willingness to quickly ramp up care sites and ability to rapidly hire nurses and paramedics fit county needs during the pandemic.

In just one year, DEMA grew to more than 100 employees.

It did so through multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts with a single customer: the Sonoma County Department of Health Services.

By April 2023, DEMA had billed taxpayers $26 million for managing and providing medical care at seven shelter sites for homeless people, mostly in hotels purchased or leased by the county. The company continues to bill the county for three sites today.

In normal years, the law requires most government service contracts to go through a public process in which officials seek bids from a slate of vendors to provide transparency and ensure competitive pricing. But during the pandemic, emergency orders suspended competitive bidding laws so government officials could react to the evolving health crisis.

This is the second part of a Press Democrat investigation. The first story, which published online Wednesday, focused on questions about the company’s billing practices. The newspaper’s investigation found as much as $800,000 in billing for positions that nine former employees did not remember existing. The county has not audited DEMA’s contracts, and they have never been reviewed by the Board of Supervisors before being approved.

County health department leaders — first, Barbie Robinson, who left in May 2021, and then her successor, Tina Rivera — signed the contracts with DEMA owner Patino without public deliberation as the county rushed to shelter people from the virus.

Rivera, at the time interim director, was in attendance at the August 2021 get-together at the home Patino and her wife and DEMA co-owner, Mica Pangborn, had purchased two months earlier.

Patino told Wescott the party was an opportunity for DEMA’s top employees to meet Rivera, and he estimated around 17 people were there. But according to Wescott and two other attendees, too much alcohol flowed.

Events at the party would become part of a sexual harassment, retaliation and wrongful termination lawsuit Wescott filed against DEMA in December 2022.

Wescott said he brought the lawsuit to defend his character and recoup money he lost after what he said was a wrongful firing by Patino and Pangborn in February 2022.

The lawsuit offers a window into the culture of a company that owed its sudden success to the trust Robinson and Rivera placed in Patino.

A national ethics expert and former DEMA employees also say Rivera’s presence at the party raises questions about her relationship with the founders of the company that received millions of taxpayer dollars. They also question how much oversight DEMA received during its meteoric rise.

Patino has characterized The Press Democrat’s investigation as “misinformation, conjecture, accusations, insinuations that seek to defame” and said the newspaper should instead be reporting on the good work the company has done since the pandemic.

Rivera said she attended the August party in the course of her duties as health department leader. However, her presence at the gathering at Patino’s home, which did not appear on Rivera’s official work calendar, creates the appearance of a cozy relationship with a vendor whose high bills stand out, a government ethics expert said.

A high-ranking government official should avoid a social event with a vendor if there’s a possibility it could cause the public to question whether public funds are being properly shepherded, John Pelissero, a senior scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, told The Press Democrat.

“Even if everything the director is doing is entirely legal and proper, it appears otherwise when (she) is spending social time with one particular company that continues to get and benefit from no-bid contracts,” he said.

“The appearance of things will raise questions in the public’s mind about whether the health director is placing the private interest of the company ahead of the public interest.”

Rivera and Patino declined interviews to discuss Wescott’s lawsuit or other findings from The Press Democrat’s investigation, saying they feared they would be misquoted.

Both had previously participated in lengthy phone interviews about DEMA with a Press Democrat reporter — Rivera on March 30 and Patino on April 4.

However, that was before The Press Democrat had uncovered Wescott’s lawsuit or the billing questions. When a reporter sought interviews in May to discuss those points, Rivera and Patino declined, saying they would respond only to emailed questions.

Patino later said she was willing to provide an interview, but over several weeks of emails and text messages, The Press Democrat was unable to get her to commit to one as Patino cited travel or family emergencies when agreed upon times arrived.

On July 11, Patino responded to a series of questions by email while accusing The Press Democrat of retaliating against her because the newspaper’s journalists were initially prevented from visiting the county’s latest, DEMA-managed, homeless housing site in Santa Rosa in March.

She copied the email to more than 90 people, including all five county supervisors, leaders of other area homeless service providers, other elected and appointed officials, and what appears to be a right-wing news site based in Delaware called Liberty Sons.

A party gets out of hand

The August 2021 party took place at Patino and Pangborn’s home in eastern Santa Rosa. Sonoma County tax records indicate the couple purchased the $628,000 property that summer, June 28, a little more than a year after opening their company. The public record does not contain any indication of a loan.

When employees arrived, the evening began with a relaxed discussion of work matters that included the company’s expansion into Texas, according to Wescott. DEMA moved into Harris County, the county enveloping Houston, after former Sonoma County health director Robinson became director of county health there.

For Wescott, the expansion was bittersweet.

His close friend, fellow EMT, fellow military veteran and fellow bodybuilder, Branden Bowman, was moving to Houston to run the new medical clinics. But for Wescott, that meant a promotion to Bowman’s role as site administrator at a shelter in the Windsor Holiday Inn.

Patino and Pangborn grilled food and served their guests margaritas. And they refilled glasses as their guests finished their cocktails, Wescott said.

During one moment of revelry inside the house, led by Pangborn and one of the company’s human resource managers, Helen Ghosheh, attendees yelled for Wescott and Bowman to take off their shirts, both men said in interviews with The Press Democrat.

Though they might put their muscles on display in competitions, it was something both men said they did not want to do in front of co-workers and bosses. They found it inappropriate, both men said in interviews with The Press Democrat.

Reached by telephone on July 11, Ghosheh declined to comment, citing the advice of an attorney.

A video of the moment reviewed by The Press Democrat shows the two men, Bowman blushing red with what he described as embarrassment, while people off camera yell “take it off” and “do it!”

Ultimately, they did, hoping the group’s attention would move on.

“Aw, god****t,” Wescott says in the video as Bowman begins to pull his shirt off.

That moment is described in Wescott’s lawsuit, which alleges that “at a company event, Plaintiff and another male co-worker were both pressured to remove their shirts by female executives and the female owner.”

The lawsuit alleges further harassment by Ghosheh, though she is described as a human resources manager and not named. The suit alleges that she flirted with Wescott at work and looked for photographs of him on social media. Wescott told The Press Democrat in interviews that Ghosheh was the person described in the lawsuit.

In those interviews, in which his lawyers were present for much of the discussion, Wescott said the pressure to take off his shirt was not the only harassment that occurred that night.

Back out on the patio, Wescott said Rivera, the county health director, joined Ghosheh as she scrolled through photos on Wescott’s fitness-dedicated Instagram account, which highlighted his physique.

The two women were looking at the photos while sitting next to Wescott, he and Bowman recalled in interviews.

Both women “have already had a significant amount of drinks at this point,” Wescott said in the interview, adding that he was not drinking because of an upcoming competition.

Bowman was seated next to him and also did not drink. In a separate interview, he corroborated Wescott’s account that both women made comments about Wescott’s body as they looked at the photos.

A third former employee, Heather Forbes, who left DEMA in February 2022 after serving as director of nursing, also told The Press Democrat she recalled Rivera drinking at the party and being part of inappropriate behavior toward Wescott and Bowman, but she said she did not overhear the remarks themselves.

Wescott was mortified. “But then again, I have my bosses there, so I'm trying to compose myself professionally and just kind of like, brush it off,” he said.

Rivera was the only county official present at the party, Wescott said.

The event was not scheduled on Rivera’s August 2021 work calendar, which The Press Democrat obtained through a state public records request.

Forbes was upset by the atmosphere at the party, she said, because she’d implemented DEMA’s first sexual harassment training earlier that year.

Rivera said she was not intoxicated and denied she harassed Wescott, calling the allegations “disappointing, offensive and disrespectful.”

“I cannot begin to understand the motivation behind these accusations,” she said in response to written questions from The Press Democrat on May 12.

Wescott’s lawsuit does not name Rivera or Sonoma County as defendants. In an interview, Wescott’s attorney, Los Angeles-based Alan Romero, said that’s largely because Wescott was not a county employee.

DEMA is represented by Santa Rosa firm Perry, Jonson, Anderson, Miller and Moskowitz. In a March 2023 answer to Wescott’s complaint, its lawyers denied all the charges. A case management conference is set for Aug. three in Judge Bradford DeMeo’s courtroom.

At the party, Patino grew worried about Rivera’s behavior as the night wore on, Wescott and Bowman said. She pulled Bowman aside and told him that he and Wescott should leave, according to both men.

Bowman sent Wescott a text message saying “Hey Michelle (Patino) wants less of the interaction with Tina (Rivera). Let’s head out soon.”

“We stood up right away,” Wescott said, “and we left.”

The message is time stamped at 12:33 a.m., according to a screenshot provided to The Press Democrat, but Wescott said the message actually came at 10:33 p.m. He said it bears the later time stamp because he made the screen shot in Texas.

Rivera recalled things differently, she wrote in her May 12 statement to The Press Democrat.

“I met with many DEMA staff, most for the very first time, and thanked them for their hard work, dedication, commitment, and diligence during an unprecedented pandemic,” she wrote.

“I was welcomed and my words were well received. The staff seemed to get along very well. Several shared their commitment to our community and passion for the work that they do in caring for vulnerable populations.

“I do not remember looking at any Instagram photos, and I did not make any inappropriate comments about any staff at that event,” Rivera continued. “In addition, I was not intoxicated and I resent these unsupported allegations.”

Rivera said part of her job is to “foster relationships” with the agency’s partners.

“I have no concerns attending events that I am invited to in order to foster collaboration, grow partnerships, build trusting relationships in order to serve our community,” she said.

Patino also disputed the characterizations of Rivera’s behavior given by Wescott and Bowman.

“I have no knowledge of this text or even why it would have been sent when they were both in attendance and easily could have spoken face to face,” Patino wrote in an email when asked about the text message from Bowman to Wescott.

“I am definite it was not in regards to Director Rivera’s behavior as she is and always has been professional when she has attended any engagement.”

A wrongful firing?

Wescott’s end with DEMA came Feb. 15, 2022.

Two days before he was fired, employees were stunned to receive an updated termination policy that listed among acceptable reasons for firing the possibility that “the employer simply does not like the employee.”

DEMA can fire its at-will employees for any reason, said Stephen Hirschfeld, an experienced San Francisco-based human resources attorney who is not involved in the case.

Hirschfeld said he’d never come across such language in a policy, calling it “very strange,” and likely to leave the company vulnerable to charges of bias in firing decisions.

“It’s pretty rinky-dink,” he said. “Why would you ever put that in the handbook? It just smacks of a level of subjectivity and ambiguity.”

The DEMA employee handbook today does not contain that language.

The events Pangborn and Patino would cite for Wescott’s firing began two weeks earlier.

That’s when a resident who Wescott and two other employees said struggled with considerable mental and physical health issues tried to bring a newborn puppy into his room. While pets were allowed on the site, there were rules governing them.

This resident was often in the hospital, one medical worker at the Windsor site said. Another said the dog was too young to be away from its mother, meaning it needed even more care.

“That puppy was going to die,” the former DEMA employee said.

Wescott told the resident he could not keep the puppy at the site, but that he and his then-fiancee, who had three of their own dogs, would foster it until the resident could find a home with friends or family.

“Kyle had made the arrangement with (the resident), but (the resident) was volatile,” one of the workers said.

On Feb. 14, the resident grew angry about his puppy. He threatened Wescott, according to his lawsuit.

Windsor Police were called on Feb. 14, and the resident was removed, according to the department’s chief. The resident did not have a gun and was not charged with any crimes as police found the threat empty. Wescott did not press charges.

Pangborn fired Wescott the next day, Feb. 15.

Bowman, angry in Houston, fired off a message in a companywide chat thread.

“We have given our heart and soles (sic) into dema and we have been gaslighted, manipulated and thrown to the trash,” he wrote, according to a screenshot of the message obtained by The Press Democrat.

“I warn you all to protect yourselves, trust no one and be safe.”

Bowman was quickly removed from the chat program and he himself was fired, he said.

The two men’s firings caused a stir.

In a Feb. 17 email to all employees, Patino sought to explain herself. She said Bowman had resigned. Wescott had done something that put the county contract in jeopardy, Patino wrote, without elaborating.

“Police officers informed us of the situation and they have written statements along with body camera footage to back up the event that occurred,” she wrote.

It’s not clear what she’s alluding to. Patino in an email declined to discuss why she terminated Wescott.

After this story initially ran online, she provided a statement signed by a Windsor police officer, describing confusion over when and how the dog would be returned. At the officer’s request, Wescott returned the dog on Feb. 15, according to the statement.

In a phone interview, Windsor Police Chief Mike Raasch confrimed his officer had signed that statement.

He said his department had no police reports related to the incident. The brief record of a Feb. 14 call for service, which he read to The Press Democrat, matched Wescott’s description of events and described a peaceful exit by the angry resident.

But, “Kyle was not terminated for helping a puppy and that rumor is false and a bold lie being spread,” Patino wrote in her email to her staff.

The Press Democrat obtained a copy of Wescott’s firing letter. It lists two reasons for his termination. One is insubordination, and the other is “theft from a resident — a Puppy.”

His time with DEMA has left considerable scars, Wescott said.

For one, his firing blew a hole in his finances. He and his then-fiancee, now-wife Mandy moved to Sonoma County for the job. Feeling they could not stay in such an expensive area, they borrowed thousands of dollars from relatives to pay the penalties of breaking the lease on their apartment — nearly $8,000, in the end.

They now live outside Austin, Texas.

But more deeply, Wescott was proud of his work running his Windsor site and helping residents find jobs or improve their lives.

And ultimately, he and the other health care workers interviewed for this article said they believe medical care should continue to be a part of homeless services. Just not through DEMA.

Today, Wescott is selling rain gutters. He’s not working in the health care field he loves, in large part because he cannot imagine being in a job interview and having to address the suggestion he stole a puppy from someone under his care.

“I wouldn’t steal from anyone,“ Wescott said. ”I’m a hard worker and I have integrity.“

This story has been updated to reflect the correct job titles of Branden Bowman and Kyle Wescott.

Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @AndrewGraham88.