![]() Soon after that, on the day before his 33rd birthday, he was fired. In an interview, he says he tried to explain he had done nothing illegal but his words "fell on deaf ears." Then in late July 2015, he was demoted and his pay was slashed. According to the lawsuit, the debate became heated - with the news director demanding the anchor sign an affidavit that he would keep the information he had discovered secret.ĭougherty refused to sign. The two debated whether possession of the documents was a violation of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which requires “medical providers" to protect the privacy of their patients' records. Weirder still, the anchor says interviews on his computer were erased. Dougherty claims in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that the news director showed favoritism. news.īut then, out of nowhere, Kilgore killed the story. Promos were running and the story would be ready for the 6 P.M. Coworkers call him "Hollywood" because he looks like a GQ model.ĭougherty soon discovered the documents belonged to a neurologist named Gerardo Gamez (whose relationship to the storage owner, Maria Gamez, is unclear.) He emailed Russ Kilgore, the news director at Wink News. Originally from Houston, Dougherty joined the WINK News team in 2014 and has since helped the weekend newscasts achieve ratings double that of WINK's competitors with award-winning reporting on complex issues. With this in mind, and concerned the trove of sensitive information could be so easily up for grabs, Brooks called the media.īrad Dotson, a story coordinator for the CBS-affiliated WINK News, assigned the story to news reporter and weekend anchor Matt Dougherty. He soon discovered that nearly 100 boxes were filled with confidential medical records, including thousands of social security numbers, billing information and patient files.īy law these documents are required to remain confidential. So this past June 25, a man by the name of Don Brooks, or “Taco Don” as he likes to be called, made a winning bid of $100. In an effort to clear out the unit so it could be leased by someone else, storage facility manager followed protocol by advertising that the contents would go up for auction. Though warehouse staff sent several letters to the renter of the space, Maria Gamez, no responses or payments were made. For months, a unit at the Public Storage on Colonial Boulevard in Fort Myers went unclaimed.
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