“The former executive director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic claims in a lawsuit that she was fired after only eight months on the job for planning to report financial misconduct,” writes Katelyn Newberg in Monday’s (2/21) Las Vegas Review-Journal. Anne Berquist was dismissed by the orchestra on January 25 of this year. “Berquist filed the lawsuit last week in Clark County District Court against the orchestra and Jeri Crawford, [chair] of the nonprofit’s board of trustees. The lawsuit alleges that the orchestra committed insurance fraud and had ‘discriminatorily paid additional portions of the health insurance premiums of select’ employees. The board issued the following statement on Monday: … ‘The allegations made in the complaint are plainly false. The Las Vegas Philharmonic Board of Trustees unanimously voted to part ways with Executive Director Anne Berquist due to her performance in the role.…’ In October, according to Berquist’s suit, Crawford said she ‘personally paid’ some employees in the amounts that their salaries had been reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Berquist’s lawyers … wrote that the orchestra did not report the salary payments to the IRS…. In December, Berquist sent a letter to the board reporting the ‘financial misconduct and the retaliatory conduct,’ the suit states.”
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