The former finance director of a White Plains engineering firm claims he was fired for refusing to falsify records.
Bryan Landry, Port Chester, accused K&A Engineering Consulting and CEO Purna Kharel of retaliation, in a complaint filed May 16 in Westchester Supreme Court.
K&A provides energy engineering services, such as project management for electric substations and smart grid projects across the country for utility companies.
Kharel founded the firm in 2016, according to its LinkedIn profile, and it has grown to employ about 275 people. It has offices throughout the country and in Lalitpur, Nepal in his native country. The global headquarters is in White Plains.
Landry was employed as head of finance for two years, according to the complaint.
He describes a grueling schedule of as many as 20 hours a day on weekdays and frequently seven hours on Saturdays.
He alleges that Kharel required him to submit a falsified 2022 financial revenue projection to Signature Bank, to keep his job.
He claims that he told Kharel and other employees, including the corporate counsel, that he would report them to investigative agencies if they did not correct the violations and refrain from activities that he “reasonably believed were against the law and harmful to the public at large.”
The complaint does not specify the alleged unlawful activities or public harm, whether false financial records were actually submitted or whether Landry reported anything to an outside agency.
Landry was fired in March, according to the complaint.
He is demanding lost wages and benefits, unspecified punitive damages, and a court order directing the defendants to pay a $10,000 civil penalty for retaliation under New York labor laws.
K&A did not respond to an email message asking for its side of the story.
K&A’s website depicts a culture that encourages employees to operate by high standards and leaders to place others above themselves “and model decisiveness, flexibility, humility and honesty.”
Landry is represented by White Plains attorney Jordan El-Hag.
