Suspended Official Claims Retaliation

Suspended state Risk Management Bureau Chief Ed Fridenstine accused his former superiors on Thursday of retaliating against him for implicating then-Gov. Cecil Andrus in what Fridenstine claimed was the illegal firing of an employee.

In a claim seeking damages from the state, Fridenstine said he was placed on leave in December because he had spoken out against the firing of part-time risk analyst Shauna Julian last July. He mentioned “the potential involvement of Gov. Cecil Andrus” in a recorded narration of the events leading to Julian’s firing.

Fridenstine said Julian was fired July 21 because his superiors believed the arrest of Julian’s husband on drug and battery charges two months earlier was politically embarrassing. The battery charges against Brian Julian were dropped five days after his wife’s dismissal, and the drug charges were dismissed in mid-October.Julian also is seeking damages from the state for her firing.

Brian Julian is a partner in the Boise law firm of Quane Smith Howard & Hull, which is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by the Department of Administration for legal work.

In 1993, the firm was paid more than $350,000 for legal work for the Risk Management Bureau, which handles most damage claims against the state, and the so-called second-injury fund, which handles claims for workers’ compensation from workers who already have been judged to be disabled.