Dr. Aaron Westrick blew the whistle on defective bullet proof vests, saving thousands of lives.

In 2001, when Toyobo informed Second Chance Body Armor (“SCBA”), formerly the largest bulletproof vest company in the United States, that Zylon may experience degradation. Alarmingly, corporate leaders chose to conceal this critical defect.

Toyobo is a Japanese-based company that manufactured the Zylon that was imported and sold to Second Chance. At the time of Toyobo’s notification, Dr. Westrick was the SCBA Director for Research and Marketing and a rising star in the body armor industry.

Dr. Westrick was the first official to oppose the sale of bulletproof vests made with Zylon fiber. He became a lone voice of reason, desperately warning the company and Toyobo about the possibility of catastrophe, such as a police officer being shot and killed because of a failing vest.

On December 18, 2001, Dr. Westrick grew increasingly alarmed at the Toyobo-SCBA cover-up and wrote a memo to the President of SCBA urging SCBA to “immediately notify our customers of the degradation problems we are experiencing” with the Zylon vests.

He informed the President of Second Chance that SCBA should “make the right difficult decisions” and “do the right things and not hesitate.” The “obvious safety issues” should “not be hidden.” SCBA ignored this recommendation.

Instead, Toyobo and SCBA entered into a secret “rebate” agreement in which Toyobo would make “incentive payments” to SCBA if SCBA “promoted” the sale of Zylon vests “to the police force.” Upon signing the agreement, Toyobo paid SCBA an immediate “retroactive rebate” of $1.421 million.

In 2002, the President of SCBA finally decided to act on Westrick’s concerns. He wrote a confidential memo to the SCBA Executive Board acknowledging that the Zylon vests were dangerous, and explicitly urged the company to warn police.

The memo included two possible solutions:

• “Solution 1: We continue operating as though nothing is wrong until one of our customers is killed or wounded, or … some other entity exposes the Zylon problem,” or
• “Solution 2: We publish and circulate an ad denouncing all [Zylon] vests and decline to make them anymore, unless … the customer is fully aware of the [Zylon] shortcomings.”

The SCBA General Counsel ordered that all copies of the memo be shredded and that the document be removed from the SCBA computer system. All copies of the memo were destroyed, except for one copy preserved by Dr. Westrick, which he eventually provided to the United States and other law enforcement agencies.

SCBA continued to sell the Zylon vests and did not issue any warnings. Tragically, the warnings became reality. The Zylon vests failed as suspected and two officers were injured. Unfortunately, one life was lost while wearing a Zylon vest.

• On June 13, 2003, a Zylon vest was penetrated. Officer Tony Zeppetella died while wearing body armor made with the Zylon fabric.
• On June 23, 2003, Officer Ed Limbacher was shot through his vest under ballistic conditions for which the vest should have worked. He was permanently injured.

Dr. Westrick promptly “leaked” all of his documentation concerning defects of Zylon, and the Toyobo-SCBA cover-up, to representatives of Officer Limbacher, counsel for Officer Zeppetella‘s widow, and numerous state Attorney General’s offices, permitting those agencies to settle class action and personal injury cases successfully.

Dr. Westrick testified in the Zeppetella case, providing critical evidence that resulted in the jury awarding Zeppetella’s widow $3.6 million in damages based on the failure of SCBA and Toyobo to warn police officers of the dangers from Zylon.

Determined to make a difference, Dr. Westrick turned to the False Claims Act. This lawsuit became his weapon to force Zylon vests off the market and hold the companies profiting from faulty equipment accountable.

In 2004, Dr. Westrick filed a qui tam False Claims Act (“FCA”) case against SCBA and Toyobo. The federal government backed-up Westrick and intervened in the on case June 1, 2005.

Toyobo maintained that it had no liability for the vests, arguing that SCBA should be blamed as it manufactured the actual vests and that Toyobo only sold the raw Zylon to SCBA. This argument was convenient, as SCBA went bankrupt, primarily due to its Zylon-related liabilities.

Toyobo mounted an unprecedented 13-year scorched earth defense, using every possible legal maneuver to escape liability for selling unsafe body armor to police, federal agents, and the U.S. military.

The case settled on the eve of an anticipated six-week jury trial.

At a pretrial conference held on February 22, 2018, Dr. Westrick moved the Court to permit the jury to find Toyobo guilty of conspiracy with SCBA, thus undermining Toyobo’s principle defense, and allowing the jury to hold Toyobo accountable for all the vest sales made by SCBA. The Court granted Dr. Westrick’s request over Toyobo’s strenuous objection. That same evening, Toyobo gave up, agreeing to a settlement in principle with the United States.

All in all, the Department of Justice described the benefits obtained by the taxpayers based on Dr. Westrick’s whistleblowing: A total of $132 million recovered from 18 corporations and individuals, of which $22 million was used to purchase new body armor for police officers. But the biggest winners were police officers and federal agents around the United States who were able to replace defective Zylon vests with those that would protect their lives.

Dr. Aaron Westrick’s courage and pursuit of justice paid off. The sale of Zylon vests screeched to a halt, and most were removed and replaced. The companies who responsible for selling these dangerous vests paid millions in damages to the United States.

In a major blow, Toyobo, a key player, was forced to pay a hefty $66 million in damages, along with several other firms. Second Chance, unable to withstand the pressure, filed for bankruptcy, and its top executives faced personal financial repercussions.

Dr. Westrick’s career in the body armor industry might have been sacrificed, but his unwavering commitment to officer safety yielded significant rewards.

He received whistleblower compensation from Toyobo, the Second Chance bankruptcy settlement, and additional settlements, including one under the California False Claims Act.

Championing Truthtellers: The Pillar Awards

In 2018, Dr. Westrick received the Frank Wills and Martha Mitchell Pillar Award for Whistleblowers and Unsung Heroes.

The Whistleblower Summit for Civil and Human Rights presents the Pillar Awards to celebrate individuals and organizations who stand up for the community by upholding the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments. These amendments guarantee freedom of speech, protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and due process of law, respectively.

The Pillar Awards specifically recognize whistleblowers who faced retaliation or hardship for exposing wrongdoing. The award honors not only their bravery and resilience, but also the positive impact their actions have on society. Past recipients include Diane Williams, alongside Senators Corey Booker, Rand Paul, and Ron Johnson.

Whistleblower Advocate: National Whistleblower Day

Dr. Westrick was a featured speaker at the 2018 Whistleblower Day Celebration on Capitol Hill. He was joined by Sen. Charles Grassley, the Chairman of the Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus who recounted Dr. Westrick’s incredible impact during his keynote address:

“Because of his remarkable courage, the product was pulled from the market, and no doubt countless lives saved. But think about it this: what if his company had listened to him in the first place? Times would have turned out very differently for the two brave officers whose vests failed them.”