A former CareerSource Pinellas employee claims in a new lawsuit that the job placement agency violated a federal labor law and fired her when she questioned reporting practices.

Julianne Garisto, who worked in the agency's business services division, said she was fired after being docked for "poor performance" when she was on family leave to care for her father who was sick with cancer. Garisto's lawyer wrote in a complaint filed in Pinellas court last month that the time off was protected by the Family and Medical Leave Act, which affords employees the chance to take protected leave for family and medical reasons.

But Garisto alleges there was more to her firing from an office that has since come under FBI investigation. She said her boss, Haley Loeun, and CareerSource Pinellas' former human resources director, Alice Cobb, put her on an improvement plan with unattainable performance expectations after she returned to work. She said she heard Loeun say that was a way of "getting rid of someone."

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Garisto further said she confronted Loeun on policies meant to "falsely inflate" the number of people CareerSource Pinellas helped find work, according to the lawsuit, a practice she said led to fraudulent reports "to receive a substantial amount of taxpayer money from the government."

The unfair expectations, according to Garisto, were directly connected to the false job placement reporting.

Garisto's claims follow a year of turmoil at CareerSource Pinellas, which along with its former sister agency, CareerSource Tampa Bay, fell under a federal criminal investigation after a series of Tampa Bay Times stories. Earlier this year, investigators from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General interviewed current and former staffers about the business services division where Garisto worked.

READ: Federal agents interview employees at embattled Tampa Bay CareerSource centers

CareerSource Pinellas Board Chair Jack Geller declined to comment on the pending litigation. Garisto could not be reached by phone early Thursday. Neither could Loeun, who was fired from the local CareerSource offices last year, nor Cobb, who retired.

Geller, who has vowed that CareerSource Pinellas will move forward and focus on helping job seekers, said he does not know when the investigations and allegations will end.

"It doesn't make it easy," he said. "It's always there, but by this time we're used to it."

The job placement agency was once touted as one of Florida's best in a network of 24 CareerSource offices across the state. Under the leadership of former CEO Edward Peachey, CareerSource Pinellas and CareerSource Tampa Bay shared staff and services, tasked with allocating millions of federal tax dollars to help train and find jobs for people across two counties.

The Times reported last year that Peachey and other directors, including Loeun, ran the agencies with little oversight from absentee boards filled with local elected officials and business leaders. Peachey's staff obtained hiring lists from companies, then took credit for finding jobs for people who never sought CareerSource's help. They paid bonuses to staffers who recorded higher job placement numbers and hired three of Loeun's relatives. Other employees alleged Loeun and Peachey were romantically involved, but both denied the claims.

The revelations led the boards of CareerSource Pinellas and CareerSource Tampa Bay to oust Peachey and separate their staffs last year. The findings also spurred local, state and federal reviews.

Garisto's lawsuit does not specify how much money she is seeking but said the total is more than $15,000 for damages including back pay and emotional distress.

Contact Zachary T. Sampson at zsampson@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8804. Follow @ZackSampson.