Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said the director of the Thomas E. Creek VA Medical Center in Amarillo, Texas has yet to respond after The Star inquired about allegations made by a veteran who received health care from the facility in 2022 and claims to have documented two employees at the VA facility having sexual relations just feet away from where he was being treated.
Last week, The Star obtained a video from retired U.S. Army Sergeant Donald Belzer, who claimed that the footage shows two staff members at the Amarillo VA Health Care System engaged in sexual activity inside a closet marked “Clean Supplies,” just feet away where he was being treated for a hand injury.
Belzer told The Star that he filed a complaint with the Amarillo VA before leaving the medical center in 2022 and filed a second complaint in 2023 through the White House VA Hotline regarding his experience; however, he has yet to have received a response regarding his complaints.
The allegations regarding the Amarillo VA Health Care System come amid an ongoing congressional probe into alleged sexual misconduct at the Mount Home VA Medical Center in Tennessee.
Pappert said after receiving the veteran’s video on Friday, he had reached out to Dr. Rodney Gonzalez, whose LinkedIn account suggests he has served as the executive director of the Amarillo VA Health Care System since 2020, and posed questions regarding the specific incident and other possible similar instances the facility may have received complaints about.
“[The press inquiry] was sent Friday about 4:15 p.m., 4:30 p.m. with a Monday at 9:00 a.m. deadline…Despite the three days we gave him to respond, we have yet to receive a response from Dr. Rodney Gonzalez,” Pappert said in Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“We asked him all of the questions you might expect. We asked if it was accurate that the VA did not respond to the complaint filed by this veteran after he allegedly saw two people having sex on the other side of a door just 12 feet away from him. Did they receive the second complaint through the White House VA hotline? Did this particular hospital or Dr. Rodney Gonzalez respond to the allegations? Have they investigated the allegations? Have they found whether or not they are true if they were true, are these staff members still employed? And of course, we asked, since this man has taken control of this hospital about four years ago, has he received other complaints of a similar nature?” Pappert added.
In the case that Gonzalez continues to dodge press inquiries regarding the veteran’s complaint from The Star, Pappert said his next move will be to contact members of Congress, including House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Michael Bost (R-IL-12) and U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough.
“I wanted to start by giving this particular VA Medical Center a chance to respond, but I think that’s going to be my next step,” Pappert said.
About the veteran who sent The Star the video he recorded while receiving treatment at the Amarillo VA Health Care System, Pappert said the veteran had reached out to a local television station in Texas about his experience; however, its reporters were not interested in covering his story.
Pappert said he believes the local news ignored the veteran’s experience at the VA facility as part of the media company’s “bias” and reputation to side with the “people in power.”
“Very quickly, all interest diminished [in the veteran’s experience]. I have to assume this is where journalists, if you’re working for a massive multinational company, one of these major broadcasters, for example, their bias almost always tends to lie with the government – the people in power. That is the exact opposite of what a reporter is supposed to do. Our entire job is to investigate the people in power at all times,” Pappert said.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Thomas E. Creek Medical Center” by va.gov.
