TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Army reservist Sgt. James Medrano expected a battle in Iraq, but he never dreamed he'd be fighting for his job in Wasco.

Instead of being hailed as a hero for facing gunfire and roadside bombs in 2004 and 2005, Medrano was forced to resign from a correctional officer job he had for 20 years, a lawsuit says.

The suit says Medrano was "a competent and model employee" who in a 2002 employee evaluation earned four outstanding ratings and three above standard ratings.

But Medrano, a reservist for 30 years, was accused in 2005 of falsifying military documents in order to get time off from his job at Wasco State Prison, the suit says.

Medrano was outraged that he was accused of lying to get out of work, the lawsuit says. He was devoted to both his military job and his prison job, earning commendations in both, the lawsuit says.

Over the last four years, he's scored victories and defeats in his attempts to prove his innocence.

The biggest setback was a Department of Corrections administrative review in November 2005. That left him feeling he was going to be fired, the lawsuit says.

So faced with a choice of being fired and losing his pension, or resigning and keeping his pension, he chose to resign.

The lawsuit contends the findings in the administrative review were flawed. For example, the review concluded he fraudulently took certain days off -- ones he actually had a right to take off such as weekends and holidays, the lawsuit says. The disputed days off were between 2000 to 2003.

The prison gave him a chance to contest whether he should be fired, but he passed up the opportunity to attend that hearing.

The lawsuit says at that point he felt his firing was inevitable, so he chose not to attend that hearing, the lawsuit says.

A few weeks after he resigned, however, he applied to get his job back, the lawsuit says.

Around that same time, however, felony charges of fraud were filed against him in Kern County Superior Court.

The prison wouldn't make a decision on his job until the criminal case was over.

The charges remained pending for 19 months until July 2007 when they were dismissed for "insufficient cause."

Despite that, an administrative judge refused to order that he be rehired.

Medrano tried another approach. He filed a claim with the Department of Labor alleging the prison violated his military rights to be reinstated to his job.

Those rights are in the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), which requires employers to hold jobs for reserves when they are called to duty.

The Department of Labor found that the prison willfully violated Medrano's rights and that he should be reinstated.

Medrano also asked the federal Department of Justice to prosecute the prison for violating his rights, but the department declined.

The next step for Medrano was to file a lawsuit against the Department of Corrections, alleging a violation of his USERRA rights, which was filed Oct. 10.

Medrano's lawyer, Sarah Beth Schlehr of Studio City, said she filed the lawsuit because "I think it's extremely unfair that a veteran has been mistreated in this way."

The lawsuit seeks to reinstate Medrano's job with the prison and pay him an unspecified amount in back pay and penalties.

A hearing is scheduled Jan. 4.