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The "broke" claim: what the record shows

My analysis

Let's go through the claim and the numbers.

Where the claim is made

• Sworn pleading. The verified complaint says Daszak "remains unemployed and is now poor" (54) and "was unable to secure new employment" (65). Daszak swore to the complaint.
• On the tape (65), in his words:
  • Money and savings:
    • "We have no savings. We have no options."
    • "no job, no backup plan, no savings, no pension, and a mortgage"
    • "You know, you paid me well, but we don't have savings. We don't have commercial. We don't have stock accounts, and um, and, um, you know, and side gigs and all this stuff. ... This is all I've ever had."
    • "I don't have enough money in a retirement to retire."
  • Mortgage, family and the house:
    • "I've got a mortgage, The mortgage payment's got to be made. ... The college fees have got to be paid, or what do we do?"
    • "we have to put the house on the market"
  • Severance and survival:
    • "Give me the benefit of that severance package because without it, I am lost."
    • "It's an ability to survive."
    • "that severance gives me a year to be able to get a job. ... I mean, we're doomed otherwise."
    • "I really thought the severance would be there with it. Because without that, I am utterly doomed."
    • "And now I'm out on the street."
  • On pension, in the same exchange, Shapiro says "EcoHealth has a pension," and Daszak answers that he would get "a fraction of the salary" at 67.
• Legal weight. None of the three claims depends on it. It is context for damages and sympathy, and the judge never mentioned it.

What the numbers say

Source. Daszak's compensation as an EHA officer for the sixteen years from 2009-10 to 2024-25, taken from the Schedule J of each EHA Form 990 (Part VII for the totals). EHA's tax year runs 1 July to 30 June. Several of the returns are image-only PDFs, so their figures were read from the page images. "Other benefits" is whatever is left of the total after base, bonus and employer retirement: mainly non-taxable benefits such as health cover.

All figures are before tax. "Bonus" is the 990's "Bonus & incentive compensation" column; Part 2 covers how EHA describes it. The $0 retirement figures for 2015-16 to 2017-18 are probably contributions reported under "Other benefits": the combined figure barely changes (about $49K) and EHA still reported pension contributions in those years.

Retirement contributions: the minimum the record supports

The handbook (52, section 14.6) says EHA pays 5% of salary into the TIAA-CREF plan whatever the employee does, and matches the employee's own contribution on the first 3%. So EHA pays at least 5% and at most 8%, and the match is paid only if the employee puts in the same amount. The 990 column shows what EHA reported, not what Daszak paid in. His own minimum can be read from the match.

* The three $0 years (2015-16 to 2017-18). The 990 shows $0 in column C, but the plan owes the 5% whatever the employee does, so the amount was most likely reported in another column: Schedule J column (D), "Nontaxable benefits", which is where our "Other benefits" figure comes from. A contribution to a qualified plan is not taxable income, so that column is the natural place for it. The returns do not say so. The evidence is the pattern: "Other benefits" rises from $35,425 in 2014-15 to $46,531, $50,077 and $48,613, then falls to $32,236 in 2018-19, the year column C resumes at $24,500. Column C plus "Other benefits" stays at about $47K to $50K throughout. The starred figure is the plan's floor, 5% of base plus bonus.

The derivation of these figures — why the 5% floor is not double counting, how Daszak's own share is read from the employer match, and the year-by-year caveats — is set out in the Annexe at the end of this tab, together with the wider breakdown of the pay.

His real estate

The latest villa

• Listing description (2015 sale listing, as published). Place names are removed, marked [removed].

  Original "[removed]" house, a gracious circa 1908 colonial revival style home designed by leading architectural firm, McKim, Mead & White. In pristine condition & situated on almost 2 acres of bucolic property with stone walls, patios, sunken English garden & mature landscaping overlooking [removed]. Features wonderful period details, 3 fireplaces, built-in china cupboards & bookshelves, cherry wood floors, coffered ceilings, large library, huge pine paneled family room, 12ft ceilings on the 1st floor & 10ft ceilings on 2nd floor; 2 outbuildings - potting shed & 4-car garage & much more. Priced for quick sale. Live "Currier & Ives" setting.

  • "Currier & Ives." Currier & Ives was a New York print publisher (1834–1907) whose lithographs of idealised American country scenes, farms and winter sleigh rides sold widely in the 19th century. "Live Currier & Ives setting" is estate-agent wording for a setting that looks like those prints: an old-fashioned, pastoral view.
  • "Priced for quick sale" is wording from the 2015 listing, when the house was sold.
  • Other listing details: 1.78 acres; built 1908, remodeled 2006; 5 bedrooms, 5 full bathrooms, about 3,830 sq ft; walk-out basement; central air; steam heating on natural gas; home security system; exclusions of selected light fixtures and window treatments.
• Estimated value. About $1.5 million to $1.65 million, from automated estimates (not appraisals). A critical blog post gives $1.58 million, without a source.
• Sale history (public records).
  • Listed in 2013 at $799,000.
  • Sold in 2015 for $665,000, after more than a year on the market.
  • No later sale appears in the records reviewed.
• Purchase. Daszak bought the villa in 2015. His EHA calendar, made public by Congress in December 2024 and analysed by DRASTIC (working notes on ResearchGate), shows how.
  • On 12 August 2015 the entry reads "Close on [address removed]," preceded by a walk-through at 16:30. This is the recorded sale date. A "closing" is the final meeting of a house purchase, where the paperwork is signed, the money changes hands and ownership passes.
  • The move followed at once: the truck was emptied that evening, and the movers came in on 13 August 2015.
• Current owner: no later sale is recorded, and the calendar shows him living there until at least mid-2023.
• Taxes: roughly $30,000 a year in the 2020–2024 records.
• A skier. His calendar records skiing every winter from 2010, from a few entries a year at first to between 9 and 19 a year from 2014 (a peak of 19 in 2017). The villa is not too far from the Catskill resorts he skis most, Belleayre and Hunter Mountain.
  • Belleayre in the Catskills is the regular hill: trips every winter from 2013, with season passes noted in 2016 and 2018.
  • Others: Hunter Mountain (2019 to 2022), Whiteface and Gore Mountain (three days in one week in January 2022), Killington (April 2023), a trip to Vermont (January 2015) and to Whistler, British Columbia (May 2019). EHA's October 2023 board retreat was held at a hotel in the Catskills ski town of Windham.
  • Skiing is not a luxury in itself, but season passes, lift tickets, equipment and trips to Vermont and British Columbia sit oddly with "we have no options." On the 6 January call, when Daszak says it is snowing, Shapiro's first words are "maybe a good day to go skiing."

The previous house

• What it was. A 1962 colonial of about 1,900 square feet in a neighbouring town, a few miles from the new villa, so very much a local upgrade.
• Bought and sold. He bought it in December 2001 for $293,500, the year his CV (3) shows him moving from the University of Georgia to New York as executive director of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, and about when the complaint dates his 24 years at EHA. He sold it on 7 August 2015 for $445,000, 6% above its $419,900 asking price. The listing went up in April 2015. The 7 August date matches the calendar entry "Close on" that property, five days before the closing on the villa.
• The upgrade. The villa cost $665,000, about 49% more. It has twice the floor area (about 3,830 square feet), a 1908 design by McKim, Mead & White, 1.78 acres, a library, three fireplaces, a potting shed and a four-car garage. The sale price of the old house equals about two thirds of the price of the new one.
• Gain. $151,500 over fourteen years, or 52%, before selling costs.

The money: what the two houses say about "no savings"

Daszak told the board, on the call of 6 January 2025 (65):

"You know, you paid me well, but we don't have savings. We don't have commercial. We don't have stock accounts, and um, and, um, you know, and side gigs and all this stuff. Is just, this is it. This is all I've ever had."

The two sales and purchases show how that sits with the record. His mortgage terms are not in the record, so the figures below are an illustration with typical terms.

• What he was paid. EHA's returns show $1.77 million in the six years to June 2015 (2009-10 to 2014-15), and $4.38 million in the ten years from July 2015 to June 2025, both before tax. His earlier years at EHA are not in the returns reviewed.
• First house, bought with 10% down. He puts $29,350 down on the $293,500 price and borrows $264,150 over 30 years at 7%, a usual rate in late 2001. The payment is about $1,760 a month. By August 2015 the balance is about $205,000.
• First house, sold at a gain, tax included. The sale at $445,000 costs about 6% in agent's fees and closing costs, including New York's transfer tax, about $26,700. The taxable gain is then about $124,800 ($445,000 less costs less the $293,500 price). Federal law excludes up to $250,000 of gain on a main home ($500,000 for a married couple filing jointly), so no tax is due on it. After the $205,000 mortgage, he walks away with about $213,000 in cash.
• Villa, bought with a mortgage. Put the $213,000 into the $665,000 villa and he borrows about $452,000, 68% of the price, at 4% over 30 years. The payment is about $2,160 a month, or $25,900 a year, plus roughly $30,000 a year in property tax. That is a small part of an annual pay of $350,000 to $500,000.
• Where it stands in January 2025. The balance would be about $363,000, against an estimated value of $1.5 million to $1.65 million. Clearing it would take about 8% of his gross pay over the period.
• If he sold the villa. At $1.6 million, less 6% in costs ($96,000), his gain is about $839,000. After the $500,000 exclusion, roughly $340,000 is taxable, which would cost about $87,000 in federal and New York tax at typical rates. After the mortgage, he would still keep about $1.05 million.

Conclusion: a pattern the board could not rely on

Daszak told the board, and then the court, that he was broke. The record shows sixteen years of reported pay of $6.15 million, a house bought for $665,000 that is now worth well over a million, and a new organisation of which he is president, funded by private donors. Taken alone, a loose word about money would mean little. The same gap between what he says and what the record shows runs through the whole case.

• "No savings," "no pension." On the tape he says he has neither. EHA ran a staff retirement plan: its 990s report $300,240 of retirement and deferred compensation for him over sixteen years, and the minimum the record supports is higher still — at least about $428,000 of contributions, roughly $349,000 of it from EHA (the Annexe sets out how). The chair confirms it on the call: "EcoHealth has a pension."
• "Unemployed and poor." He swore to this in the complaint, the same document that names him as president of Nature Health Global and editor-in-chief of the journal EcoHealth. NHG's own return shows $37,500 of pay for a ten-hour week.
• "The board never identified the cause." The complaint says so. On the call the chair gives the reason, "loss of confidence," and EHA gave HHS the same reason a week later.
• "Without the severance I am doomed." The severance clause covers staff laid off for non-performance reasons, against a signed release. He was asking for it when HHS had found the organisation's own failures behind the loss of funds: late progress reports and unreported risky experiments in Wuhan.
• A board that never answered. In 2021 ten scientists and academics, among them Jamie Metzl and Gilles Demaneuf, wrote to the board asking for his removal. The board did not reply publicly.
• No money to collect from EHA — but that is not who he is suing. EHA's final 990 shows net assets of $1.14M falling to zero, "no remaining assets to distribute," and $152,049 of legal fees paid to Nutter McClennen & Fish in December 2025. A win against EHA alone would be a win against an empty shell. But the suit does not rest on EHA: Daszak named the eighteen directors personally and demanded their insurance policies (38), so what he is really pursuing is the directors and EHA's directors-and-officers cover, not the dissolved nonprofit's assets.

Each point can be checked against the documents cited on this page. The board acted on its own grounds on 2 January 2025, before the lawsuit. What he has said and sworn since fits its reading and bears out its decision. A chief executive who presents the facts as suit the moment, to funders, to his board and then to a judge, is not someone a board can trust to speak for the organisation, least of all one facing debarment.

Annexe — the detailed numbers

This annexe holds the technical detail behind the two tables above: why the retirement minimum is not double counting, how Daszak's own share is read, and the wider breakdown of the pay.

Why the retirement minimum is not double counting

• The 5% is not inside base plus bonus. The handbook says EHA contributes 5% "of an employee's annual salary" and that this is "independent of any employee withholding." It is paid on top of salary. Base and bonus (columns B(i) and B(ii)) are what he was paid, so taking 5% of them does not take 5% of an amount that already contains the 5%.

• Each dollar sits in one column. In those three years the 5% is in column (D), not in column (C). The retirement table counts it once, in the starred figure, in place of the $0. It is not added to anything else in that row.

• Pay is unchanged. The $6.15M total is the sum of every column, so it already contains the 5%, wherever EHA put it. Moving it from "Other benefits" to "Retirement" would change the split, not the total. The $48,569 is added only to the retirement tally, never to pay. The retirement figures and the pay figures are not to be added together.

• Reference figure. Employer plus employee contributions of at least $428,164 over sixteen years. Of that, $300,240 is what EHA reported in column C, $48,569 is the 5% floor in the three years reported as $0, and $79,355 is Daszak's own minimum. Without the doubtful 2024-25 year it is $381,300.

• How his own share is worked out. For each year with a reported figure it is the reported amount minus 5% of base plus bonus, capped at 3% of base plus bonus (the most the match can be). From 2019-20 the reported amount is about 8% of base plus bonus, so the full match was being paid. That needs him to have put in at least 3% himself, about $11K to $13K a year. In the three $0 years the match cannot be read, so his share is left at $0.

• Assumptions. The handbook rule applied in every year (the copy in the record is from 2024), the plan's "salary" includes the bonus, and the match is dollar for dollar. His own contributions are not reported on the 990, so that part is inferred, and it is a floor.

• 2024-25. The $35,487 equals exactly 8% of the 2023-24 base plus bonus, so it was probably carried over and the 2024-25 figure may be too high.

The wider picture

1. Scale.
   • Sixteen years of reported compensation total $6.15M, an average of $384K a year.
   • The last ten years total $4.38M.
   • The last five (2020-21 to 2024-25) total $2.40M, about $479K a year.
   • The peak was $498K in 2022-23.
2. Retirement.
   • The returns report $32K to $35K a year of retirement and deferred compensation from 2020-21: $169,838 over the five years. The 2024-25 figure is identical to 2023-24 ($35,487), which may be a carried-over number.
   • The returns answer "No" to a supplemental nonqualified retirement plan every year, so there was no executive-only pension.
   • EHA ran a staff retirement plan. The employee handbook (52, section 14.6) describes a TIAA-CREF plan to which EHA contributes 5% of salary, plus a match of the first 3% of the employee's own contribution, and EHA's cash-flow sheet carries a "Pension Plan - TIAA CREF" line.
   • On the call Daszak says he has "no pension" and that he does not "have enough money in a retirement to retire." Shapiro answers "EcoHealth has a pension," and Daszak then speaks of what he would get at 67: "a fraction of the salary I'm getting now."
   • The returns do not show the plan's balance. They report $300,240 of retirement and deferred compensation over the sixteen years. The table above puts the minimum the record supports, with the 5% floor in the $0 years and Daszak's own contributions added, at $428,164.
   • Whether any of it is a defined-benefit pension is not in the record.
3. A puzzle in the last return.
   • The 2024-25 return reports $379K of base pay for a year in which Daszak was fired on 6 Jan, six months in. That is close to a full year's salary, and the same return says "No" to any severance payment.
   • Possible explanations: pay continued to the end of the fiscal year, accrued leave was paid out, or the figure was reported on a different basis. The return does not say which.
   • If salary did continue, it would sit uneasily with the picture of being "thrown out on the street."
   • The complaint also says Daszak stayed on the board until June 2025.
4. What the EHA 990s cannot show. Spouse's income, savings, other assets, debts, legal bills, or whether the 2020-24 pay was spent. The sworn complaint itself says Daszak is "President of the nonprofit Nature Health Global" and Editor-in-Chief of the Springer-Nature journal EcoHealth (7), next to "unemployed." Part 4 covers that return.

The dispute

Summary

The story

Peter Daszak ran EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) for 24 years, according to the complaint. Before COVID he was not well known outside virology. EHA presented itself as a small New York nonprofit studying bat viruses, but it worked inside the US biodefense research effort and took part in "Track II" scientific exchanges with China. It lived on federal money, and its largest funder was the Pentagon, mostly through the Defense Threat Reduction Agency: about $39 million between 2013 and 2020 (Husseini, Dec 2020). Then COVID arrived, and Congress and federal agencies went after the group and Daszak over research it had funded in Wuhan.

On 30 September 2021, ten scientists and academics from the Paris Group, an informal network pressing for a full inquiry into the origins of COVID, wrote to EHA's board asking it to remove Daszak as president. Jamie Metzl and Gilles Demaneuf were among the co-authors (the letter, on ResearchGate; Undark's account). They accused Daszak of hiding conflicts of interest and of misleading the public about what he knew of the Wuhan lab's work, and warned that if he stayed he would take EHA down with him. The board never answered publicly. FOIA documents show it asked the signatories to keep quiet for a while, and Metzl told Undark the letter had been "met with silence."

The board moved only when the government did. After HHS suspended the group in May 2024, funding froze, and over the following months Daszak laid off most of the staff on the board's instruction, with two weeks' severance for each year of service. On 2 January 2025 the board voted to terminate him. On 6 January, in a Zoom call that Daszak recorded, the chair told him he was out for "loss of confidence," offering six months of health cover, relocation costs and consulting at $300 an hour in exchange for a waiver of claims, but none of the severance the laid-off staff had received. HHS debarred EHA and Daszak for five years eleven days later, and EHA was dissolved by June 2026.

Daszak sued in November 2025 for age discrimination and breach of contract. On 28 July 2026 a judge dismissed the case from the bench at oral argument, with no discovery, and Daszak filed a notice of appeal on 25 August.

The basic timeline

• May 2024: the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) suspended EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak and proposed their debarment, over grant and oversight violations tied to research in Wuhan.
• 6 January 2025: EcoHealth Alliance fired Daszak. The board had voted to terminate him on 2 January.
• 17 January 2025: HHS formally debarred EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak from federal funding for five years.
• 3 November 2025: Daszak filed his lawsuit in New York Supreme Court against EcoHealth Alliance and its directors, for age discrimination and breach of contract.
• 28 July 2026: the court dismissed the case. Daszak filed a notice of appeal on 25 August 2026.

The cast

• Peter Daszak: 59 at the firing. At EHA since about 2000–2001, and its president and CEO for 24 years (per the complaint). He was also a board member and the named principal investigator on the NIH grant that sent money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The complaint says he has raised over $150 million from donors, corporations, foundations and federal agencies.
• EcoHealth Alliance: a New York-based nonprofit that lived on federal grants (about 80% of revenue, per the complaint).
• Stephen Shapiro: board chair, who delivered the news.
• Ellen Shedlarz: vice chair, on the call.
• 17 other directors: all sued personally. The defence says they are unpaid volunteers.
• Lawyers: Joseph Gasperetti for Daszak; Joseph Anci (Jackson Lewis) for the defence.

The board

Daszak chose his directors for their connections and their ability to raise money or open doors for EHA. The result was a board of fundraisers and network-builders more than a body that watched over the organisation. One can follow the argument in an X thread on the board and Shapiro (further posts: one, two). The Paris Group's letter of 30 September 2021 asking the board to remove him got no public answer.

• Stephen Shapiro, the chair.
  • A lawyer, private investor and real estate entrepreneur, managing partner of BSR Investments (since 2006) and Benjamin Shapiro Realty (since 1983).
  • He spends most of his time on national security and foreign policy. He is Senior Advisor to the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center (since December 2020), a former director of the Atlantic Council, and a long-time member and former director of Business Executives for National Security (BENS), a business group that works with the national-security establishment (all per his LinkedIn page).
  • He joined EHA's board in April 2023, as the group faced several investigations, with no scientific or medical background that his profile mentions (Paul Thacker, DisInformation Chronicle, 18 Nov 2025). EHA's 2024-25 tax return lists him as Chair at 20 hours a week, against 3 hours for the other directors.
  • One may read his BENS role as a sign that he is close to the CIA (post).
• Amy Attas, Shapiro's wife. A veterinarian with City Pets: The House Call Vets, whose clients include the pets of New York celebrities. A Forward profile (13 Aug 2004) put her roster at 3,000 home clients, among them Elton John, Billy Joel, Eliot Spitzer, Erica Jong and Renée Fleming, and she also treated Joan Rivers's and Elie Wiesel's pets. She is a former EHA trustee: her own site lists her as a Trustee of EcoHealth Alliance and as a fundraiser for the Wildlife Conservation Society's global health programme. That clientele makes her a natural fundraising contact. She also appears as a supporter on EHA's 2020 benefit invitation.
• Directors as donors.
  • EHA's benefit invitation of 30 April 2020 lists the board (Nancye Green, chair; Carlota Vollhardt, vice chair; Nancy Griffin, secretary; Frederick Baum, treasurer; Daszak, president) and many directors, including Shapiro, Silvershein, Thye, Wils, Shedlarz and Potter, as supporters or sponsors.
  • The 18 April 2024 gala page sells sponsor tables from $1,000 to $50,000.
  • Daszak says on the call that he personally raised "over a quarter million."

Act 1: The squeeze (2020 – 2024)

• The NIH grant funded EHA and Wuhan Institute of Virology bat-coronavirus work.
• Once COVID began, the government opened an investigation (April 2020).
• On 1 May 2024, Daszak testified before a House subcommittee. A staff report and later an HHS notice (the "ARM") accused Daszak and EHA of:
  • Late progress reports.
  • Failing to report risky experiments in Wuhan.
  • Downplaying China's role.
  • Using personal email to dodge records requests.
  • Supporting "gain-of-function" research.
• HHS suspended EHA and proposed debarment on 15 May 2024. It debarred both EHA and Daszak for five years in January 2025.
• Two versions of events. Daszak's complaint calls it political persecution. The defence brief calls it accountability. These are allegations and agency findings, not court findings.
• On the recording, Daszak told the board the accusations "are allegations, they're not proven."
• The exhibits (45–47) are described here as the defence brief characterises them.

Act 2: The layoffs (May 2024 – Jan 2025)

• EHA's funding froze.
• Per the complaint, on the board's instruction Daszak laid off or helped depart most of the staff, paying each person two weeks' severance per year of service under EHA policy.
• The headcount is disputed:
  • Daszak says 26 people, with a spreadsheet to prove it.
  • The defence letter says 40.
  • The summary rows of the severance table (5) say 68 people left since December 2019, 42 of them with severance.
• Daszak says that on 13 Jun 2024, then-chair Carlota Vollhardt "suggested that I retire" (affidavit, doc 64). It was not in the complaint, and it is the only thing in the record that touches age.

Act 3: The firing (6 Jan 2025)

Daszak recorded a Zoom call with Shapiro and Shedlarz and filed the transcript in the case (65). What it shows:

• The call opens with small talk. Daszak says there is a gastroscopy the next day, and that it is snowing where he is. Shapiro answers: "maybe a good day to go skiing." Daszak says "No." Shapiro then tells him the board has terminated his employment.
• Shapiro delivers the verdict. The board terminates Daszak, effective now, for "loss of confidence in your leadership." EHA later told HHS the board had voted on 2 Jan.
• A separation package, offered in exchange for a waiver of claims:
  • Six months of COBRA health cover.
  • Up to $70,000 in relocation costs, against receipts. The board believed Daszak planned to move back to Europe; Daszak says that is untrue and he has no plan B.
  • $300 an hour for any help the board needs.
• Handover. Phone taken to be copied, keys and card returned, systems access cut.
• Daszak asks about severance.
  • Shapiro and Shedlarz answer that the policy covers downsizing or loss of funding, and "this is a performance issue."
  • Daszak answers: "we have lost the funding, haven't we?"
  • Shapiro says: "That's not the reason for the termination."
• Daszak pleads. A mortgage, a daughter in college, a spouse recently out of hospital. "I'm 59 years old. It's the worst time to be thrown out." "Why not let me go and pay the severance." (Part 1 gives more of his words.)
• The strategy.
  • Daszak says the board is trying to separate its lawyers from his for the debarment, that is, cut him loose to save EHA.
  • Shapiro says a settlement with the government is "in the process" of being closed.
  • Daszak warns that firing him costs EHA the grants where he is the principal investigator.

The settlement line, unpacked

"We're in the process of closing [a settlement]... the boilerplate from the government"

• What it is not. A money settlement.
• What it is. An administrative agreement with the HHS suspension and debarment official.
  • Under federal debarment rules (2 C.F.R. § 180.860), an organisation facing debarment can avoid it by promising remedial steps.
  • Typical steps: a compliance programme, an independent monitor, new leadership, and limits on dealing with the person blamed.
• The paper trail, from the HHS debarment memos:
  • 19 Sep 2024: EHA and Daszak, both represented by Steptoe, jointly propose an agreement.
  • 11 Dec 2024: HHS says the proposal is inconsistent with the record and too thin.
  • 2 Jan 2025: EHA's board votes to terminate Daszak, "because it no longer had confidence in Dr. Daszak's leadership" (EHA's own words to HHS). The Zoom call was four days later.
  • 7 Jan: EHA tells HHS that Steptoe is out, Arnold & Porter is in, and Daszak "was no longer employed."
  • 13 Jan: EHA and Daszak file separate responses.
    • EHA's new agreement lists Daszak's termination as the first of five remedial steps.
    • It promises Daszak "will not have any involvement in the operation or management of EcoHealth Alliance."
    • Daszak files his own proposal through Steptoe.
  • 15 Jan: meeting with HHS.
  • 17 Jan: HHS debars both EHA and Daszak for five years.
• HHS's verdict on the firing.
  • The debarring official writes that the termination and a meaningful agreement came only on 6 Jan "and days thereafter."
  • That was after the May and December notices had each offered a chance to present one.
  • The memo says "EHA's changes came too late, so I do not believe in their authenticity," and treats the timing as an aggravating factor.
• What it points to.
  1. It matches Daszak's account of the call. "Separate the lawyers" is documented. The cut-off of the phone, systems and consulting ("if the lawyers will even let us") is the "no involvement" promise being put into effect.
  2. The "cause" was not secret. The board gave the same reason (loss of confidence) to Daszak on 6 Jan and to HHS on 13 Jan. That undercuts the complaint's line that no cause was ever stated, but it also shows the reason was framed for a regulator.
  3. The government-conspiracy theory. Gasperetti told the court Daszak was fired "in cahoots with the government agencies." In the HHS memos, HHS did not demand the firing. EHA offered it as its own remedial step.

What was offered, and what Daszak claimed

What COBRA is

• COBRA is the 1985 federal law (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act). It lets a departing employee and family keep the employer's group health plan, usually for up to 18 months.
• The former employee normally pays the full premium plus up to 2%. EHA's handbook says the same (§25.6): "The insured will be required to pay the full cost of monthly insurance premiums."

What EHA offered

• Health cover: Shedlarz's offer was that EHA would pay six months of COBRA for the whole family. That is a benefit, not cash, and the record gives no dollar value. The 990s report about $42K–$44K a year of non-taxable benefits for Daszak (health and other benefits combined), so six months of family cover was probably well under $22K. This is an estimate, not a figure in the record.
• Relocation: up to $70,000, reimbursed against receipts, not paid as cash.
• Consulting: $300 an hour, at EHA's discretion, for any help EHA called on.
• A new phone.
• A "separation agreement ... in formation," which is not in the record. No lump-sum figure is stated anywhere, and the transcript on the "pay heavily, so you don't get taxed" line is garbled.

All of it was conditioned on a signed waiver of claims (65).

Where Daszak's $380K comes from

• On the call: "So a lack of confidence then cost me $380,000."
• In the affidavit (52): "$368K severance (my prior base, without the bonuses I regularly received)."
• The figure is a formula, and it lands close to last year's base pay.
  • The 990s show base pay of $383,590 in 2023-24 (the figure on the CFO's August 2024 report) and $379,239 in 2024-25.
  • The handbook's formula is "up to two weeks of severance pay for each year of service."
  • Twenty-five years × 2 weeks = 50 weeks. $383,590 × 50/52 = $368,837, about nine months of his total pay.
  • So $368K is 50 weeks of base pay, and $380K on the call is the same number rounded up. It sits close to the $379K reported for the last year because 50 weeks is 96% of a year. It is not derived from the $379K.
• Years of service: the complaint says 24 years, the call says 25. At 24 years the formula gives about $354K.
• The bonus is excluded. The annual "bonus" (about $60K in recent years) is not in the base. The next box covers what the 990s say it is.
• The source is not in the record.
  • The affidavit says the $368K appears on a "Severance" tab of the 22 Aug 2024 CFO report.
  • The defence reply says the exhibit filed does not contain it, and the number "368" appears nowhere in the filed exhibits.
  • The only severance figure in the exhibits is the $1,060,000 total in the December 2024 cash-flow file, labelled "Unlikely, if forced to close."
• The handbook language cuts the other way. It says "up to" (so it is discretionary, with no stated cap), covers lay-offs for "non-performance-related reasons," and requires a signed release. The judge relied on this.

Is the "bonus" really a bonus? What the 990s say

• Where it appears. Schedule J, Part II, column (B)(ii), headed "Bonus & incentive compensation." It is separate from base pay, "other reportable compensation," retirement contributions and non-taxable benefits.
• How EHA describes it.
  • Every year from 2015-16 to 2023-24, Schedule J Part III says: "The bonuses are non-fixed and are merit based. The Chair of the Board of Directors evaluates the President and recommends a bonus based on his performance."
  • In the 2023-24 return, the other-staff version adds that supervisors recommend bonuses for other staff, approved by a personnel committee.
  • The final return (2025-26) says the Board's Executive Committee "reviewed and approved the bonuses ... based on performance."
• Daszak's own pleading.
  • The complaint (74) describes the contract as "a fixed sum of money per year, plus annual bonuses, the amount of the bonus to be determined at the discretion of the Board."
  • The affidavit calls them "bonuses I regularly received."
• What HHS's Inspector General found (report A-05-21-00025, Jan 2023).
  • EHA charged the NIH $15,977 of employee bonuses "without an established plan" (seven employees) and $10,627 of salary over the NIH pay cap, within $89,171 of unallowable costs in the sample.
  • The report quotes EHA's handbook (ch. 19): discretionary pay is "solely under the discretion of management." It found the handbook "too vague to be an agreement" to pay bonuses.
  • It does not say whether Daszak's own bonus was among those sampled.
• The amounts:

• So is it a bonus? By EHA's own wording it is a discretionary, performance-based payment, not salary. It was almost exactly $60,000 for four straight years. A forensic review of EHA (author and method not verified) criticised executive bonuses as unbenchmarked. In 2024-25 no executive received one, which fits an organisation under suspension.

Act 4: The aftermath

• The complaint says EHA moved its address to a Massachusetts P.O. box in June 2025.
• The defence brief says the board voted unanimously to begin dissolution, and Daszak's lawyer told the court EHA has since been dissolved (docs 43, 62, 69).
• The final tax return shows four remaining executives awarded $560,205 in severance on dissolution, while Daszak got none.
  • Two of those amounts match, to the dollar, rows in the severance table attached to Daszak's complaint (5). The names are redacted there, so the match is by amount.
• The nonprofit that firing Daszak was supposed to save is now gone.

The strengths of each side

Daszak

• EHA's own finance spreadsheets.
  • An August 2024 CFO report lists Daszak's severance at about $368,000.
  • A December 2024 version carries a $1.06M severance contingency, labelled "unlikely, if forced to close."
  • These are cash-flow planning documents, not promises.
• Procedure. Bylaws require notice and a hearing before removing a director for cause. Daszak got neither.
• Timing. Daszak was fired in early January 2025, before the debarment that the defence says justified the firing. Gasperetti told the court that "discovery will show" Daszak was sacrificed "to curry favor with Senator Paul."

EcoHealth and its board

• The handbook disclaimer. "Not a contract," "at will," "discretionary," signed by every employee. New York's highest court has enforced this kind of language.
• The severance clause itself. It covers non-performance layoffs only, and only against a signed release.
• The age claim has one fact. Daszak was 59. No comment about age, no younger replacement. The defence says the position was not even refilled (33).
• Daszak's own pleading and recording.
  • The complaint says the board "never identified" the cause for the firing. The recording shows the board saying "loss of confidence."
  • The complaint has dating errors: debarment in "late January 2024" (it was January 2025), and a firing date of 4 Jan versus 6 Jan. Gasperetti conceded the error in court, and the judge noted the timeline came from the complaint. His July 2026 affidavit also has a typo ("January 6, 2026"), and the request to amend is a single sentence.
• The directors. Unpaid volunteers with statutory protection under New York not-for-profit law. Naming every director personally rests on conclusory "conspired" allegations.
• The government record. Even if admitted only for context, it gave the judge a ready answer to why someone in Daszak's position was treated differently.

The legal pipeline

A New York civil case normally runs in the stages below. This one ended at stage 4, with a judgment for the defendants.

The record contains the decision and order and the notice of entry, but no separate document titled "judgment." The order directs the clerk to enter one.

The document groups

A. The claim (docs 1–5)

• 1–2: summons and verified (sworn) complaint, filed in early Nov 2025.
  • The summons is dated 2 Nov. The file holds two versions, and the briefs cite Dkt. 2.
• 3–5: the three exhibits attached to the complaint.
  • 3: Daszak's CV.
  • 4: EHA's bylaws.
  • 5: a staff-severance table as of 3 Jun 2025. Its summary rows say 68 staff left since Dec 2019, 42 of them with severance.

The complaint makes three claims, each demanding more than $1M, plus $3M in punitive damages on the two age counts:

1. Age discrimination, NY State Human Rights Law.
2. Age discrimination, NY City Human Rights Law.
3. Breach of contract: unpaid severance of two weeks' pay per year of service, which Daszak puts at about $368,000.

B. Serving the 18 individual defendants (docs 6–25)

• Twenty short affidavits and affirmations of service, Nov – Dec 2025.
• Process servers chased directors across New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont and Florida.
• One attempt failed: Karen Denton had moved out (23).
• Routine, but it shows the strategy of suing the whole board.

C. Lawyers and deadlines (docs 26–30, 35, 39, 55)

• Appearances:
  • Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney for directors Hoguet and Hirschler (26, 28).
  • Jackson Lewis for everyone else, later for everyone (29, 35, 55).
• Time extensions: answer deadlines pushed to 9–10 Feb 2026 (27, 30).
• Substitution: Jackson Lewis replaced the Hoguet firm (39).

D. Getting to the Commercial Division (docs 31–37)

• 31–32: request for judicial intervention and Commercial Division addendum. These are scanned images with no readable text.
• 33–36: the pre-motion letter exchange.
  • Defendants asked to file a motion to dismiss (10 Feb 2026, doc 33).
  • Daszak opposed (19 Feb, doc 36).
  • Doc 34 is a short letter on the response deadline.
• 37: the judge's order of 24 Feb 2026: no permission needed, go ahead and file.

E. The motion to dismiss (docs 40–56)

• Scheduling stipulations (40, 41, 50, 53, 54): the briefing schedule slipped from a 20 May return date to a final submission on 29 Jun 2026.
• Defendants' package (42–49):
  • Notice of motion (42).
  • Memorandum of law (43).
  • Attorney Anci's affirmation (44).
  • Exhibits A–D (45–48): the 1 May 2024 House Select Subcommittee hearing, the staff report, the HHS suspension and debarment notice, and the EHA Employee Handbook (July 2024).
  • Affirmation of service (49).
• Daszak's opposition (51–52):
  • Memorandum of law (51).
  • His affidavit (52), attaching two internal EHA cash-flow spreadsheets that list his severance, plus the handbook.
• Defendants' reply (56).

F. The discovery skirmish (docs 38, 57–63)

• Daszak's requests, served while the motion was pending:
  • Demand for insurance policies (38).
  • Interrogatories (57).
  • Notice of deposition of director Lisa Silvershein for 14 Aug 2026 (58).
  • Demand for documents due 10 Aug 2026 (59).
• The stay fight:
  • Defendants asked the judge to freeze discovery (60, 17 Jul 2026).
  • Daszak's lawyer got a short extension (61).
  • Daszak opposed (62, 24 Jul).
  • Doc 63 is a 21 Jul 2026 New York Post article attached as an exhibit. It is not among the documents the judge listed as read on the motion.

G. Daszak's late evidence (docs 64–65)

• A July 2026 affidavit (64).
• The transcript of a recording of the 6 Jan 2025 firing call (65). Part 2 covers it.

H. The ruling and appeal (docs 66–71)

• 66: decision and order of 28 Jul 2026.
• 67–68: notice of entry (30 Jul) and the order attached to it.
• 69: the oral-argument transcript.
• 70: proof the notice was served.
• 71: notice of appeal (25 Aug 2026) with the First Department information sheet.

How the court decided

The judge granted the motion from the bench and issued a one-page order: motion granted, complaint dismissed, stay of discovery denied as moot, clerk to enter judgment. The judge ordered the reasons put on the record, with the transcript filed within 45 days (69). Taking every fact in Daszak's favour, as the standard requires:

1. The contract claim fails.
   • The handbook says in conspicuous terms that it "is not a contract" and creates no obligations. Employees also sign an acknowledgment that employment is at will. The judge cited Lobosco (NY Court of Appeals).
   • Even if it were a contract, the severance clause (§25.7) covers people laid off for non-performance reasons and requires a signed release.
   • The judge asked how being debarred could not be a performance reason.
2. The age claims fail.
   • The only age fact pleaded is that Daszak was 59. There was no remark, no comparator in a similar position, and the other fired staff were not debarred.
   • The judge called the rest a "government conspiracy" and "fall person" theory, which is not age discrimination. He said discovery without allegations would be a "fishing expedition."
3. The bylaw violation (removal from the board without notice) the judge saw as unrelated to severance.
4. Director immunity. The directors' separate argument (unpaid nonprofit directors are immune absent gross negligence) was not reached. The ruling rested on points 1 and 2.

Where it stands: a final judgment for the defendants. The only live item is the appeal.

Nature Health Global, Daszak’s new organisation

The organisation and its return

Source: Nature Health Global Inc's Form 990-EZ for calendar year 2025 (EIN 33-3618616), as published by ProPublica. Read the return in the document viewer. The copy there has the street address blacked out for safety. It was filed on 9 May 2026 and signed on 11 May 2026 by Aleksei Chmura, EHA's former Chief of Staff.

Who is paid, and for how much

• Daszak: $37,500 of reportable pay for a role listed at 10 hours a week, about $72 an hour if worked all 52 weeks. The hours are the filer's own statement and were not verified.
• Chmura: listed as Treasurer and Secretary at 10 hours a week, unpaid.
• No salaried staff: the return reports $0 in salaries. Daszak's $37,500 is the only pay line.
• The $78,355 of contractors: the return summary does not say who received it, so it is not known whether anyone else was paid through that line. The $37,500 appears to have been paid to Daszak as a contractor and counted here, but the return does not confirm it.

What the money paid for

• Ocean health: "Fighting for the health of our oceans," $33,653.
• Ticks and Lyme disease: "Red flags in green spaces," $42,805, with the Mianus River Gorge and Mohonk Preserve (field training and tick-abundance surveys in 2025).
• The journal: "Managing the peer-reviewed EcoHealth journal," $28,980 (four issues a year). This is the Springer-Nature journal the complaint says Daszak edits. Whether the journal itself pays an editor is unknown.
• Other expenses: conference and meeting costs $12,577, office $9,360, insurance $2,629, technology $1,881, banking $548 and supplies $88.

What it shows

1. Daszak is not without income. In the first year after the firing he ran a new nonprofit that raised $135,740 and paid him $37,500, a small fraction of the roughly $459K reported for 2024-25.
2. The same circle. Chmura, who received $155,882 of severance from EHA on dissolution, is the new group's treasurer and signed its return.
3. Income collapse, not nothing. Annual pay fell from about $480K to a fraction of that. But the sworn "remains unemployed" and "unable to secure new employment" (54, 65) read poorly next to a paid presidency, and the complaint was verified on 31 Oct 2025, within the year this return covers.
4. Other roles. Daszak is also an unpaid director of the Accountability Journalism Institute Inc, a Brooklyn nonprofit with about $34K of revenue in 2025.

Who funds it?

Daszak's own post names some of the funders. On 19 August 2025, announcing a paper by Nature Health Global scientists in mBio (doi:10.1128/mbio.01197-24), he wrote on NHG's website: "When public funds were blocked, private donors and foundations came to our aid, including the Samuel Freeman Charitable Trust, The Wallace Fund, and an anonymous donor c/o Schwab Charitable" (the post). The paper also thanks the federal agencies that first paid for the work (NIH-NIAID, USAID's PREDICT project) and Chinese research bodies.

• Samuel Freeman Charitable Trust. An EHA donor since 2017, cultivated through director Hoguet (a defendant). On the firing call Daszak said $125K was pledged from it for the coming year. The same donor followed him to NHG.
• "The Wallace Fund." The post does not say which Wallace fund. The Wallace Research Foundation funded EHA from 2020.
• An anonymous donor c/o Schwab Charitable. A donor-advised fund, which lets the donor stay unnamed. Paul Thacker reported this on 18 Nov 2025 (DisInformation Chronicle), and Daszak's post confirms it. The donor's identity is not public.
• Amounts. None is stated. NHG's 2025 revenue was $135,740 in total, and the public return masks its donor schedule (next section).
• A ban on federal money. Daszak is debarred until 2029, so NHG cannot take federal research money. That is why it relies on private donors.

Why the donor schedule says "RESTRICTED"

• It is the IRS's mask, not NHG's choice.
  • The PDF is the IRS's own "efile Public Visual Render" (it says so in the header), copied by ProPublica.
  • For a 501(c)(3), the public can see contribution amounts but not donor names and addresses. The IRS strips them from the public copy of Schedule B.
  • In the rendered form the donor name, address, amount and even the organisation-type and rule check-boxes come out blank or as "RESTRICTED."
• EHA's returns look identical. The 2022-23 and 2023-24 EHA returns show the same single "RESTRICTED" row, even though EHA had many donors. So one row means nothing about how many donors NHG has.
• What can be inferred. NHG's return includes a Schedule B at all, so it probably had at least one gift of $5,000 or more. The line H box is not legible in the render, so this is an inference. Schedule A reports $0 from "disqualified persons," a group that includes officers, so Daszak and Chmura show no gifts there.

Checking the funders against the IRS data

Daszak's post names three funders. The IRS data cannot yet confirm any of them, and the anonymous donor stays unknown.

The funders and the public filings

Other foundations Daszak courted show no NHG grant in the returns filed so far: Gates Foundation, Carnegie, National Geographic, Mars Foundation, the two other Wallace funds and McBean. Packard, Rockefeller, Wellcome, Sloan, Moore, Eleanor Crook, Smith Richardson and Ford had not filed their 2025 returns by the date of the IRS data.

Method

The IRS publishes every e-filed Form 990 and 990-PF as open data.

• The search covered all 312,665 Form 990 and 990-PF returns in the ten 2026 batches.
• It also covered 49,083 returns filed in 2025 for fiscal years ending April 2025 or later (foundations and funds with mid-year fiscal years).
• It searched for "Nature Health Global" and EIN 33-3618616.
• The larger donor-advised funds and named foundations were also checked individually.
• No return other than NHG's own mentions it. ProPublica's full-text search of e-filed returns gives the same result (two hits, both NHG's own return).

Routes tried

Why the IRS data cannot confirm them yet

1. Many foundations' 2025 returns are not due until mid-November 2026, and the IRS data runs to about late October.
2. Some filers, especially bank-trustee trusts such as Samuel Freeman, put the itemised grant list in a PDF attachment that the IRS data does not contain.
3. Donor-advised funds list grants of $5,000 or more by recipient but never name their own donors. A Schwab Charitable grant would show the fund, not the person.
4. Grants below $5,000 are not itemised by donor-advised funds.

Notes on sources

• Allegations, arguments and agency findings are labelled as such.
• Docs 31–32 are scanned with no readable text, so their descriptions are inferred.
• Parts 1 and 2 draw on EHA's Form 990s, the HHS debarment memos and Daszak's compensation history. The "settlement" explanation is an interpretation of the recording against those documents.
• The Nature Health Global return is a 2025 Form 990-EZ with the donor schedule masked by the IRS. NHG's own post of 19 August 2025 confirms the Schwab Charitable donor reported by Thacker; the donor's identity and all amounts remain unknown. Press items are context, not evidence in the case.
• Spellings vary across the record: Shapiro/"Shaprio", Agranoff/Aranoff, Schecter/Shechter. The court's spelling "Schecter" is used.