Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-24-01535/USCOURTS-ca13-24-01535-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Department of Agriculture
Respondent
Eugene Dokes
Petitioner

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit

______________________

EUGENE DOKES, JR.,

Petitioner

v.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

Respondent

______________________

2024-1535

______________________

Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection 

Board in No. SF-0752-17-0085-I-3.

______________________

Decided: December 9, 2024

______________________

EUGENE DOKES, Murrieta, CA, pro se. 

 RAVI DHANANJAYEN SOOPRAMANIEN, Commercial 

Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States 

Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for respondent. 

Also represented by BRIAN M. BOYNTON, ELIZABETH MARIE 

HOSFORD, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY. 

 ______________________

Before LOURIE, DYK, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.

Case: 24-1535 Document: 27 Page: 1 Filed: 12/09/2024
2 DOKES v. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

PER CURIAM.

Eugene Dokes, Jr., petitions pro se for review of a 

decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board (“Board”) 

denying his petition for review and affirming an initial 

decision of an administrative judge of the Board that 

sustained Mr. Dokes’s termination. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

Mr. Dokes served in the U.S. Navy from 2000 to 2003, 

when he was honorably discharged after suffering a 

gunshot wound while he was on active duty. This wound 

was apparently sustained during a burglary committed by 

another person. Shortly after his discharge, Mr. Dokes was 

diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”) 

said to be caused by the shooting. He began collecting 

service-connected disability benefits from the Department 

of Veterans Affairs. In 2005, Mr. Dokes applied for and 

subsequently began receiving disability benefits from the 

Social Security Administration. He continued to receive 

Social Security benefits through January 2013. 

Mr. Dokes began working for the Food and Nutrition 

Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) in 

October 2014. He held the position of Program Specialist, 

in which he authorized and reauthorized retailers’ 

participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance 

Program.

On December 10, 2015, a grand jury in the Eastern 

District of Missouri indicted Mr. Dokes and his wife on four 

counts of Social Security fraud in violation of 18 

U.S.C. § 641 during the period from 2006 through 2013, 

before his USDA employment. 

Mr. Dokes pled guilty to all four counts and agreed that 

the government would have been able to prove at trial the 

fact that, while receiving Social Security disability 

payments, he embarked on various professional endeavors 

inconsistent with his claim that PTSD rendered him 

Case: 24-1535 Document: 27 Page: 2 Filed: 12/09/2024
DOKES v. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 3

unemployable. These included, among other activities, 

becoming a real estate agent, starting an investment 

company (and other companies), authoring two books, 

serving as a public official in the State of Missouri, and 

running as a candidate for the Missouri House of 

Representatives. 

Mr. Dokes did not advise the USDA of his guilty plea. 

But one of his coworkers brought the case to the attention 

of USDA officials after learning of Mr. Dokes’s criminal 

prosecution and guilty plea from a local news broadcast. 

Mr. Dokes was placed on administrative leave.

Thereafter, on September 19, 2016, in his criminal 

proceeding, Mr. Dokes was sentenced to five years of 

probation and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of 

$45,835.60. On October 25, 2016, the USDA terminated 

him based on a single charge of “Conduct [U]nbecoming a 

Federal Employee.” S. App’x 112.1 In its termination 

notice, the USDA explained that Mr. Dokes’s position as a 

Program Specialist was one of “public trust,” and concluded 

that his “actions reflect[ed] poorly on the Agency’s 

reputation,” in addition to “call[ing] into question [his] 

fundamental credibility and trustworthiness.” S. App’x 

113. Also pertinent to the USDA’s decision was the fact 

that “the Agency learned of [Mr. Dokes’s] case during an 

evening news broadcast,” not from his self-reporting to the 

USDA. S. App’x 113. The deciding official at USDA noted 

that she had considered Mr. Dokes’s PTSD but determined 

that the seriousness of his condition did not “change the 

fact that [he was] convicted of fraudulently obtaining 

[S]ocial [S]ecurity benefits . . . by making false 

statements.” S. App’x 113. 

1 Citations to “S. App’x” are to the supplemental 

appendix filed by the government.

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4 DOKES v. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. Dokes appealed the USDA’s decision to the Board. 

On June 26, 2018, an administrative judge issued an initial 

decision affirming the USDA’s termination decision. The 

initial decision rejected Mr. Dokes’s claims of procedural 

error and found that the USDA proved by a preponderance 

of the evidence the charge of conduct unbecoming a federal 

employee, a nexus between the charged misconduct and 

Mr. Dokes’s position, and the appropriateness of 

termination as a penalty for the misconduct. The full 

Board denied Mr. Dokes’s petition for review and affirmed 

the initial decision on January 19, 2024. 

Mr. Dokes seeks review from this court. We have 

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9).

DISCUSSION

We may disturb the judgment of the Board only if its 

decision is “(1) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, 

or otherwise not in accordance with law; (2) obtained 

without procedures required by law, rule, or regulation 

having been followed; or (3) unsupported by substantial 

evidence.” 5 U.S.C. § 7703(c). The Board’s fact findings are 

reviewed for substantial evidence, and we give no deference 

to its determinations on matters of law. See Brenner v. 

Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 990 F.3d 1313, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 2021). 

The petitioner “bears the burden of establishing error in 

the [Board’s] decision.” Jones v. Dep’t of Health & Hum. 

Servs., 834 F.3d 1361, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (quoting Harris 

v. Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 142 F.3d 1463, 1467 (Fed. Cir. 

1998)).

Mr. Dokes principally argues that the Board abused its 

discretion by refusing to permit him to present evidence 

concerning his PTSD, which “could have affected the 

outcome of [this] case.” Pet’r Informal Br. 2. In his reply, 

Mr. Dokes suggests that neither the USDA nor the Board

considered his PTSD as a mitigating factor for his 

misconduct. He further faults the Board for allegedly 

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DOKES v. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 5

permitting the USDA to “submit late evidence” without 

providing him sufficient opportunity to respond. Id. 

These arguments are without merit. Mr. Dokes fails to 

show that the Board did not consider his evidence or 

arguments regarding his PTSD, or that the USDA failed to 

do so. Indeed, the Board’s decision expressly rejected 

Mr. Dokes’s PTSD argument, while at the same time 

observing that the USDA also rejected Mr. Dokes’s 

contention that his PTSD diagnoses should serve as “a 

mitigating factor.” S. App’x 41–43. 

As for Mr. Dokes’s claim that the Board erred by 

allowing the USDA to file evidence “18 months late,” Pet’r

Informal Br. at 2, Mr. Dokes takes issue with the USDA’s 

supposedly late filing of certain documents it relied upon to 

terminate him, which the Board ordered the USDA to 

submit. It appears that Mr. Dokes possessed those same 

documents and, indeed, included them in his initial appeal 

to the Board. Mr. Dokes has failed to show any error that 

“caused substantial harm or prejudice to his rights which 

could have affected the outcome of the case.” Whitmore v. 

Dep’t of Labor, 680 F.3d 1353, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2012)

(quoting Curtin v. Office of Pers. Mgmt., 846 F.2d 1373, 

1378 (Fed. Cir. 1988)). “Procedural matters relative to 

discovery and evidentiary issues fall within the sound 

discretion of the [B]oard and its officials.” Id. Thus, there 

is no merit to Mr. Dokes’s claim that he was deprived of an 

adequate opportunity to respond to new, belatedly 

introduced evidence.2

2 We likewise find no merit in Mr. Dokes’s additional 

argument, raised explicitly before the Board but only 

implicitly before this court, that the USDA improperly 

terminated him before he had exhausted his criminal 

appeals and postconviction proceedings. There is no 

requirement for an agency to wait for an employee to 

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6 DOKES v. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

We have considered the remainder of Mr. Dokes’s 

arguments and find them unpersuasive. 

AFFIRMED

Costs

No costs.

exhaust challenges to a conviction before the agency may 

terminate the employee. In fact, the governing statutes 

suggest the opposite, providing that an employee must be 

given “at least 30 days’ advance written notice [prior to 

removal], unless there is reasonable cause to believe the 

employee has committed a crime for which a sentence of 

imprisonment may be imposed,” in which case the 

employee is entitled only to 7 days to respond to the 

proposed agency action. 5 U.S.C. § 7513(b) (emphasis 

added).

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