Today, Tony Menendez is the accountant who beat Halliburton.
But in 2005, he was a newly-hired Halliburton executive with a fancy new title: Director of Technical Accounting Research and Training.
Shortly after Menendez started, he noticed an unusual accounting practice. Halliburton's accountants had been allowing the company to count the full value of equipment sales as revenue upon purchase, sometimes before it had been assembled. The Securities and Exchange Commission had been cracking down on this type of accounting since 2003, giving Menendez cause for concern. He took that concern to top accounting executives. They initially agreed with him. But a shift in practice could amount to billions of dollars in what the company claimed was revenue, so Menendez went to the SEC.
What happened next began a nine-year ordeal, with Menendez fighting to prove that Halliburton retaliated against him for blowing the whistle. For years, Menendez represented himself — devoting thousands of hours of his own time filling briefs, meeting deadlines and countering the company's team of white-shoe lawyers.
Senior reporter Jesse Eisinger lays out the full story of how Menendez went from Halliburton new hire to whistleblower.
Want to talk to that whistleblower that took on Halliburton and won? Ask Tony Menendez and ProPublica senior reporter Jesse Eisinger ( @eisingerj) almost anything this Friday at 12 p.m. EST on Reddit.
Menendez's attorney Joe Ahmed will accompany Menendez.
New to Reddit? Click here to create an account, check out this beginner's guide from Mashable or Reddit's official FAQ.