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Derek Wehr was promoted to the high-ranking job at the state psychiatric hospital in 2017. After raising concerns about some hospital practices, he was placed on paid administrative leave in 2023, amid an investigation into workplace allegations he denies. Now he has filed his intent to sue the state for retaliation.
Derek Wehr has spent the last three years as a ghost in the administrative machinery of Oregon State Hospital.
On paper, he is deputy superintendent, a high-ranking official paid an annual salary of $209,576. In real life, he hasn’t set foot in the facility since August 2023 — he’s been relegated to paid administrative leave, existing in a gray area between punching a clock and unemployment.
A review of Wehr’s salary and payroll records shows his pay and benefits exceed a half-million dollars while he’s been on leave. During that time, he has been “duty-stationed” at home, required to be ready to report for work if summoned, according to a whistleblower tort claim he filed against the state alleging he faced retaliation after trying to raise concerns about the safety of hospital staffers.
He never has been summoned back to work.
Oregon State Hospital serves nearly 600 patients at its main campus and up to 145 at its Junction City campus. Most patients enter the hospital through the criminal justice system for court-ordered mental health treatment.
The psychiatric hospital, run by the Oregon Health Authority, has a workforce of more than 2,000. Like other state employees at the hospital, Wehr has received regular cost-of-living salary increases, records show.
Wehr is listed as deputy superintendent on a 2022 organizational chart still posted on the hospital’s website as of Sunday, Aug. 30.
It shows him overseeing several program directors along with admissions and volunteer services, reporting directly to the superintendent.
Hospital officials put Wehr on leave in August 2023 in part to investigate workplace allegations that he denies, including unprofessional behavior, harassment and an inappropriate relationship with an employee.
For three years, Wehr said, he’s tried to get information about the status of that investigation. In the meantime, the hospital he served for more than three decades struggled. Five unexpected patient deaths, a decline in staff morale and a leadership vacuum all unfolded while he observed from the sidelines.
Only this past week did Wehr start to get final answers, with state officials contacting him after Lookout Eugene-Springfield filed a public records request July 22 for his employment records.
First, he says, he received notice the investigation was concluded.
On Wednesday, Wehr’s Eugene attorney, Andrea Coit, sent the health authority a tort claim notice, which is a precursor to a lawsuit against the state. The next day, he received a notice of a predismissal hearing scheduled for Sept. 8. That’s an indication state bosses intend to fire him.
In the four-page tort claim, Wehr asserts he faced retaliation as a whistleblower who, as deputy superintendent, was raising concerns about staff safety that went unheeded.
Further, Wehr contends he was pushed out of active employment as the second-highest-ranking hospital executive and kept on the sidelines when he would otherwise have been positioned to become interim superintendent during a period of transition at the facility.
The tort claim says Wehr faced “radio silence” whenever he sought updates while on administrative leave, especially in 2025.
A spokesperson for the Oregon Health Authority said the nature of the case required an investigation of “many months.”
“The serious nature and the number of allegations required external investigators to interview a significant number of witnesses over many months to conduct a fair and comprehensive investigation,” said Amber Shoebridge, an agency spokesperson.
For Wehr, the experience is about more than struggles with bureaucracy. In an interview with Lookout, he said he’s speaking out to get public attention on what he believes the hospital needs: accountability and a return to quality work that puts patients first. That goal, even after the headlines about patient deaths, is realistic and reflects the hospital’s good work in past years, he said.
“I know that there (are) others like me who have spent their career at the hospital, and they get joy out of helping the patients there,” Wehr said. “And I want to encourage them to not give up.”
During his absence, the hospital has seen high turnover at the top. Superintendent Dolly Matteucci retired in 2024, and her successor, Dr. Sara Walker, abruptly departed in April 2025 after Gov. Tina Kotek learned more details about the March 2025 death of Lane County patient Kenneth Hass in a seclusion room. Since then, the hospital has struggled to fill the superintendent post. In June, the state hired Sean Murphy, a Washington state administrator, as permanent superintendent. He left in August after less than a month on the job.
Wehr, 57, became deputy superintendent of Oregon State Hospital in 2017, the culmination of a career that stretches back to the early 1990s, when he was a temporary worker while attending Western Oregon University. In 1993, he returned to the hospital as a permanent staffer.
He started out as a mental health therapy technician on an adolescent unit. From there, he worked his way up to deputy superintendent, one of the highest executive positions at the hospital.
Wehr’s case stretches back years
Wehr’s tort claim traces his situation back to May 2022, when he was addressing workplace safety failures at the hospital. At that point, Wehr alleges, retaliation started.
The tort claim lays out this sequence of events:
First, Wehr questioned the hospital’s “clinical failure” to update the support plan for a patient who attacked a staffer, adding that at the time there was a spike in staff injury hours and workplace safety violations.
Staff tried to transfer away from that patient’s unit or declined to work overtime due to the patient’s “unchecked attacks.”
Wehr alleges he faced retaliation for those safety inquiries and was “systematically stripped” of his responsibilities by Matteucci, then the superintendent.
The tort claim also alleges Walker, then the chief medical officer, had subordinates who filed “bad-faith internal complaints” about Wehr’s tone when addressing the safety issue involving the patient’s attack.
As Matteucci prepared to retire in 2024, Walker and other “bad-faith actors” coordinated to sideline him through the administrative leave, essentially blocking him from becoming interim superintendent.
Wehr alleges he was placed on administrative leave without reason in August 2023. He reported to human resources that his being placed on leave was unlawful retaliation. Human resources dismissed his claim.
“Despite his unassailable record as the agency’s second-in-command during its most successful operational years, Mr. Wehr was denied even a preliminary first-round interview for the vacant superintendent role,” the tort claim says.
Meanwhile, state officials continued to investigate the allegations against Wehr, who said he cooperated, at one point providing a 50-page response to a round of questions.
In July 2024, Kristine Kautz, a deputy director of the Oregon Health Authority, announced it retained law firm Miller Nash LLP to conduct an “independent” investigation into Wehr’s complaints, the tort claim says.
Wehr cooperated with the investigation, the tort claim states, and in December 2024 gave an eight-hour interview to the firm.
Seeking resolution
Records reviewed by Lookout show Wehr has repeatedly pressed his bosses at the Oregon Health Authority for a resolution.
In recent months, he sent repeated emails to Kautz, seeking updates.
The investigation involves workplace allegations that Wehr answered with detailed rebuttals, according to records reviewed by Lookout. In one allegation, a staffer suggested Wehr had issues with drinking, which he denied.
Wehr told investigators a staffer asked him about a rumor he was in rehab instead of vacation after he returned from an absence. He showed the staffers pictures from his vacation, and they laughed at the rumor, his response said.
In another instance, an investigator asked about an allegation he had an inappropriate relationship with a staffer and about two dozen “burner” phones charging so he could not be tracked.
Wehr’s response was that the allegation was false. Records show he also asked the investigators to interview the staffer who made the accusation to ask if they had ever had a relationship or used burner phones.
In his response to investigators, Wehr chalked up the burner phones rumor to a previous discussion with a staffer in which he also denied it. He told the staffer it would be “complicated and impossible” and she agreed, records of his response show.
Shoebridge, the Oregon Health Authority spokesperson, said she could not comment on specifics of Wehr’s case, saying it’s a personnel matter.
“The current leadership is continuing to work to foster a culture where staff and patients feel safe and respected, and employees know that leadership listens to their concerns and that retaliation is unacceptable,” Shoebridge said, adding that the leadership team has taken steps during the past 15 months to train staff and increase accountability.
‘Radio silence’ and isolation
Wehr said he struggled throughout 2025 to get updates on his case.
“Throughout the entirety of 2025, OHA and its agents enforced total radio silence with Mr. Wehr, refusing to explain why he was forced to be duty-stationed at home, day in and day out,” the claim says. “Under the terms of his ‘duty-stationed’ leave, Mr. Wehr was required to be at his home and ‘ready’ to report to work during the normal work hours.”
The claim compared that to being under house arrest, adding the health authority ignored dozens of emails Wehr sent seeking updates.
For Wehr, the experience was isolating.
“You really have no network at all,” Wehr said of being on administrative leave. “If you have two people that you email that never email half your emails back, and when they do, it’s like a month — you’re completely cut off.”
In February 2026, the tort claim says Wehr requested a meeting with Miller Nash, the law firm investigating the complaints. Kautz blocked the meeting, saying the investigation was concluding, the tort claim alleges.
All of this took a toll on Wehr’s health.
“The compounding weight of being left marooned on administrative leave for 2 years and 8 months, combined with systemic stonewalling, administrative gaslighting, and the refusal to address his claims, directly caused Mr. Wehr to suffer a catastrophic stress-induced psychotic breakdown in March 2026,” the claim says. “This event required intensive medical and psychiatric care and caused significant damage and distress to Mr. Wehr physically, emotionally, financially and reputationally.”
The tort claim says the “systemic toxicity” of involved parties has been validated by the governor’s office, noting that Walker left after a patient’s death. Other high-ranking state officials have left as well, including former Oregon Health Authority Director Dr. Sejal Hathi.
“Multiple other OSH employees have stepped forward to corroborate Dr. Walker’s pattern of targeted retaliation,” the tort claim says.
In his interview, Wehr said his experience of isolation while on administrative leave is a reminder of why hospital staffers do the work they do to help people.
“You have to kind of build your own community, and then if you end up having a mental faceplant, then you have to build your own treatment team, which is what I did,” Wehr said.
Wehr describes administrative leave as a limit on what he can do — not the freedom to do whatever he wants.
“It’s really just the anxiety that comes from having to sit for 40 hours a week in one place,” he said. “It’s like you’re on house arrest with absolutely nothing to do, and so for someone with an active mind like mine, that you know after two years and eight months, that led to a puzzle. I just felt like I would never be able to solve it.”
Wehr looked for answers throughout the Oregon state government, including one email sent to Gov. Tina Kotek’s office, before filing his tort claim.
In February, Wehr reached out to Chris Warner, Kotek’s chief of staff at the time. Records reviewed by Lookout show Wehr emailed Warner, asking if he could file a whistleblower complaint with the governor’s office, as he was worried about additional retaliation and frightened of filing anything with the health authority or the state’s Department of Administrative Services.
“My whistleblower complaint also includes financial waste that is not only unreasonable, but that is also actively being hidden from the public view,” Wehr said in the email reviewed by Lookout.
Warner, who is now filling in as interim director of the Oregon Department of Transportation, responded by connecting him with the Department of Administrative Services instead of routing him to someone within the governor’s office, records show.
Hanna Seay Thomas, a communications adviser for Kotek, said state agencies have “established protocols” for reporting whistleblower complaints as required by state law. In 2018, Oregon expanded whistleblower protection efforts with a pilot program for anonymous reports, which don’t go to the governor’s office, she said.
The governor’s office would not answer a question from Lookout about whether the three-year period for the matter is appropriate for either Wehr or Oregon taxpayers.
‘Great potential’
John Brandeberry, now retired, worked with Wehr at the hospital for several years in the 1990s. During that time, Brandeberry was a psychiatric social worker, working with adolescents and oversaw Wehr’s work.
“He had a presence and a calmness that helped the children,” Brandeberry said.
Brandeberry encouraged Wehr to attend graduate school, which he did, obtaining a master’s degree in social work from Portland State University in 1999.
Brandeberry said he was proud to mentor Wehr and see him rise through the ranks.
Brandeberry said Wehr’s focus at the hospital had been to prevent tragedies rather than just react to each new crisis.
As for Wehr’s last three years, Brandeberry said: “It’s sad to see the hospital itself not being able to be proactive like Derek was.”
Whatever comes of his legal claim and future, Wehr said Oregonians should still consider the public service of working at Oregon State Hospital. He says better days can lie ahead. He points out that in years past, the hospital has enjoyed a positive national reputation with positive outcomes after federal surveys.
“The cool thing about the Oregon State Hospital, if someone has asked me where I work, I can say, ‘You know where ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ was filmed?’ and immediately they know the state hospital,” Wehr said. “And you know, working there for 34 years, I can see how the hospital went from just not too long after that movie was filmed to where it is today. I mean, it has great potential right now. I think it’s going to have some struggles, but it could easily go back to being the best state-run psychiatric hospital in the nation.”
Timeline of events and allegations
1993: Derek Wehr begins permanently working at Oregon State Hospital as a mental health therapy technician, after serving in temporary roles during college.
2017: Wehr receives an offer letter to be promoted to deputy superintendent.
May 2022: Wehr, the deputy superintendent of Oregon State Hospital, raises concerns about a “clinical failure” of a patient’s care that affected staff safety.
Aug. 8, 2023: Wehr is placed on administrative leave after allegations that he denies. Dolly Matteucci was superintendent at the time.
November 2023-24: Oregon State Hospital has a series of several unexpected patient deaths, including a man in November 2023 who died after he was placed in a seclusion room after complaining at a nurse’s station about breathing difficulties.
March 2024: Matteucci retires as superintendent. Dr. Sara Walker, the hospital’s chief medical officer, becomes interim superintendent.
July 2024: The Oregon Health Authority tells Wehr it retained law firm Miller Nash LLP to conduct an investigation into Wehr’s complaints.
Aug. 15, 2024: Dr. Sejal Hathi, head of the Oregon Health Authority, meets with Oregon State Hospital staffers who raise concerns about the hospital’s culture, including safety, retaliation and a failure to follow rules.
September 2024: The state hires Chartis, a consulting firm, to make improvements after patient deaths and other safety violations.
December 2024: Wehr gives an eight-hour interview to investigators.
March 2025: Kenneth Hass dies at Oregon State Hospital, leading to a leadership shakeup as Gov. Tina Kotek’s office learns details of the death.
April 2025: Walker resigns as hospital superintendent. Dave Baden, an Oregon Health Authority administrator, temporarily steps into the role.
June 2025: Jim Diegel, a longtime hospital administrator, assumes the role on an interim basis.
February 2026: Wehr emails Chris Warner, the then-chief of staff for Kotek, asking for assistance in filing a whistleblower complaint and expressing fear of retaliation.
March 2026: The Marion County district attorney opens a grand jury investigation into the management and conditions at Oregon State Hospital.
June 2026: Oregon lawmakers have a hearing about Oregon State Hospital, seeking more accountability in the future.
July 2026: Sean Murphy begins working as the hospital’s permanent superintendent.
July 2026: Lookout files a public records request for Wehr’s employment records.
August 2026: Murphy leaves Oregon State Hospital after less than a month on the job.
Aug. 26, 2026: Wehr files his tort claim notice with the state, shortly after receiving notice that the investigation is concluded.
Aug. 27, 2026: The next day, Wehr receives a notice of a predismissal hearing about his employment, an indication that he faces termination.
Sources: Public records, interviews, internal correspondence and personnel records.
