A Veterans Administration hospital employee and his supervisor have been suspended with pay over a Halloween costume depicting a “disabled whistleblower.”

Jeremy Pottle, a social worker at the embattled Phoenix Veteran Affairs Health Care System, “donned a long, orange wig with a pony tail, drew tattoos on his arms, placed a pillow under his shirt to mimic a beer belly and, according to one co-worker, walked with a limp,” Watchdog reports, in an attempt to portray retired Marine Brandon Coleman during a staff Halloween dress-up day October 30.

He can be seen on the left of this staff photo.

Coleman was suspended in January in a situation described by Whistleblower.org:

As an employee, during his time at the Phoenix VA, Coleman has witnessed a plethora of improper and possibly unlawful practices within the facility. Suicidal veterans have been neglected, and left to walk out of the hospital without proper care.

In 2014, he learned of the unauthorized accessing of his medical records by a VA Social Worker.

After confiding in the OSC with his complaints about this, they were soon aired on ABC. His supervisor, essentially searching for a way to get rid of Coleman, threatened to suspend his employment for being on television and discussing concerns with the media. He was later escorted out of his workplace by police. After returning to The VA for his own treatment as a patient, police embarrassingly followed him everywhere he went.

Pottle apparently thought it would be funny to dress as Coleman for Halloween.

“At first I didn’t know it was Brandon, but I suspected it was,” fellow social worker Jared Kinnaman said of Pottle, according to Watchdog. “The big belly, the hair, same type of shirt Brandon used to wear. He was walking with a limp, and Brandon walks with a cane. Jeremy put a pillow under his shirt because he is a skinny individual.”

Kinnaman said, “It’s kind of a running joke of, ‘Who is Jeremy going to dress up like this year?’” He continues, “The VA is full of death. What we do is hard work. We work with a difficult population. We laugh and prank and joke with each other to get through it, and Halloween is just another day.”

Pottle was suspended with pay for wearing the costume. His supervisor, Lisa Benner, was suspended with pay for letting him wear it “all day long.” Pottle claims he sent out emails to “various people” to apologize for the costume. He didn’t say if one of them was his former co-worker.

“We will take corrective action as needed for the employees as well as others in the supervisory chain if their actions are found to be inappropriate,” Phoenix VA spokeswoman Jean Schaefer told Watchdog. “We want a swift resolution on this.”