AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) — Bruce Casias has yet to see a penny from a $1 million verdict a federal jury awarded him in December of 2019.

That may soon change because the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado upheld the verdict earlier this week.

“I mean, being a whistleblower against of the major contractors here in the U.S., it’s been unbelievably stressful to take this on,” Casias said.

The 60-year-old Lakewood man was a test manager in 2015 at the Raytheon campus in Aurora when he said he was told to falsify data for the ground system that communicates with satellites in space.

“Our military people rely on this. You know, they get up in a helicopter or plane, and we’re sending missiles to other places, we want to make sure they hit the right place,” Casias said.

Raytheon, Department of Defense ignore ethics complaint

Casias filed an ethics complaint with Raytheon that he said went nowhere, but what shocked him is when he filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Defense.

“I would have thought the inspector general in the Air Force would have jumped all over this and came and talked to me right away. Didn’t hear a peep from them,” Casias said.

Raytheon Corporation has appealed the verdict, in part because it argued a $1 million verdict was too high, because Casias was never fired or even had his pay reduced.

But the appellate court said it was fair for the jury to believe Casais faced retaliation because he was demoted to a position where he only supervised two employees instead of 31 engineers.

“I had a whole team of test engineers working for me, and they basically took all my responsibilities away from me. I virtually had nothing to do every day,” Casias said.

Neither Raytheon nor the Department of Defense has responded to inquiries from FOX31.

Raytheon has 14 days to appeal its most recent legal setback to the U.S. Supreme Court.