Joanne Marie Toledo Hamm, a former division director for Sprint in Hawaii, said in a lawsuit that she was wrongfully fired in 2007 "in part" for blowing the whistle on fraud allegedly committed by Nextel Partners employees.

A Sprint Nextel spokeswoman on Friday conceded that there were problems with Nextel Partners' customer accounting prior to its purchase by Sprint. But the matter had nothing to do with Hamm's firing, she said.

About 127,000 Nextel Partners customers -- 7 percent of the company's claimed subscriber base -- were cut from Nextel Partners before Sprint purchased the company, said spokeswoman Leigh Horner. Other customers were cut during the three months after the purchase, she said.

Following the purchase, Sprint cut off severance payments for a number of Nextel Partners employees who had left the company, Horner said.

However, Horner said, whistle-blowing had nothing to do with Hamm's dismissal. She said Hamm was fired for "multiple violations" of the company's ethics policies.

Hamm made $347,849 working as a director for Sprint in 2006, according to the lawsuit.

The employment dispute aside, the lawsuit sheds light on a subject that's been rumored for some time. Nextel Partners could not account for a significant number of its claimed subscribers, leading some to speculate that Sprint paid too much for the company.

The Nextel Partners purchase -- $6.5 billion plus $1 billion in debt -- is yet another chapter in Sprint's troubled merger with Nextel. In February, Sprint took a noncash, on-paper goodwill accounting loss of $29.7 billion, much of it attributed to the loss in value of Nextel, Nextel Partners and other affiliates.

Sprint's $38 billion acquisition of Nextel Communications in 2005 triggered a clause in the wireless push-to-talk pioneer's contract with Nextel Partners requiring Sprint to buy the company. Nextel Partners built out the Nextel network in smaller cities.

Negotiations over acquisition of the affiliate proved long and contentious, with both sides arguing over the price.

In her lawsuit, filed Thursday in Hawaii's state circuit court, Hamm said she was named in 2006 to manage Sprint's takeover of Nextel Partners' operations in Hawaii.

In her investigation during that period, Hamm said she found that Nextel Partners employees had been directed to process orders for phones for customers who never ordered them.

Customers never knew about the ghost contracts, however, because "those responsible would only 'ship' the phones from one side of the warehouse to the other, instead of to the customer's address," according to the lawsuit.

The fraud was covered up by several methods, including placing a "zero monthly recurring charge on the devices to hide from the customer any evidence of the 'sale,' " Hamm alleged.

Hamm said she believes Nextel Partners inflated its customer numbers to boost sales figures, pumping up the company's price on Wall Street -- and ultimately its price to Sprint.

In addition to the change that reduced Nextel Partners subscriber numbers by 127,000, additional customer cuts were made by Sprint as the company found Nextel Partners customers who hadn't paid bills for long periods.

In reporting its financial results for the third quarter of 2006, the first reporting period after the acquisition, Sprint lost 188,000 prepaid customers. The company's customer monthly churn rate -- reflecting customers who leave the company -- jumped from 2.1 percent to 2.4 percent.

Sprint said the poor numbers resulted from customers cut for credit issues and customers leaving the legacy Nextel IDEN network.

Horner, the Sprint spokeswoman, declined to discuss Hamm's allegations about Nextel Partners in detail.

However, Horner said, Hamm's reports of fraud, documented in e-mails included with the lawsuit, had nothing to do with her dismissal.

"There had already been an internal investigation" of the Nextel Partners matter, Horner said. "It had already been dealt with."

In the lawsuit, Hamm also said she was fired for reasons of age and gender discrimination.

Hamm said Sprint told her she was fired for violating the company's code of conduct, falsifying expense records and violating the employee guide. She denied the allegations and said she was fired for whistle-blowing.

In a statement issued by her attorney, Jerry Hiatt of Kamuela, Hawaii, Hamm said she filed the lawsuit to clear her name.

"Prior to my termination I reported to my manager at Sprint that it deceived its customers and presented a false financial picture by relying upon thousands of fraudulent and nonexistent sales booked by the company it merged with," Hamm said.

"Rather than do the right thing, Sprint chose to terminate the messenger who brought this problem to light, firing their most senior local female executive in favor of a younger male."

Sprint shares closed Friday at $6.52, down 12 cents.