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| CO claims reporting jail problems cost him |
| By gazette.net/ |
| Published: 04/15/2011 |
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Warden tells grievance board she selected best candidate for job A Prince George's County corrections officer linked to reports of mismanagement at the jail alleges the incident led "embarrassed" supervisors to retaliate by denying him a promotion. The Prince George's County Personnel Board heard Lt. Scott Devine's allegations of retaliation by supervisors this fall at a grievance hearing Wednesday, where Devine was requesting an order for his promotion. The hearing was not completed and is scheduled to be continued May 18. Mary Lou McDonough, director of the county Department of Corrections, said she chose to promote a different lieutenant, rather than Devine, to a vacant captain's position in October at the Upper Marlboro jail because she felt he was more experienced and mature than Devine. The promotion from lieutenant to captain carries a $5,000 pay increase in the base salary for the position, she said. "I picked the best candidate, in my opinion," McDonough testified before the five-member personnel board. However, Devine, a 14-year veteran of the department, says jail officials held a grudge against him after his name appeared in a Washington Post article in April 2009 that quoted a memo he wrote two years earlier warning jail management that inmates were able to pop locks on jail cell doors. Devine testified Wednesday he hand-delivered a memo to Lt. Col. Gregory Harris, now a civilian deputy director at the DOC, in January 2007 about the issue after interviewing an inmate. Then on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009, several inmates used the same technique Devine had warned about to simultaneously break out of their cells and attack prison officers. After the article on the attack and previous memo, Devine said, "The officers commended me for standing up for the officers' safety. I kind of got a cold feeling from the higher command staff because I guess I embarrassed them." Harris testified Wednesday he does not remember receiving Devine's memo, and McDonough questioned the authenticity of the memo because it could not be found on file after the Super Bowl Sunday incident. Harris said he himself wrote a memo detailing the jail cell lock problem to command staff in 2007, but on Wednesday Devine's attorney, Bruce Lerner, questioned his account because in a copy of the memo he obtained, Harris had not initialed it. Lerner said during the hearing he believes McDonough's decision was heavily influenced by Harris and others in jail management who felt embarrassed by the article. Devine was the highest-ranked lieutenant on a list of people eligible for the promotion to captain based on promotional test scores, testified Lt. David Wall, president of the county's Correctional Officers Association. A lieutenant ranked one spot lower than Devine was chosen for the promotion, although promotions have typically followed the order on the list, said Wall, who is himself ranked third on the promotional list. In several years before McDonough was appointed as director, the county jail had been rocked by scandal, such as missing guns, cell phones smuggled in to inmates and in 2008 the death of inmate Ronnie White, who was found dead in his cell a day after he was arrested and charged with killing a police officer. Read More. |
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