California correctional officer kept job after lying to protect coworker, report says
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation allowed a correctional officer to return to his job despite a “preponderance of evidence” suggesting he lied under oath during another officer’s disciplinary hearing, according to a report by the state Office of the Inspector General that is critical of the decision.
The public report by the inspector general represents a rare, public criticism of a single disciplinary decision at the corrections department. The inspector general is charged with reviewing prison standards and policies, and it usually publishes reports on trends at individual prisons and across the system.
It put a spotlight on the officer after officials overturned a previous decision to dismiss him, opting instead to suspend the officer. A deputy director suggested the officer was “probably just ‘confused’” while testifying at a State Personnel Board hearing, according to a report released Thursday.
The inspector general says the case “reflects a lack of understanding regarding the importance of peace officers providing truthful testimony under oath.”
The case involves a male officer who in December 2018 was called to testify at a hearing regarding the alleged misconduct of a female colleague, who had been accused of leaving her prison post before the end of her shift and then lying about it to her superiors.
None of the involved parties, nor the prison involved, are named in the report.
The inspector general wrote that the male officer “falsely testified that the second officer had spent an hour assisting him with his duties and that he had seen her ‘around’ later in the shift” despite making multiple earlier statements to a department attorney that she had only assisted him for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Prior to taking the stand, the officer had been observed in a waiting area outside the hearing room speaking with the female officer’s attorney and her father, a lieutenant who works at the same prison.
The report says the officer was then questioned under oath, during which time he “continued to contradict his original statements and maintain his new recollection of events,” allegedly doing so to protect the other officer.
An administrative judge upheld the termination of the female officer on the grounds of dishonesty, and the corrections department initiated a disciplinary case against the male officer accusing him of lying under oath.
The prison warden who reviewed the case decided in December 2019 to dismiss him, and the officer was served with the dismissal notice in January, according to the report.
The male officer then proposed a settlement agreement to the corrections department via his attorney, which “presented no new information or evidence, but offered to settle the case if the department reduced the dismissal penalty to a nondismissal penalty.”
“Surprisingly, a senior department attorney recommended that the warden accept this offer,” saying he did not think the corrections department could prove the officer’s intent to deceive, the inspector general report says.
The inspector general earlier this year expressed its disagreement with the warden’s offer to settle the case for a 10 percent salary reduction over 12 months, and recommended the decision be sent to the warden’s supervisor, an associate director. The officer’s attorney at this point offered to settle for a 10 percent pay cut lasting 24 months, doubling the proposed discipline.
But then, the associate director came back with a counter of a 30-day suspension, which would represent a smaller monetary impact than the 2-year pay cut. The inspector general again disagreed with the penalty, which sent the decision up the chain to a deputy director in March.
The deputy director dropped the dishonesty allegation in favor of a neglect of duty allegation, and settled on the 30-working-day suspension, which allowed the officer to return to work at the same prison, according to the report.
“The department’s unwillingness to dismiss a dishonest peace officer from its ranks is troubling, especially as it pertains to an officer who attempted to subvert a righteous employee disciplinary case pursued by one of its own department attorneys and involving another dishonest peace officer,” the report says.
The corrections department responded to a draft of the inspector’s general report in a letter dated May 12, which is included in the final report, and disputed the inspector general’s claim that there was a preponderance of evidence to prove dishonesty on the officer’s part. The corrections department response states that the warden believed the officer “understood his errors and his career could be salvaged” with a suspension rather than dismissal.
This story was originally published June 11, 2020 at 2:23 PM with the headline "California correctional officer kept job after lying to protect coworker, report says."
