By Katharine Webster, The Associated Press
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- A private investigator has sued the former Massachusetts corrections commissioner, claiming he was fired from a prison job there for helping New Hampshire lawmakers investigate corruption in their own corrections department.
Robert Miller of Bow was fired in August 2002 as a unit manager at North Central Correctional Institution in Gardner, Mass., where he supervised 60 staff and 450 inmates.
His lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court last month, claims he was dismissed for interviewing inmate David Edwards about the failure of New Hampshire corrections officials to discipline a sergeant who had smuggled contraband into the state prison in Concord.
“Miller’s communication with Edwards was part of Miller’s whistleblowing-type activity and was not only sanctioned, but often requested by the New Hampshire House of Representatives Criminal Justice Committee,” the lawsuit says.
Miller sued former Massachusetts Corrections Commissioner Michael Maloney both individually and in his official capacity. He seeks damages for wrongful termination and violation of his free speech and due process rights.
“Both systems are laced with corruption,” Miller said Tuesday. “I was fired because Commissioner Maloney was afraid I was going to do the same thing in Massachusetts I did in New Hampshire.”
He said he assumed the phone calls Edwards made from the Concord prison to Miller’s home were being monitored or recorded by New Hampshire prison officials. Miller also taped the conversations to play at a legislative hearing.
Somehow, tapes or transcripts of the conversations ended up in the hands of Massachusetts corrections officials, his lawsuit alleges.
Maloney suspended and later fired Miller for “receiving telephone calls from an inmate,” a violation of the rule that prison staff cannot correspond or associate with an inmate without permission, the lawsuit says.
Miller admits he broke the rule, but says at the time he thought it only applied to contact with Massachusetts prisoners. Massachusetts authorities knew about his work with New Hampshire legislators and never asked him to stop, he said.
New Hampshire corrections spokesman Jeff Lyons said Tuesday that all prisoners’ telephone conversations are recorded, and “if the Mass. Department of Corrections had asked us for something in regards to an ongoing investigation, we would have provided it.” He did not know whether Massachusetts officials had made a request in Miller’s case.
Massachusetts corrections spokesman Justin Latini said he could not comment on “personnel issues,” except to confirm that Miller was terminated.
Several New Hampshire legislators wrote to former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift and Maloney shortly after he was fired, asking that they give him his job back.
State Reps. Marshall Quandt, R-Exeter, and Ken Weyler, R-Kingston, called Miller “truthful and articulate” in his legislative testimony. Miller worked in the New Hampshire prison system for more than 13 years before quitting in 1999.
“It is clear to us that this termination was done with malice and foresight and is, at a minimum, politically motivated,” Quandt and Weyler wrote.
Maloney was forced out as commissioner in December, amid mounting criticism about the prison slaying of pedophile and defrocked Roman Catholic priest John Geoghan. Kathleen Dennehy is now acting commissioner.