Deputy Commissioner Named To Oversee Changes In Wake Of Scandal
By Nicole Weisensee Egan, Philadelphia Daily News
HARRISBURG - The international security firm that Gov. Rendell hired to monitor the Pennsylvania State Police in the wake of a sex scandal yesterday released its first report, which largely applauded the agency for its cooperation so far.
“We believe the state police is on the right course,” said Bill Nugent, head of Kroll Associates’ Pennsylvania office, at a news conference in the Capitol.
“But I caution this is something that is going to take a lot of hard work... and nothing is going to change overnight.”
Rendell said that he was pleased with the initial report but that there’s still work to be done. He also announced that State Police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller had appointed Maj. John R. Brown to be deputy commissioner of professional responsibility, a new position.
“The creation of this at a deputy commissioner level should convince any remaining doubters on the state police force that we are deadly in earnest about making sure that the type of conduct that caused the prior scandal is not repeated,” Rendell said.
Last September, state Inspector General Donald Patterson issued a scathing report on the state police and how it handled 163 sexual misconduct complaints from 1995 through 2001. Patterson made 40 recommendations for change. Rendell hired Kroll Associates to ensure all the recommendations were implemented. Brown’s promotion was the result of one of those recommendations, Rendell said.
Brown will oversee four bureaus: the Bureau of Integrity and Professional Standards (formerly the Bureau of Professional Responsibility); the Department Discipline Office; the Equal Employment Opportunity Office, and the Early Intervention Program Office.
Rendell said Brown has been a commander in internal affairs and the Bureau of Professional Responsibility since 1994, starting out as a corporal.
Attorney Don Bailey, who represents numerous current and former troopers who are suing the state police, said Brown was not the right person for the job.
“Making Brown deputy police commissioner is fraught with conflicts,” Bailey said. “He will be investigating himself on a number of different cases, including Darrell Ober’s.”
Bailey was referring to a lawsuit by Ober, a captain and 22-year veteran of the force who’s a commander in the state police’s Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement. Ober was once a rising star in the department with a spotless record, Bailey said, but he fell quickly from grace after he earned the ire of former state police Commissioner Paul Evanko.
In the suit, Ober alleges that Evanko destroyed his career because Ober had not informed Evanko that the former commmissioner was a potential target of an FBI probe into the sale of Pennsylvania State Police Academy appointments.
Ober was head of internal affairs in fall 1998 when the FBI told him about the corruption probe.
After the FBI finished its investigation in May 1999, which ended with the arrest of one trooper, Ober told Evanko about the FBI corruption probe. Evanko “exploded into a rage” and ordered an “administrative inquiry” into Ober’s handling of the FBI probe, court documents say.
Evanko also tried to transfer him 200 miles away, denied him promotions and subjected Ober to “investigations, anti-personnel actions and acts of retaliation,” the documents allege.
Another lawsuit by Ober, filed in 2002, names Brown and others, and was dismissed at the District Court in Harrisburg. It is scheduled for arguments before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in May. In the suit, Ober alleges that Brown conducted an illegal investigation into Bailey’s wife and also launched a probe into one of Ober’s key witnesses in that suit. The motive was retaliation for the lawsuit against Evanko and other high-ranking state police officials, Ober’s suit says.
Adrian King, Rendell’s deputy chief of staff, said that none of the allegations in either suit has been proven and noted that Ober himself praised Brown in an October 1999 performance review, when Ober was Brown’s boss in internal affairs, and said he “acts with integrity.”
“When you’re in the field of internal affairs, you get sued,” King said.
Bailey admitted that Ober once “thought highly” of Brown.
“The fact that later Rick Brown behaved as he did has been one of the big disappointments of Darrell Ober’s professional career,” Bailey said.
Evanko retired a year ago, but a climate of fear and retaliation against people who report wrongdoing by others persists, Bailey and others within the state police say.
Nugent, of Kroll’s state office, said that’s “a very critical issue” to him. He said that he’s received a “handful” of calls from people making those same allegations.
“If we become aware that the Pennsylvania State Police is retaliating against whistle-blowers or people who are the subject of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct complaints,” he said, “I will personally pick up the phone and call the governor.”
Rendell agreed that the atmosphere at the state police has to change. “It is important that the individual members of the force, the vast majority who are law-abiding and acting appropriately, help us root out people who are bringing down the reputation of the force,” he said.