Before Ed Adams was removed as the superintendent of the state’s largest prison, a staff member there leveled complaints about his threatening conduct and inappropriate sexual language, according to documents released by the state late Monday afternoon.
The documents related to an investigation into Adams actions as head of the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield were provided by the state to VTDigger ahead of a hearing set for Tuesday morning to determine whether they should be made public.
The Vermont Journalism Trust, the nonprofit parent organization of VTDigger, has been fighting the state for more than 18 months for documents related to Adams’ removal as superintendent of the Springfield prison.
VTDigger originally sought the records pertaining to complaints against Adams in September 2018 when he was placed on leave from his position as the leader of the Springfield prison. VTDigger, through the lawsuit, had earlier obtained documents and reported that the state signed a secret agreement with Adams in December 2018.
According to those documents previously obtained by VTDigger, Adams was demoted to a probation officer job but his rate of pay stayed nearly the same at $45 per hour, or about $94,000 a year, well above the usual rate for a probation officer.
However, the specific reason for Adams’ removal from the superintendent position had still not been made public by the state.
The documents released late Monday afternoon show the investigation into Adams included numerous allegations against him over many months. Adams was hired as superintendent of Springfield prison in August 2016.
The allegations include claims that Adams used a lisp when referring to a gay inmate, once said he gets “hard” when firing people, spoke about an inmate not being a good enough sex offender when he failed in an attempt to have sex with another prisoner, and said, “lt’s women’s work to deal with emotional issues.”
In response to many of the allegations, Adams denied the claims or told the investigator that he did not recall making the statements.
According to the documents, the investigation began in September 2018 after an employee, whose name and gender are redacted from the filing, was leaving a job at the facility and took part in an exit interview.
The documents stated that when the employee was asked why they were leaving, responded, “Ed Adams.” The employee then provided a list of complaints, dating back to November 2016.
For example, in January 2018 the staff member told the investigator that during a morning meeting there was a discussion about an inmate who attempted to “engage with another inmate in PREA type behavior but was not successful.” PREA is the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
A staff member told the investigator that Adams said at that meeting that the inmate had not been a good enough sex offender.
Adams, according to the documents, told the investigator he did not “specifically” recall that incident, but said it was possible given the work environment at the prison.
He added, “we have a bad sense of humor, I’m not trying to defend it if I said that, but 95 percent of everyone makes them.”
In January 2018, the documents stated, Adams allegedly asked the staff member if Adams needed to “unzip” his pants to get staff to follow his instructions.
“I found this extremely offensive,” the staff member reported, “but I was deathly afraid of retaliation at this time.”
In an email to the investigator in November 2018, Adams addressed another crude statement a staff member alleged he had made.
“The other notable allegation was the one where I am alleged to have said specific casework staff were sucking on the breast of their supervisor,” Adams wrote to the investigator.
“This does not sound like something I would normally say,” he added, “but in trying to recreate the memory I cannot rule it out with certainty.”
The investigator, in his final report, also issued in November 2018, wrote about another alleged comment made by Adams, “I get hard at the thought of firing people.”
The investigator wrote that Adams reported that he “does enjoy firing employees when it is related to misconduct situations,” though he didn’t recall if he made that “specific” comment.
Adams told the investigator that the time of the alleged statement was around the period when a staff member was terminated for bringing drugs into the facility, the report stated. “If I made the statement about getting hard firing staff then it would have been likely in reference to that staff,” Adams wrote in a follow-up email.
Adams also told the investigator that the staff member lodging the complaints hadn’t filed any earlier complaints against him
“Adams considered this to be a ‘departing shot across the bow’ as (the employee) left DOC employment,” the documents stated. “Adams stated he found it suspect that (the employee) kept a detailed log of events but never spoke to anyone about them for multiple years.”
The final report by Tyler Dunigan, an investigator with the state Department of Human Resources, is dated Nov. 8, 2018, and was submitted to Michael Touchette, then deputy of the state Department of Corrections, and Thomas Waldman, general counsel for the Department of Human Resources. (Touchette was since promoted to commissioner and then resigned amid separate allegations against corrections officials).
The report does not state what action, if any, was taken against Adams following the submission of that report.
However, Adams had reached a demotion agreement with the state in December 2018 – a month after that final investigative report was submitted, according to documents previously provided by the state to VTDigger.
That agreement mainly outlines legal protections of both sides following the superintendent’s demotion to a probation officer position, but also stated that “employees who worked for Adams at SSCF made allegations against Adams.”
That document also stated, “this agreement is entered into for the mutual convenience of the Parties in recognition of the costs and risks associated with litigation.” Adams did not admit to any wrongdoing in the agreement, and his demotion is referred to in the document as “voluntary.”
In 2015, Adams was also the subject of a sexual harassment investigation while he was superintendent of the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, the state’s only women’s prison.
Among the documents released Monday, was a memo dated Dec. 22, 2015, from Touchette, then director of facility operations for the state corrections department. In that document, Touchette wrote that the complaint was investigated and determined it to be “unfounded.”
The Vermont State Employees’ Association, on Adams’ behalf, sought in January to intervene in VTDigger’s public records lawsuit against the state. That move came after Mike Smith, state Agency of Human Services secretary, wrote him a letter informing him of state plans to release the documents to VTDigger.
Smith, in that letter, wrote that he determined that the public interest had now outweighed Adams privacy interests, due to reports the previous month of abuse in the prison system.
“As I am sure you are aware, the significance of the public’s interest in the disclosure of these documents has increased substantially in recent weeks,” Smith wrote to Adams.
A hearing had been set for Tuesday morning in Washington County civil court in Montpelier to hear arguments over whether Adams could block the release of the records by the state to VTDigger. However, Adams, in a statement issued Monday evening, wrote that he was dropping his challenge.
In his press release Adams stated, “I would have preferred that this information been made available to the media much earlier in order to spare the Department and my family from this media frenzy, but I support the Departments decision to withhold, understanding that there would be personal cost to bear along the way.”
Adams wrote that he continued a “dialogue” with the department about the release of the documents. He added. I believe that I acted appropriately and set expectations of employees that were fair and necessary to maintain the safety and integrity of the institution.”
Specifically regarding the final investigative report looking into his conduct at the Springfield prison, Adams wrote that “none” of the allegations against him were “brought up in a timely manner which would have assisted the investigative process.”
He added, “I categorically deny allegations that I routinely threatened people’s employment. I held staff accountable to their work and as a steward of the taxpayer’s money, I expected staff to perform as professionals.”
Adams also said that in the months before the allegations surfaced against him in Springfield, he told his “direct supervisor” of his desire to leave the superintendent’s position.
“I had lost faith in the manner in which central office was supporting facility operations,” he wrote, “which in my opinion, prioritized short-term emergencies to the exclusion of any long-term vision. I expressed this intent months before any allegations were made against me.”
He added, “I believe that expressing my intent to leave, coupled with my stated dissatisfaction with central leadership was the primary reason the Department offered me an opportunity to voluntarily demote.”
Adams said the state’s “remarkable shift on the public/private nature of my documents in response to intense media criticism sets a dangerous precedent that should concern my fellow State of Vermont workers.”
He added, “Given the uncertain outcome of further litigation and the ongoing direct and implied criticism from the media and state officials, I am dropping my opposition to disclosure.”
According to a motion filed late Monday afternoon by Assistant Attorney General Jared Bianchi, the documents were released after Adams and the Vermont State Employees’ Association “consented to the disclosure of the attached records and have waived any associated confidentialities or privileges with respect to the unredacted information.”
The more than 100 pages provided to VTDigger includes many redactions, and in some cases fully blacked out pages. Those redactions, according to Bianchi’s filing, consist “largely” of information that could be used to identify a person making a complaint.
In releasing the documents with Adams’ consent, the state avoided some of the sticky legal questions raised in VTDigger’s lawsuit, such as whether state personnel records should be subject to release in some instances.
Despite Smith’s earlier assertion that he planned to release the documents prior to Adams filing to intervene in the case, the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, which is representing the state in the case, still claimed in its filing that the documents are legally exempt from disclosure.
However, Bianchi wrote in filing, the documents are being provided to VTDigger as a result of Adams’ “consent” to their release, not as a result of the news organization’s legal action.
“The instant suit has not served as the catalyst for this disclosure,” Bianchi wrote. “Rather the subject employee has now requested and permitted the disclosure of confidential records and so the dispute as to the unredacted components of (the records) is now moot.”
Bianchi declined to comment on the state’s latest legal position, referring questions about the state’s position to his filing.
Coteus, a lawyer representing VTDigger, told Judge Timothy Tomasi that since the news organization had only received the documents late Monday afternoon it needed more time to review them to ensure they are complete and redactions are appropriate.
Coteus, an attorney at the law firm Tarrant, Gillies & Richardson of Montpelier, was given two weeks to conduct that review.
“I would absolutely consider this a win,” Coteus said. “It’s not clear exactly what was going on behind the scenes. But at the end of the day, the records that were requested have been made public and that was Digger’s aim from the beginning.”
However, he added, the win is bittersweet given the time and effort it took to obtain them.
Yet to be resolved is the issue of attorneys fees, Coteus added. The law, he said, allows for a party requesting records and “substantially prevailing” to be awarded attorneys fees from the government agency blocking their release.
Coteus said he expected to move forward with such a request in this case, but didn’t have an immediate estimate for what the fees would be.
Below is the full disclosure to VTDigger, including records of positive performance reviews that Adams requested be added to the file.
