The ex-superintendent of the state’s largest prison said he will not stand in the way of a full release of records about his conduct to VTDigger. The state’s Attorney General’s Office had heavily redacted the documents.
VTDigger has sued for records that spell out why Ed Adams, the former superintendent of Southern State Correctional Facility, was dismissed.
The lawsuit has been pending for more than a year. The public records request was originally made 22 months ago.
“I do not oppose a more detailed disclosure of the personnel documents contained in my file,” Ed Adams wrote in an email Wednesday to VTDigger.
“The redactions in the documents,” he added, “were made by the State and were not done at my request.”
Adams’ position now puts the matter of defending the redactions squarely on the state Attorney General’s Office.
“As this litigation is ongoing,” Charity Clark, the attorney general’s chief of staff, wrote in an email Wednesday in response seeking comment, “the Attorney General’s Office relies on the papers filed in the case and will not be responding further.”
The state has pushed back as VTDigger presses its public lawsuit against the state Department of Corrections for more information related to the demotion of Adams as the superintendent of the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield.
At issue now in the long-running dispute are eight pages of redacted material from more than 100 pages of documents released to the news organization by the state in March.
Attorney Stephen Coteus, representing The Vermont Journalism Trust, the parent organization of VTDigger, said the significance of Adams’ consent to remove the redactions is an open question.
“I’d have to review exactly what he said and review how that might affect the access to these records because of the exemptions that are claimed,” he said. “It’s possible that would change the calculus in determining the status of those redactions.”
Coteus added, “His consent is not necessarily the only factor in determining whether the redactions are appropriate.”
The Trust’s attorney recently filed a motion against the state seeking to remove the redactions from the previously released documents.
“Defendants argue that any public interest in transparency was satisfied by disclosure of the agency’s investigator’s summaries evidence, and that there is no need for the public to see the raw evidence on which the investigative reports are based,” Coteus wrote.
Coteus countered: “The fox should not be permitted to guard the hen house.”
Meanwhile, Assistant Attorney General Jared Bianchi, representing the corrections department in the legal action, contends that the state has already provided the information VTDigger is entitled to receive.
“Each of the pages at issue are personal documents relating to an individual which have been maintained in a file to hire, evaluate, promote, or discipline several employees of the Department of Corrections,” Bianchi wrote in his filing.
“They are therefore,” he added, “exempt from disclosure under the Public Records Act.”
Both sides have submitted dueling motions asking Judge Timothy Tomasi to either order the state to remove the redactions or allow the material to remain hidden.
Each side is expected to file an additional response to the other side’s summary judgment motions before the matter goes before the judge.
It’s unclear when the judge could ultimately decide the matter.
VTDigger initially sought records related to complaints against Adams in September 2018. That’s when he was placed on leave from his position as the superintendent of the Springfield prison.
The documents released by the state in March revealed a series of investigations into Adams conduct, including allegations that Adams spoke with a lisp when referencing a gay inmate, talked of getting “hard” when firing people, and said, “It’s women’s work to deal with emotional issues.”
Adams, according to the documents, denied many of the claims or told the investigator he did not remember making such statements.
The documents provided to the news organization had many redactions, including some pages fully blacked out.
Bianchi, representing the state, wrote in a filing accompanying the release of the records that those redactions mainly dealt with personally identifying information of a person making a complaint.
For example, Bianchi wrote in his most recent filing, redactions on four of the pages recount a conversation between only two people.
“The release of a narrative retelling of that conversation identifies the identity of the reporter to the non-reporting participant and possibly to others who, through context or conjecture, could identify the reporter,” he wrote.
Bianchi later added, “Releasing this information harms the Department’s, and the State’s, ability to secure frank complaints about employee misconduct and to remedy any issues that are identified as a result.”
Coteus, in an interview Wednesday, said he understood the need to redact certain personally identifiable information about whistleblowers.
“Limited redactions to protect names and personally identifying information are important, but these redactions go way too far,” he said.
The issue of whether the documents that were provided to VTDigger are public records was never decided by the judge. That’s because the state released them after Adams and the Vermont State Employees Association “consented to the disclosure.”
That decision by Adams and the union came after Michael Smith, Agency of Human Services secretary, wrote a letter to Adams informing him that he planned to release the documents.
However, those records released by the state came with redactions.
Coteus, an attorney at the law firm Tarrant, Gillies & Richardson of Montpelier and representing VTDigger, argues in his latest filing that the documents released appear to leave out important information related to the complaints, while providing Adams’ response to them.
“Indeed, the responsive records already made public emphasize why full transparency and the public’s ability to review evidence underlying the investigations are critical,” Coteus wrote.
“At the conclusion of each of two separate investigations into complaints against Adams,” Coteus wrote, “DOC apparently sent Adams a draft of its official letter stating the results of the investigation, for Adams’ review and comments prior to publication.”
In one instance, the filing stated, wording was changed from “unsubstantiated” to “unfounded” after Adams stated in an email that the former suggested insufficient proof while the latter meant there was no basis for the sexual harassment complaint.
“It is of course possible – despite news reporting of great dysfunction within DOC and AHS – that the investigations into Adams were thorough, competent, and unbiased,” Coteus wrote. “But the public has the right to decide this for itself, after reviewing as much of the investigative records as permitted under the PPA (Public Records Act).”
In the filings, Coteus included past news articles related to the corrections department, including one by Seven Days from December that reported on allegations of drug use and sexual misconduct at Chittenden County Regional Facility, a prison for women where Adams served as a superintendent prior to his leadership role at Southern State.
During his time at the women’s prison, Adams was at the center of an investigation for sexual harassment of a female corrections officer. The state paid an $86,000 settlement to the complainant, according to a report from the Burlington Free Press.
Smith, Agency of Human Services secretary, earlier this year contracted with an outside law firm to conduct an investigation into the allegations at the state’s only women’s prison. That review had been delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, but is now moving forward again.
Also, following the publication of that article, Michael Touchette resigned as corrections commissioner and James Baker has served in the position on an interim basis since January.
Adams served as the superintendent of the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington for about 18 months before he moved to the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield.
At the women’s prison, Adams faced complaints by a female corrections officer of creating a hostile work environment, making sexually inappropriate comments, and other types of sexual harassment, the Burlington Free Press has reported.
The woman claimed in her lawsuit that she reported an instance of inappropriate sexual behavior between one of her managers and a female inmate.
“Then-superintendent Adams directed the female correctional officer to re-enact the inappropriate sexual behavior she had witnessed by playing the role of the female inmate,” the recent motion filed by VTDigger stated. “Adams photographed this re-enactment.”
VTDigger, after filing its public records lawsuit, obtained from the state documents showing that the state signed a secret agreement with Adams in December 2018.
Those documents revealed that Adams was demoted from his superintendent’s post in Springfield to a probation officer job. However, 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.
The records provided to VTDigger did not state a specific reason behind Adams’ removal from the superintendent’s position.
In a statement released in March as the state was making public additional documents to the news organization, Adams did write that he had been considering leaving the Springfield position for some time.
“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.”
Adams, in his email Wednesday to VTDigger, said the removal of the redactions would help show he did not do anything wrong.
“To this point, I believe that one document, which is currently 100% redacted, would cast doubt about one or even more of the specific allegations made against me,” he wrote.
“If the redactions were fully removed it would likely be convincing evidence that I acted in an appropriate manner that was fully consistent with policy,” he added. “I would not seek to block additional information from being released but the decision to do so is one for the State to make now.”
