| 12/23/2006 |
| Guard questions whether the investigation that led to his arrest on fraud charges - later dropped - was racially motivated |
| By: Lee Sawyer , Journal Inquirer |
|
A state correctional officer who was
charged last year with worker's compensation fraud - only to have a
prosecutor later drop the case - is now asking why he was charged in
the first place and believes the investigation may have been
racially motivated. The guard, Joseph Johnson, who is black,
filed a complaint in October with the Department of Correction's
internal affirmative action office, and is awaiting a response, he
said.
"We will have to let the affirmative action investigation run its course," he said. Johnson said he also wants an apology from the Correction Department, which he says should have intervened to prevent his prosecution. "Call me what you will, but don't call me a quitter," Johnson said recently, commenting on his quest to clear his name. "All I want is for someone to tell me why this happened, and an apology would go a long way." Johnson, 54, who lives in Enfield, has worked for 12 years as a correctional officer at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers. He said that while he's reluctant to bring the issue of his race into the equation, the failed prosecution that thrust his name into the headlines is so puzzling to him that he can't help but consider it a factor. After being cleared by a Correction Department disciplinary panel in 2003 and seeing the felony charge against him dropped by a prosecutor last July, Johnson is now in the process of re-filing the same worker's compensation claim that led to the criminal charge being filed against him in the first place. Accident prompts claim Johnson's story begins with a worker's compensation claim he filed after the state vehicle he was driving was struck from behind on March 11, 2003. Johnson, along with two other correctional officers, were transporting prisoners from court back to Northern when the accident occurred. According to Johnson, the collision sent his right knee into the dashboard, causing injury to his hip as well as knee and back pain. He was brought to Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford the same day, where he was diagnosed with a back sprain and given pain medication. The next week, Johnson went to Dr. Jay A. Kimmel, a member of the Greater Hartford Orthopedic Group, for further treatment. Kimmel gave a clearly worded diagnosis that seemed to clear the way for Johnson to apply for worker's compensation. "Joe's history and physical examination are consistent with a right hip sprain as a result of the car accident on March 11," Kimmel wrote in his assessment, quoted in Johnson's arrest warrant. About two weeks after the accident, someone sent anonymous letters to the Correction Department, the chief state's attorney's office, and Kimmel, accusing the doctor and Johnson of conspiring to defraud the state by faking his injury and falsifying medical records. A day after receiving the letters, the Correction Department initiated an internal investigation, and fraud investigators taped surveillance footage of Johnson doing yard work at his home, including bending down and lifting stones. The case was immediately referred to the worker's compensation fraud unit of the chief state's attorney's office. Johnson maintains that medication allowed him to do light labor at home, but he was not yet well enough to return to a high-security prison, where he might need to restrain inmates or perform other physically taxing tasks. Ordered back to work Johnson's worker's compensation claim was dismissed and he was ordered back to work as Correction Department administrators considered whether to discipline him for making a fraudulent claim. The anonymous letters that sparked the investigation portrayed Johnson as a greedy, self-interested shyster eager to rip off the system. "He is his own worst enemy and he talks too much in front of people and he loves to brag," one letter stated. Johnson said he was shocked and disgusted by the letters, and to this day still wonders where they came from. Months later, when he received an anonymous phone call referring to the investigation and suggesting a racial motive for the Correction Department's investigation, it cemented the realization that someone was out to get him, he said. Johnson's wife is white, and the caller stated "this never would have happened if you stayed in your own race," Johnson recalled. After Johnson's worker's compensation claim was dismissed, fraud investigators continued to probe the theory that Johnson had sought out Kimmel hoping for a diagnosis that would amount to a free ticket to compensation benefits. There is no evidence presented in the Correction Department's June 6, 2003 report that anyone ever questioned the doctor. In disciplinary recommendations stemming from the investigation, Correction Department investigators claimed that Kimmel was the subject of a "full-scale non-DOC investigation." But Michael Sullivan, a senior assistant state's attorney with the fraud unit who later prosecuted the case against Johnson, said in a Journal Inquirer interview that the doctor was never investigated in connection with fraud charges. Supervisors reject findings Correction Department investigators concluded in their report that the letters and the surveillance footage amounted to evidence of attempted fraud on Johnson's But a disciplinary recommendation completed July 1, 2003 by Correction Department supervisors rejected the findings and declined to punish Johnson, finding that "his medical documentation authorizing his absence cannot be refuted at this point - he was following doctor's orders." "Furthermore," the written recommendation states, "'just-cause' for any discipline would be more easily supported had the letter received March 26 not been anonymous." Supervisors also faulted the investigator for neglecting to interview the other officers hurt in the crash. "We investigated, and determined that there was not enough evidence to discipline the officer," Garnett, the Correction Department spokesman, said later in a JI interview. Johnson could keep his job, and his unblemished record. Upset by the process, but relieved by the outcome, Johnson said he was ready to put the incident behind him. But chief state's attorney's office apparently felt otherwise, initiating its own investigation in March 2005 - two years later. As outlined in the June 13, 2005 affidavit supporting Johnson's arrest, the resulting case against the correctional officer mirrored the Correction Department's own investigation, with no new evidence added. To successfully prosecute the case, Sullivan would need to show that the surveillance video and anonymous letters amounted to proof that Johnson committed a fraud against the state - even though the evidence didn't warrant discipline at his job and he never collected on his claim. Sullivan later admitted that investigators never interviewed the doctor that diagnosed Johnson in preparing the case. Johnson arrested in 2005 On June 28, 2005, Johnson was arrested by Enfield police on the warrant issued by the fraud unit of the chief state's attorney's office, accused of filing a fraudulent worker's compensation claim in 2003. The charge is a Class B felony that could have sent him to prison for up to 20 years. Then-Chief State's Attorney Christopher Morano announced Johnson's arrest to the media, and the Correction Department placed Johnson on paid administrative leave. Johnson hired attorney Christopher Bromson, currently the Enfield's town attorney and its director of public safety, to represent him. Then, in a surprise move, Correction Department administrators returned Johnson to work in October 2005 while his criminal case was still pending. To Johnson and his family, the publicity generated by his arrest and the uncertainty caused by the criminal case were devastating. "It was the most difficult time of my life. I'd look around and not know who believed me, and who thought I was a criminal," Johnson said. His wife, Robin, said her husband had never been in trouble before, and the experience took a toll. "This is someone who never even got a speeding ticket," she said. "He didn't deserve any of this." Plea offers rejected In the following months Johnson rejected a series of plea offers extended by Sullivan, including an offer to reduce the charge so Johnson could apply for accelerated rehabilitation, a program for first offenders that can result in erasure of a criminal charge after a probationary period. Bromson said later that he believed the prosecution's case was weak, and that the video evidence central to the state's case was unconvincing. "That video they said was a smoking gun - it was all smoke, no gun," Bromson said. Pivotal to the defense, Bromson said, was the fact that a doctor had diagnosed Johnson with a work-related injury stemming from the accident, and there was no evidence to raise doubts about the doctor's conclusion. An apparent miscue that may have caused the criminal case to proceed was the apparent misunderstanding on the part of Sullivan that Johnson had continued to pursue his worker' compensation claim after 2003, and had collected benefits. Sullivan said in a recent interview that he was not aware, when he prosecuted the case, that Johnson had opted not to pursue his worker's compensation claim any further after its initial rejection. In Hartford Superior Court last July 25 Sullivan moved to drop the fraud case against Johnson. He told Judge Bradford J. Ward that Johnson's lawyer, Bromson, provided him with medical information, "which indicate, among other things, that the work that we would claim was beyond what (Johnson) claimed he could do was actually within the restrictions placed on him by other physicians. Criminal case dropped "So, given that, judge, and the relatively small amount of money involved, the state is going to enter a nolle," Sullivan said, according to a transcript of the proceeding. A nolle means a prosecutor has decided to drop a case but retains the right to reopen it within the next 13 months. Bromson, however, moved to dismiss the case immediately, and the judge agreed. Beforehand, however, Sullivan told the judge that Johnson "wishes to acknowledge that there was probable cause for his arrest. "Is that correct, sir?" Sullivan asked Johnson. "That is correct, your honor," Johnson said. Johnson explained later that the prosecutor asked him to stipulate probable cause because the move would prevent him from suing the state for false arrest. He said he agreed to it because he wanted the case to be over. Today, Sullivan says that there was nothing unusual about Johnson's prosecution and the outcome. "Any number of cases are nolled after an arrest," Sullivan said. "Just because we make an arrest doesn't mean we don't reassess the case as new information is presented." Bromson praised Sullivan for being a "stand-up guy" for dropping the charge, and said that sometimes prosecutors are stuck prosecuting cases that aren't well prepared by investigators. Still, Bromson slammed the prosecutor's office for moving ahead with Johnson's case. "They've got to be careful when they bring prosecutions because they can really destroy someone's life," he said. He said Johnson, of all people, deserved better. "The guy has a stellar, unblemished record, and it really was terrible that he had to go though this. He was so anguished and I can't even tell you how much it affected his family." Johnson said although he feels vindicated, he wants to know why prosecutors waited two years to bring a flawed case, and why his Correction Department superiors didn't intervene on his behalf. "For years inmates have told me they had to take the deal offered to them because they lacked the means to fight back," he said. "I stood my ground because I had the means to fight back. I will continue to fight until I get answers so that others will not be put through what me and my wife endured." Garnett, speaking for the Correction Department, said it isn't the department's role to interfere in criminal cases, and wouldn't comment on whether the department would apologize to Johnson. "I wouldn't speculate on that," Garnett said. Johnson, who said he's happy to be back on the job, is still waiting to hear word on the status of his affirmative action complaint. He's not sure it was racism, but hopes the complaint process might uncover the answers he seeks. "I'm not looking to sue, the damage has already been done. I'm just looking for answers," Johnson said. |
