UCHC-Held accountable?

I once was told by an attorney that it is very easy to get into the criminal justice system but difficult to get out.

I have come to find that when you speak out against the University of Connecticut Health Center, if you question their spending habits or you become injured while on the worksite as an employee, you can become engaged in quite a maze of the criminal justice system.

After four years I was fortunate enough to have come across the services of CT.Confidential Investigators which my attorney Norman Pattis was able to utilize in a recent habeas hearing. I finally feel the truth is now ready to be told with factual evidence.

The investigators found that UCHC in an attempt to diminish their liability in my workers compensation claim and to retaliate against me for filing an ADA/CHRO in 2005 decided to engage in manufacturing evidence which led to my arrests.  In so much as the former VP of UCHC, Joan Mazzone was able to have assistance from the OCSA (where her husband is also employed as an inspector) it became a match made in heaven to get the dirty deeds done.

Four years navigating the criminal justice system in our state just to be able to prove that I was never found in an National Insurance Crime Database concerning a questionable probate document (as alleged)  is too long for justice to be served. It is  much too long to prove the arrest warrant was flawed.

You begin to feel like you are on the set of The X-Files-the truth is out there. Yet now it is done. At what cost to me , my family and the taxpayers?

It is time for the UCHC to be responsible and begin its own independent investigation of how computer crimes, an invasion of privacy and constitutional violations were allowed to be committed with those at the highest levels of the adminstration participating as they protected other employees who assisted in these criminal acts.

Who in state government is accountable for the waste here? The tax payers again foot the bill.

Ethics panel met illegally: FOI Commission

 Monday, September 27, 2010

 Alex Wood

The Journal Inquirer published the following on Friday, September 24, 2010.

Ethics panel met illegally: FOI Commission
By Alex Wood
Journal Inquirer
The state ethics board violated Connecticut’s open meeting laws when it convened behind closed doors to discuss a procedural issue during last year’s hearing on allegations that Priscilla Dickman of Coventry violated the state ethics code, the Freedom of Information Commission ruled Wednesday.
By a unanimous voice vote, the commission adopted a proposed decision by one of its members, Sherman D. London, who presided over a hearing in the case last Dec. 30.
The decision came in response to a complaint by a Journal Inquirer reporter about the closed session of the Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board, which occurred on the first day of the Dickman hearing, Sept. 11, 2009, in the same building where the FOI Commission met Wednesday.
The commission, the ethics board, and several other state agencies are housed in a building on

Trinity Street

in Hartford, facing the east side of the state Capitol.
The reporter requested no penalties against the ethics board, and the commission imposed none. But it did order the board to post minutes of the closed session, which lasted about 11 minutes.
The commission found that the closed session violated both the Freedom of Information Act and the provision of the state ethics code under which the Dickman hearing was held, which requires all such hearings to be open.
The ethics board, which is part of the Office of State Ethics, can appeal the decision to Superior Court.
The board has vigorously litigated the freedom-of-information case so far. It submitted an 11-page brief at the Dec. 30 hearing. And Barbara E. Housen, general counsel of the Office of State Ethics, read an additional eight-page legal argument to the commission at Wednesday’s meeting.
Housen argued that London’s proposed decision conflicted with provisions of the ethics code. She also stressed the unusual character of ethics board hearings, in which a semi-retired Superior Court judge presides while the board members fulfill a role comparable to that of a jury.
“This unique and new ethics hearing model, where a Superior Court judge presides, simply does not neatly fit the typical ‘meeting’ definition under the FOI Act,” she said.
After a number of days of hearings, the ethics board concluded in January that Dickman had violated the ethics code by running jewelry and travel businesses while working as a medical technologist at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. It found that she used state time and resources, such as e-mail, in the operation of the businesses.
The board fined Dickman $15,000. She is appealing the decision in New Britain Superior Court.
The board also met behind closed doors to deliberate at the end of the Dickman hearing. The Journal Inquirer reporter has filed a second complaint with the FOI Commission over that closed session. A hearing on the complaint is scheduled for Tuesday.
In addition, Dickman is raising the issue of the closed deliberations in her court appeal of the ethics board’s action.

Selective Prosecution? OFFICE OF STATE ETHICS/ CT CITIZENS ADVISORY BOARD

Selective Prosecution?

Saturday, January 9, 2010

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Selective Prosecution
By Priscilla C. Dickman

11/30/09

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To The Editor:

I appreciate Dean Pagani’s column, “Swatting At Ethical Flies” (Hartford Business Journal, Nov. 9). The issue here is whether the Office of State Ethics SHOULD use the statute to continue to investigate an employee, such as myself, who for 28 years had excellent evaluations and was never reprimanded for the actions I am accused of. The question must be: Why would the Office of State Ethics (OSE), two years after my retirement, decide to investigate me on this supposed violation of OSE statute?

In 2005, after an “anonymous complaint” was forwarded to my directors and supervisor, I was twice investigated with no disciplinary action found necessary. The reason: I did not violate a policy, statute or act in any manner in comparison to the other 4,000 University of Connecticut Health Center employees, except that I was found to have used my e-mail account on my break in the most limited of time and my cell phone less than two to 10 minutes per day in general on breaks and lunch.

State documents demonstrate that I utilized the state’s telephone for personal use minimally as compared with other state employees. The documents proved personal telephone usage by other state employees who were not disciplined was far greater compared with my usage. That information should have raised red flags, alerting officials that selective prosecution was taking place. A real investigation should have been undertaken for internal discipline against those individuals abusing the state’s e-mail system and telephones on behalf of taxpayers.

Yes, I am afraid I do see selective prosecution by many state agencies who participated and continue to participate in their investigation of me, particularly because during the initial OSE probable cause hearing, the state labor relations director clarified that no wrong-doing was found during a previous investigation prompted by an “anonymous tip.” This earlier investigation revealed that my usage of e-mails and state telephones was minimal compared with other state workers, which is the reason that no action was needed to be taken against me. [Dickmans’ 78 kilobytes of usage as a full-time employee vs. up to 1,461 kilobytes by part-time and full-time employees in the same department Dickman worked in. This evidence was provided by health center’s IT department.]

Notably, other state employees identified for excessively abusing state e-mail and telephone systems for personal purposes by the Connecticut Auditors of Public Accounts have not been disciplined. Notably, Feliciano Dias, my supervisor of 28 years, was the individual found to have violated state policies for personal use in excess of one hour per day, according to a January 2009 letter from the attorney general’s office. However, Dias was not required to make restitution nor disciplined, but rather was “counseled regarding his Internet usage.”

I do believe I am being selectively prosecuted and the citizens of the state need to contact their legislatures and ask why the Office of State Ethics spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on this issue concerning a retired state employee? I contend one merely needs to look at my federal/civil suit against the state and it will be evident.

The citizens need to ask whether the state’s actions are in retaliation because I filed a Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities complaint on the Americans with Disabilities Act (2005) for failure to accommodate me by my employer, the University of Connecticut Health Center, which resulted in a finding in my favor in October 2006.

Note that after working 28 years and earning my state retirement pension, I retired, accepting a reduced state pension and giving back to the state — and taxpayers — 2,100 hours of earned sick leave, valued at $28,000.

I would hope the independent investigation of the whistle blower retaliation act finally moves the legislature to rewrite the much-needed Whistle Blower Retaliation Legislation.

In addition, lawmakers need to review the Office of State Ethics’ actions since June 2007. When public officials are misled, as they have been in my instance, the state must and should look into criminal actions or ethical actions taken against the individuals responsible. The citizens deserve to get their wasted tax dollars back for the actions engaged in here.