This week our Blog will address a subject near and dear to my heart, and to the hearts of the many of us who have been caused to suffer at the hands of injustice, and abuse of power in government. Agencies with personnel who do harm to the very clients they are charged with assisting, and their families,….and for no reason but that they can…..
The Connecticut State Government is no stranger to abuses of power. Look no further back than our illustrious former Governor, John Roland who it is charged, enriched his own coffers on our dime. But there are other kinds of power abuses as well. I was a Corrections Head Nurse….a state employee for 22 years with not a single blemish on my record. At the very end of my career, I married a former inmate after he left the system. By reason of this high crime and misdemeanor, I was allegedly coerced and bullied out of my job under the threat of being fired, and losing the pension I’d worked my entire adult life to build. But it seems, the old Boys Club was not satisfied with obtaining their pound of flesh from me, they also allegedly decided to make my husband suffer as well. And I might add, they are succeeding. My husband has a three year probation commitment remaining, and the good people of probation are going out of their way to single him out, cause him harm, harass him, and inflict all manner of financial and other grief upon him and our family.
Let us start with the fact my husband is now 66 years old. He is in failing health to a point wherein he is unlikely to survive another five years. If he does, than he has really fooled the actuaries. The probation people are fully aware of his health issues. Not only could they care less, they also make sure to exacerbate the problem by heaping on plenty of extra anxiety, just to make certain he’s kept on edge. which of course does wonders for his Heart symptoms.
My husband was placed on probation one year ago today. He has a series of felony charges that the newspapers and the state exaggerated to make sound as if he stole millions of dollars. In fact, if he stole every dime they alleged, his crime would have been for a total of under $6,000.00. And the truth is, he did not even steal that sum of money. In the past he has indeed stolen, large sums of money, and when caught he freely admitted to the theft….ask yourself why a guy who stole many millions of dollars resort to over billing Medicaid for five grand. It isn’t even alleged he obtained the fruits of this heinous crime. It had to do with patients of his methadone clinic cheating the state out of bus fares and my husband condoning the thefts. There is another component to his case. A misdemeanor sex offense. Most people when they hear the nature of the offense shake their heads and say it was a stupid joke gone bad, some even laugh. The fact is, there was nothing humorous about it, but the fact is it wasn’t what was alleged, and what was alleged was only a misdemeanor. The proof is in the fact that the alleged victims litigated against my husband in the civil courts, and the case was tossed out because the Judge didn’t believe their story. The state and the news media never bothered to pick that up. But going back to my husband’s plea. He did in fact plead no contest because the state was out to legally bury him for political reasons. At first they thought my husband’s clinic was a sex for drugs operation. They made all kinds of noise and the media picked it up. They put a bail of almost 2 million on my husband for a crime with no violence and very little money alleged. In fact they made fools of themselves because when the safe was sealed by the DEA, and the Methadone counted, there was less of a shrinkage than was even permitted by law. By this time however, the state wasn’t backing off because they’d held press conferences and made a whole big deal of what the case was about. No place was it ever reported that over 150 women were interviewed by the Police, and that less than 1/10 of 1% of the methadone purchased was missing. They also didn’t report that the Judge became upset with the prosecutors who kept saying women would be coming forward, and none of course ever did. He reduced the bail all th e way down to $200,000….That sort of loss is more than acceptable. In his sentencing remarks, the Judge specifically said that he saw this as an economic crime and not a sex crime and because of that he was not ordering any evaluation or treatment for my husband, and he was only giving my husband a one year for the alleged sex crime, and that he was NOT placing him on sex offender probation. The reason he did have my husband register was purely political. The alleged victim’s uncle was at that time a state prosecutor (who by the way, was arrested himself two years later for fixing cases) and pushing the case. In any event my husband served every day of his sentence. He was not granted any parole because he fought the system and wouldn’t admit guilt on the charges for which he was not guilty.
On the day of his release he went to the local probation office. The very first day he was taken in to see the Chief Probation Officer and told he would be reporting weekly; that they wanted to have him evaluated, and that he was being placed on sex offender probation. They also wanted to monitor his computer, and of course he was subject to polygraph testing etc. He told them what Judge Damiani said. They weren’t interested. They told him to obtain a copy of his transcripts and they would hold off doing anything until the transcript arrived ( My husband can prove what they said). They of course could have obtained the transcripts free and quickly. My husband had to wait weeks even under an expedited service order, and pay something like $25.00. In the meanwhile notwithstanding their promise to the contrary, they set him up to be evaluated. He protested in writing, but went along with them so that they didn’t violate him. After the first evaluation session, the transcripts came in saying just what my husband said they’d say. So they discontinued the evaluation without apology of course, and they said they would go along and see how it went with regards to monitoring the computer. My husband has no history whatsoever of a computer crime, nor any record of going to inappropriate sites. He also said he didn’t mind the PO looking into his computer. At that time about one year ago he also informed the Department he was helping me with my business.
My husband’s Mother is 90 and in poor health, she lives in Florida. It took months to get an approval to go see her for no reason other than giving him a difficult time. My husband wanted a pass to go to NY to the grave site of a religious leader, that too took months before an approval was granted. In the mean while his probation officer came (and still comes) to our home every month at least once, and my husband has to report to their offices weekly. Also, this PO doesn’t just come into the house and say hi. He walks though every room including the basement and garage. He reads every scrap of paper on desk tops, counters, tables and even our Bed Room Dresser. He looks into our Bedroom closet…a place where I keep my night wear, and he doesn’t even miss the bathroom in our Bedroom . Even the contents of our refrigerator aren’t missed. Most often he comes with someone else. When my husband objected the PO said he was just doing his job. Over the year I’ve taken a survey of customers who have been on probation. Most probation officers do not bother to visit their clients homes monthly. Even fewer do a complete walk through and ask to look in closets and refrigerators…Did I mention he also asked to look through our computer. Of course he found nothing. There is nothing to find. Even our vehicle in the driveway didn’t escape his scrutiny.
During this same year, my husband suffered two surgeries for Bladder Cancer with chemo therapy. He had surgery to have a defibrillator Pacemaker implanted. He suffered a Stroke, and he recently had a cardiac cath because he’s in Congestive Heart Failure. Finally he has Diabetes. There has been no time that this PO has come to our home or called where he wasn’t able to see or speak to my husband. We rarely leave our home. When he isn’t too ill, my husband is generally working or reading.
About eight months ago, I became involved in a dispute with a physician. The fact is the medication this Doctor prescribed, given my condition could have killed me. With my husband’s help I wrote him telling him how I feel and that I planned to report him to the Medical Board. MY HUSBAND NEVER MET OR HAS EVEN SEEN THE DOCTOR. HE HAS NEVER SPOKEN TO HIM. A few weeks later, the PO came to our home with a Police Officer from another jurisdiction. He said my husband threatened the Doctor, and was abusive in the Doctor’s Waiting Room. As I’ve said previously, my husband has never seen nor spoken to the Doctor. He certainly wasn’t abusive. He did speak to a Receptionist about an overcharge which the Receptionist claimed was proper, but after I wrote to Blue Cross received a refund. All communication has been through me, and there was NEVER a threat of any kind uttered. I did say we’d be going to the State Medical Board, and that wasn’t a threat, and we did fill out a Health ratings questionnaire of the Internet… The PO brought the Officer into our home and the cop walked through it. When he complained afterwards he was told he should have said no to the officer at the time. That isn’t true. The officer unless he had a warrant required permission. Also, the Officer plainly stated a crime wasn’t committed. My husband was told it wasn’t his business and he couldn’t get involved. The Probation officer has no right telling my husband he can’t help me in such a situation. He did nothing wrong. The whole thing seemed weird at the time. I got the impression either the cop or the PO was doing the Doctor a favor. By the way, we subsequently learned that this Doctor was being looked at by Anthem Blue Cross for his Billing practices, and that he has bounced payroll checks to employees.
Many months go by and of course there are no incidents. Despite promises to the contrary my husband is still constrained to go every week. They then insist he take a polygraph test. They are in a big hurry to get it done. My husband fills out their forms and pays the fee within two days. Then they want medical clearance. He gets that within a week. Five months later they still hadn’t done the test. Then my husband has a Stoke. His memory is somewhat impaired, so now they can’t give the test. Yet they keep the fee.
My husband helps me with such things as accounting, placing orders with vendors, packing books for shipment, post office runs, Banking, Bill Paying, and mailing out catalogs. He answers the phones from time to time. There has never been a problem and he’s done this for a year.
About two months ago, I received a letter from an inmate customer. The inmate said that he’d found religion, and now wanted to confess to an uncharged homicide. The letter upset me, and since my run in with CT, I prefer not dealing with government. I asked my husband what he thought I/we should do. He did the right thing. He called NJ law enforcement. It required several calls and faxes. My husband duly reported it to his PO because he had contact with Police, EVEN THOUGH HE DID THE RIGHT THING AND IN FACT ASSISTED LAW ENFORCEMENT. When he went to see his PO, the guy said he shouldn’t have done it, I should have. He then decided based upon that my husband consorted with felons. He never asked what my husband does for me. He simply called up one day and said he is requesting a modification so my husband can’t work my business and that his computer is monitored…..Let no good deed go unpunished in CT.
I do not know the business end of the business. We have hundreds of thousands invested in the business. We can’t yet afford to hire someone else, and I need my husband’s knowledge to make the business work. We’ve offered to show these people what he does. His office is monitored by audio and visual cameras and they know it. They allege he is consorting with felons by working in the business. He has almost no contact with felons and that which he does is long distance and only about an order problem or something of the like. There are countless numbers of felons in this state working in businesses with other felons, and in positions where they have felons passing through daily.
We’ve offered every possible compromise, and by the way, we are awaiting approval to move out of the state as soon as such move is approved.
My husband now has to go to Court with an expensive Lawyer to try and save my business.
This happens in the worst economy in years, when there are no jobs around, recidivism is high, and these people have nothing better to do than harass a sick old man who is helping his wife.
My husband knows nothing of this Blog. I do not wish to get him involved, because knowing those people as I now do, it would not surprise me if his out of state transfer became slowed down, or they found something else wrong.
A word of advice, don’t get caught up with Connecticut state government, and frankly after all is said and done, their system is still one of the best probation systems in the country…. What a pathetic commentary on probation in America today