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Lackawanna County Prison guards cleared of sex abuse allegations remain on paid leave

Times-Tribune - 2/15/2020

Feb. 15--Lackawanna County's costs for the state attorney general's investigation of sexual abuse at Lackawanna County Prison are more than $2.2 million and growing.

Even though the criminal cases against eight former or current prison employees charged with sexually abusing inmates concluded, the county's costs are mounting as it deals with the aftermath of a 2018 raid and guards still on paid leave.

As of Jan. 31, the county paid about $1.3 million in salaries to 10 employees implicated in the sexual abuse scandal who were placed on paid leave at varying times, according to a Times-Tribune analysis of payroll data. It also paid $887,780 to date in legal and other fees related to the statewide grand jury investigation and legal dispute over a search of county offices, according to the controller's office.

The bills stem from the grand jury probe that led to the arrest of seven former or current male guards Feb. 14, 2018, and the April 3 arrest of a female corrections counselor, all of whom were accused of sexually abusing inmates. The last of the criminal prosecutions ended Monday.

Three defendants ­­-- George T. McHale, Mark A. Johnson and Paul J. Voglino -- were cleared of all charges and have been rehired. They remain on paid administrative leave, however, while the county continues to determine how and when to bring them back to active duty, said Donald Frederickson, general counsel for the county.

Another four employees who were named in a 2016 civil lawsuit that alleges sexual abuse, but were never charged with a crime, have been on paid leave for three years or longer.

Frederickson said those men -- Robert Maguire, William Shanley, Edward Williams and Charles Betress -- also continue to get paid while the county decides whether to reinstate them to active duty.

The guards who were cleared of charges are owed backpay for the time they were off. McHale was paid $94,092 in October and has continued to receive a biweekly salary of $2,233 since then, for a total of $114,189 as of Jan. 31, the newspaper's analysis shows. Voglino was paid about $115,560, and Johnson, about $114,231, through Jan. 31.

The cost for salaries of guards who were not criminally charged also continues to rack up. As of Jan. 31, the county paid about $705,000 to the four men, according to the newspaper's analysis.

Betress spent the most time on paid leave. Suspended in June 2016, he was paid about $203,000 as of Jan. 31. Maguire and Shanley, suspended since February 2017, each collected about $208,000 while Williams, suspended for one month in 2017, and again in August 2018, collected about $86,000 so far.

The county also paid about $291,000 to three other guards suspended at various times. Two are no longer employed so their payments ceased; the other was reinstated.

Frederickson said the prison opted to keep all the employees who were implicated either criminally or civilly on paid leave until the county's human resources department and Warden Tim Betti conclude an internal review. He said he does not know when that will be complete.

Betti said he has been hampered because he does not have access to records the attorney general's office seized as part of a large scale raid at the prison and several other county offices in September 2017. He said some of those records include information on alleged conduct that occurred before he became warden.

"There are a bunch of files and material I don't have," he said. "I can't complete my review without that information."

That dispute also has been costly to the county, which remains locked in a legal battle with the attorney general's office over the return of the records. The county paid the law firm representing it in the matter, Myers, Brier & Kelly, $616,801 as of October, the most recent bill, according to the controller's office. So far, it also paid $236,918 to five law firms that represented employees called to testify before the grand jury and $34,061 to a computer forensics consulting firm.

The dispute over the return of the records is now before the judge who presided over the grand jury, who has not yet ruled on the matter, Frederickson said.

Contact the writer:

tbesecker@timesshamrock.com;

570-348-9137;

@tmbeseckerTT on Twitter

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