A high-ranking parole and probation administrator who was involved in the supervision of a parolee now charged with murder was fired Monday for falsifying information more than two years ago, according to documents obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Damian McNeal, an assistant director at the Arkansas Department of Community Correction, was fired for violating the department’s truthfulness policy after an internal investigation discovered he had “changed an incident report at least twice to reflect false information and submitted it as a complete and accurate report,” according to his termination letter.
McNeal’s firing came the same day the Arkansas Board of Corrections made public an investigative report that singled out judgment calls McNeal made in the supervision of parolee Darrell Dennis, who is charged in the Little Rock homicide.
The termination letter, dated Monday, notes that McNeal falsified the report cited in the firing between June 20 and July 19 in 2011.
The letter doesn’t contain any details on what information was falsified. The letter notes that he admitted altering the report but doesn’t say when he made the admission.
On Wednesday, Community Correction Department Director Sheila Sharp said by email that McNeal’s firing was the result of an internal-affairs investigation that has been turned over to the Arkansas State Police, which has been conducting its own investigation regarding the department for a month now.
Sharp refused to elaborate further on McNeal’s dismissal or the nature of the altered document, saying she couldn’t comment on an “internal, personnel” matter.
Sharp also wouldn’t say why McNeal, who was a parole and probation services supervisor, was fired Monday for an incident that occurred more than two years ago.
The letter from Dan Roberts, the deputy director of parole and probation services, does note that the matter was “a very serious violation of DCC policy and has brought discredit and a decrease of public confidence to the agency.” The Democrat-Gazette obtained the letter under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
A message left for McNeal at a phone number listed as his residence wasn’t returned by Wednesday evening.
In response to a request by the newspaper for more documents related to McNeal, Sharp referred to state police involvement as being an “ongoing administrative review of parole issues” and did not provide the requested documents.
The newspaper had requested the documents under the state open-records law, which allows the release of records used to make the decision to fire a public employee after the final administrative resolution of the employment termination.
Sharp did not cite specific sections of state law exempting the release of the documents in responses to the newspaper. She did not reply to an email contesting her decision and requesting specific legal citations supporting the withholding of the documents.
Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler confirmed Wednesday that his agency’s probe has not turned into a criminal investigation.
“At this juncture, it is still an administrative investigation,” he said.
State police investigators have obtained numerous documents from the Community Correction Department since they started their investigation on June 19, but Sadler said he couldn’t say whether McNeal’s records were among them.
He also couldn’t say whether McNeal’s conduct was being reviewed as part of the investigation, which Sadler said likely wouldn’t be completed for 30 days or “maybe longer.”
The state police began its investigation after a Democrat-Gazette article published June 17 illustrated Darrell Dennis’ history of noncompliance with terms of his parole and new arrests.
The article drew the attention of Gov. Mike Beebe, whose office was the first over the following weeks to announce an investigation into the handling of the Dennis case, as well as widespread problems in the state’s parole and probation system.
Dennis, an eight-time parole absconder, racked up at least 10 drug- or weapons-related felonies and at least 14 new arrests between his parole from prison in late 2008 and his May 22 arrest in the kidnapping and murder of 18-year-old Forrest Abrams.
Dennis had been arrested in April and again in early May and released from jail on the authority of parole officials with instructions that he report to parole officers despite an established history of not reporting.
The Board of Corrections report found that despite a “strongly worded request” from Dennis’ parole officer that he have a revocation hearing, McNeal and his subordinate, Little Rock Area Manager Kristie Baker, agreed that Dennis would be better off being sent to a parole technical-violator center.
The report found that McNeal and Baker followed the department’s policies that were in place at the time but “did not err on the side of public safety.”
McNeal was also accountable for another part of the report that referred to Baker’s ignoring the recommendation of Dennis’ case officers.
Baker couldn’t have foreseen that Dennis would be charged with murder if released from jail, the report notes.
But “she also could not reasonably have expected Dennis to report … or contact [parole officers] upon his release from custody. It was also likely that he would be committing new drug-related offenses in the community,” the report notes.
Baker was demoted July 22.She is now serving as a parole/ probation officer and is on a year of administrative probation, according to documents obtained by the newspaper this week.
The Board of Corrections report echoed concerns voiced by state legislators on Aug. 1 during a meeting of the Joint Performance Review Committee, which was looking into the parole system’s policies and how parole officials handled Dennis’ case.
McNeal told legislators that he had no doubt Dennis was a threat to public safety, but that since previous attempts to revoke his parole had failed, he thought sending Dennis to a technical-violator center was the best option.
In response, Sen. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, who has been a vocal critic of the agency’s handling of the Dennis case in multiple legislative forums, asked McNeal to elaborate.
“A hearing in my estimation was out of the question … [previous revocation hearings] were never followed through on,” McNeal said, regarding why he decided not to request a revocation hearing. “That was one of the options. The other was a technical-violator center. … My thought was to get him off the street.”
“But you didn’t get him off the street,” Sanders said that day.
“He was off the street at the time I reviewed the case,” McNeal said.
“If you thought he was truly a problem, truly a risk to society, why in the world wouldn’t you get him to [a technical-violator center] immediately?” Sanders asked.
“I wish we could have done that, senator,” McNeal said. “But there are other entities involved.”
When asked Wednesday about what effect state legislators’ comments had on McNeal’s firing, Sharp said the decision to fire McNeal was about “policy” and was not “political.”
With McNeal’s departure, Sharp has another high-level vacancy to fill.
Steve Arnold, also an assistant director of parole and probation services, retired Aug. 1.
Under a new organization of parole and probation supervision, Sharp needs to find assistant managers who will oversee operations for a combined nine area offices throughout the state.
Sharp said it’s likely that those replacements will come from within the Community Correction Department ranks.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/22/2013