Obamas lover Deval Patrick:
Axed chief of sex offender registry sues Deval Patrick
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Ted Fitzgerald
Deval Patrick
Friday, January 2, 2015
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By:
Matt Stout
The former head of the state’s Sex Offender Registry Board is accusing Gov. Deval Patrick of retaliating against her with an eleventh-hour ouster because she put the public’s welfare ahead of the lame-duck CEO’s own “personal and political interests,” according to a scathing lawsuit filed this week.
Saundra Edwards, once Patrick’s hand-picked appointee to head the predator-monitoring agency, is now seeking to recoup an unspecified amount of cash after Patrick forced her off the board in September. Patrick at the time said she and another official used “inappropriate at least, maybe unlawful” pressure in an attempt to force a hearing officer to list the governor’s brother-in-law, Bernard Sigh, as a sex offender.
According to a complaint filed in Essex Superior Court, Edwards claims she was blind-sided by Patrick, who then “falsely and maliciously” painted her removal as a firing to the press, even though she said she agreed to resign. Edwards added that her former boss took a “wrongful, personal interest in retaliating” against her.
“(Edwards) placed the best interests of the SORB and the public ahead of ... Patrick’s personal and political interests and ahead of the personal interests of defendant Patrick’s sister and her husband,” according to the suit, filed by attorneys William Sheehan and Thomas Flannagan on Wednesday. “At all times, the interests of the SORB and the welfare of the public are paramount to the personal interests of any one individual, even if that individual is the governor.”
Jesse Mermell, a Patrick spokeswoman, said the complaint is being reviewed by the governor’s legal counsel, adding: “We will have no further comment given the pending litigation.”
The suit hinges on a decision by a Sex Offender Registry Board hearing officer that Sigh was not obligated to register after serving time for a California spousal rape conviction. Edwards differed with the decision and ordered the officer — who later filed suit — to undergo training.
“The problem is that it is a violation of the rules for appointed officials to intervene in an independent hearing officer’s proceeding,” Patrick told reporters in September.
Edwards said she was “wrongly terminated ... for performing her statutorily mandated duties” as Sex Offender Registry Board chairwoman.
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