ELYRIA — Four Lorain/Medina Community Based Correctional Facility employees have either resigned or been fired in the past month as an investigation into their relationships with inmates has unfolded.

CBCF Executive Director Mike Willets declined to say who told him about the relationships his former employees were having with inmates — some of whom are also being investigated, although he wouldn’t identify them. But the relationships were apparently the subject of discussion among inmates.

“Out there in the population it was a slow rumor that some people were getting preferential treatment, some people were getting this, some people were getting that,” Willets said.

Among those who resigned is Program Director Sandra Wright, who had been with the CBCF since 1997 and worked her way to one of the top positions at the facility, which focuses on treating drug and alcohol issues and rehabilitating low-level offenders.

Wright

The investigation also spurred Willets to sever a long-standing relationship with Worship Cathedral Inc. in Lorain, where CBCF inmates had performed community-service work for years. Wright attends the church, Willets said.

Willets said he couldn’t comment in detail on the investigation but acknowledged that complaints had come in about whether the work inmates were doing for the church was proper.

“There was work on perhaps some parishioners’ houses,” he said.

Willets also acknowledged that Wright may have received discounts on items she purchased from an inmate, including a television, but he declined to elaborate.

Wright was suspended Aug. 21 and resigned Sept. 3, a day before she was scheduled to attend a predisciplinary hearing on allegations she had “unauthorized relationships with residents” and other ethics violations.

The facility’s code of ethics bars virtually all contact with the facility’s current and former residents outside of official duties and notes that such relationships are considered “a serious breach of security.”

Wright, 52, previously had worked at Lorain County Community Action Agency and as a juvenile probation officer for the county before joining the CBCF staff.

Two of the facility’s full-time resident advisers — Maxwell Wicks, 39, and Deborah Donald, 41 — also resigned during the investigation.

The facility’s personnel file on Wicks, who had been at the CBCF since 2000, was largely free of infractions, but he was facing serious disciplinary action at a hearing scheduled for Sept. 11. Instead, he resigned that day.

According to a hearing notice sent to him Sept. 8, Wicks was accused of exchanging personal favors with current or former residents, using his position to secure “privileges or advantages,” losing his objectivity, negligence, doing private work while working at the CBCF and dishonesty for failing to cooperate with an investigation.

Donald, originally hired as a part-time cook in 2003 and promoted to resident adviser in 2006, resigned Aug. 21.

Donald’s March 2008 review had noted that she “at times may be too close to residents.” Her file also showed she repeatedly skipped required training classes in 2006 and 2007.

The fourth employee, Cassandra Allen, 35, was fired from her part-time resident adviser job at the CBCF after less than two weeks.

When she was interviewed by representatives from the county Prosecutor’s Office and Adult Probation Department during the investigation, Allen admitted to engaging in activities with current and former CBCF residents that violated the facility’s code of ethics, Willets wrote in an Aug. 22 letter to Allen in which she was fired.

It was Allen’s second stint on the payroll at CBCF. In March, she left her job as a case manager at the CBCF after being there since 1999 because she was moving to the Columbus area, according to her personnel file.

Assistant County Prosecutor Dave Muhek said he couldn’t comment on the ongoing investigation.

Willets said he doesn’t believe the investigation reflects negatively on the facility.

“Policing your own place makes it a bit more respectable,” he said.

Wright and the other former employees could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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