Warden demoted over staff conduct

Associated Press

DAYTON

An Ohio warden was demoted amid questions about his handling of inappropriate sexual conduct by a prison health care administrator, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The Dayton Daily News said documents it obtained showed that Lebanon Correctional Institution Warden Timothy Brunsman was demoted after criticism by investigators over the disciplinary case involving health care administrator Amy Weiss.

Brunsman, the warden since November 2007, left the prison in mid-July for an interim desk job with the prison system’s central office.

He starts work Aug. 12 as the warden’s assistant at Madison Correctional Institution, taking a pay cut. He was replaced in Lebanon Monday by Ernie Moore, who was prisons director in 2010 under former Gov. Ted Strickland.

A spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, JoEllen Smith, said agency director Gary Mohr felt that it was time for a leadership change. She declined to discuss specifics.

“A new warden has been appointed and we are excited to see the new vision Warden Moore has for the entire operation of the prison,” Smith told the paper. She told The Associated Press in an email Saturday that there would be no additional comment.

The paper said Weiss was fired in April after an investigation found she habitually had made raunchy comments in front of staff and inmates and was such a mean boss that she contributed to a nursing shortage.

According to the paper, investigators criticized Brunsman for his response to Weiss’s behavior after he learned about it a year ago. She had previously been suspended for groping an officer during a pat-down.

Another staff member, the prison’s sex offender treatment program director, resigned in January 2011 after she was confronted with hidden-camera evidence showing her kissing and being fondled by an inmate in her office.

“The culture seems out of control and culture starts at the top,” said David Singleton, director of the nonprofit Ohio Justice & Policy Center, a Cincinnati law office focused on justice-system reform.

“It’s very important to have a leader who creates an atmosphere of professionalism. I’m not attacking the former warden, but it seems like he lost his grip on it. The sexual stuff is just off the chain.”

Brunsman did not respond to the paper’s request for comment and Weiss could not be reached by the newspaper. No phone contacts for them could be found Saturday.