Fired Trumbull corrections officer returns to job

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

James D. Millik, who was fired from his job as a corrections officer at the Trumbull County Jail after being accused of having improper communications with inmates, has been returned to his old job.

Millik returned to work about two weeks ago and has been working with a supervisor while being retrained on his old job, Sheriff Thomas Altiere said.

Millik, a 15-year employee, was fired in 2014 after an investigation into his actions on the day in April 2014 that three inmates at the jail took another corrections officer hostage.

The hostage ordeal ended peacefully five hours later, and the corrections officer was released uninjured.

But an internal-affairs investigation indicated that Millik may have told the three inmates that corrections officer Joe Lynn was the officer who would be walking into their pod that day on “watch tour,” according to an internal-affairs investigation.

Telling inmates which corrections officer would be making watch tours is a violation of jail policy. It is prohibited to prevent inmates from victimizing specific officers.

Millik failed a lie-detector test regarding the conversations, but the Ohio Unemployment Compensation Review Commission ruled in November 2014 that Millik’s termination was not for just cause, and the commission approved Millik for unemployment benefits.

The sheriff’s office appealed the commission’s ruling in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, but it withdrew the lawsuit about the same time Millik returned to work.

Altiere said the lawsuit was withdrawn because the sheriff’s office reached an agreement with Millik to allow him to return to work with a cash payment of $5,000 but no other back pay for the time he was off, Altiere said.

One of the purported hostage-takers, David Martin, who later was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to the death penalty, may have had a grudge against corrections officer Lynn.

Lynn had reported to supervisors a threat Martin made, jail officials said. As a result of the threat, Martin was required to wear a “stun vest” during his trial in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

Altiere said he believes the investigation was “an education for everybody” working at the jail to make them understand why corrections officers should not “become friends” with inmates.

“In a corrections environment, [you should] keep your distance from the inmates. You do your job, but you don’t get personal with them,” he said.

One of the assistant wardens, Eric Shay, and Warren Police Lt. Jeff Cole will travel to Washington, D.C., in February to an international jail administrators conference to talk about the hostage situation.

Cole was the negotiator who negotiated the peaceful end to the standoff.