Didn't Respond to Visit
Absent Jail Captain May Be Suspended

By GINGER ADAMS OTIS

An Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings judge has recommended a three-day suspension for a veteran Correction Captain who was charged with calling in sick and then leaving her house without authorization from her agency's Health Management division.

PETER D. MERINGOLO: Treated her like a prisoner.

Administrative Law Judge Kara J. Miller said Dec. 22 that Capt. Caroline Odle was "out of residence" on Sept. 11, 2005 when Assistant Deputy Warden Daryl Moore stopped by at approximately 6:15 p.m. to make an absence-control visit.

Says She Was Sleeping

Ms. Odle was charged with failing to log in and out with Health Management supervisors, failing to appropriately respond to Warden Moore's visit, and leaving her residence without permission.

Captain Odle denied the allegations. She said she had taken a combination of pain pills and muscle relaxants that left her in a deep sleep and prevented her from hearing the multiple knocks on the door or repeated phone calls from Mr. Moore. But Judge Miller said Mr. Moore's testimony that he knocked on the door at least 20 times and documented proof that he called Captain Odle's phone multiple times established a prima facie case of an out-of-residence violation. That shifted the burden of proof to Captain Odle, who failed to produce sufficient credible evidence that she was at home, the judge found.

The Captain produced prescriptions for four medications that she claimed to have taken the day of Mr. Moore's visit - Gabapentin, Tramadol, Moexipril-hydrochlorothiazide and Cyclobenzaprine, Judge Miller said.

Questions Impact

But Captain Odle had no evidence showing that any or all of the drugs would put her in a sleep so deep that she would miss repeated knocking and phone calls, Ms. Miller added.

Ms. Odle also attempted to argue that Mr. Moore had not performed the absence control visit correctly. She said he didn't knock on the side door of her house - located behind a wood fence that was closed at the time of his visit - or call her phone the requisite 20 times.

Mr. Moore, as part of his testimony, produced his initial write-up of the visit, which stated that he didn't venture behind the closed gate, but went to the front and back door.

Captain Odle said her bedroom was next to the side door and, had Mr. Moore knocked there, she likely would have heard him. She also produced phone records showing that Mr. Moore called her six times during the visit, hanging up and redialing after her answering machine picked up on about the third ring. She said that proved Mr. Moore hadn't let the phone ring 20 times as required by DOC regulations, but Judge Miller said that if anything, the phone records proved that Mr. Moore had done exactly what was required of him.

She recommended three days' suspension for Captain Odle. DOC spokesman Michael Saucier said Commissioner Martin Horn had yet to make a decision in the case.

Union: 'Childish' Checks

Correction Captains' Association President Peter D. Meringolo said he had longstanding objections to the DOC's policy of checking up on sick employees. "It's childish to treat my members as if they were children," he commented. "If I call in sick, and then I need to go to the store to get orange juice, I have to call in like a little two-year-old. Since when does being sick mean you're confined to your house like a prisoner?"

He added that the policy wasted departmental money because DOC often had to send its Wardens on absence control visits after hours, which meant they received overtime pay.

"And they don't go to visit Wardens and Deputy Wardens when they call in sick - just the Captains," Mr. Meringolo asserted. "If Commissioner Horn calls in sick, he doesn't get visited. It's ludicrous that they selectively decide who they're going to check."