By Maddie Hanna
Concord Monitor
MERRIMACK COUNTY, N.H. — As the officer in charge of the state prison’s secure housing unit, Sgt. Thomas Messina said he often felt his authority was being undermined.
After he was assigned to the unit in late 2009, someone dropped a fish behind a filing cabinet, put Messina’s medicine in a spot he couldn’t reach and drew a penis on his hat.
But it was an inmate transferring from the infirmary into the unit less than an hour before the end of Messina’s workday that sent the sergeant to the warden’s office to complain about his working conditions.
That led to a fight later that afternoon in the prison parking lot with the officer in charge of the infirmary, Mark Jordan. Messina said Jordan punched him in the head in the March 2010 incident, and Jordan was charged with simple assault and suspended without pay for a year.
Jordan, who was found not guilty and returned to work in June, sued the state over the suspension, which is why Messina was called to Merrimack County Superior Court yesterday to testify about what led to the parking lot confrontation.
Messina said he was upset with Jordan, the president of the union representing the state’s corrections officers, after corrections officials ordered in 2009 that supervisors like Messina could no longer earn overtime pay.
The change cost Messina $7,000 to $8,000 a year, “but that’s not working a lot of overtime.” He said he found it unfair that officers were still eligible for the pay and opposed Jordan on the issue, questioning whether he belonged to a union and referring to him once as a “scab,” a derogatory term for a non-union member or strikebreaker.
Later that year, Messina was reassigned to the secure housing unit. “I was told I could bring some positive changes, a fresh outlook,” he said, describing himself as taking “a head-on approach to things.”
But he said he believed that Jordan had been trying to interfere with his efforts. “Lots of things were happening in the unit, like missing request slips, stuff not getting done,” Messina said.
In addition, someone urinated on a lieutenant’s vest, and “the same penis drawn on my hat was drawn on the lieutenant’s window,” Messina said.
He said he felt “personally attacked.” Asked by Jordan’s attorney, Chuck Douglas, why he felt that way, Messina said, “They were messing with my stuff.”
Messina — who didn’t say who he thought the culprits were - said he didn’t personally blame Jordan for what happened in the secure housing unit. But “the incident that broke the camel’s back was sending the inmate over,” he said.
That happened on March 10, 2010, when an inmate was transferred to Messina’s unit at 2:10 p.m. from the infirmary. It was an “unwritten rule” that no transfers were to be made into the secure housing unit after 2 p.m., when guards began to prepare for the shift change at 3, Messina said, and when the inmate arrived unannounced, the sergeant said he made an angry call to Jordan and “asked him what was up.”
“I think I said to him, this is BS,” Messina said. “I did swear. I wasn’t happy.” He said he hung up on Jordan, then went to the warden’s office, where he complained about the late transfer and his working conditions.
The warden, Richard Gerry, said he would look into the issue, Messina said. He left work, but when he got to his truck in the parking lot, he heard Jordan call to him.
Jordan, who was standing across the lot with several other officers, said to Messina: “ ‘What’s the matter, you have nothing to say out here in the parking lot?’ ” Messina said. He said he didn’t remember what he said, “but I’m sure I replied.”
He said he took off his hat and jacket and began walking toward Jordan, hoping to “clear up the air,” he said.
But Jordan head-butted him, Messina said, and two of the officers pinned his arms to his sides. He said he was then punched in the head.
“I felt I was baited,” Messina said of the incident. “And unfortunately, I took the bait and went right into their trap.”
He said he went back to Gerry’s office and “told him I just got assaulted in the parking lot by Mark Jordan.” He said Gerry “had a look of disbelief” and left the office, then returned and asked Messina to talk to an investigator.
Another corrections officer and former friend of Messina’s, Roger Provost, testified yesterday that Messina told him a month after the incident that he was “going to go after” the four officers involved in the assault, including Jordan and Cpl. Steven Isabelle, who testified earlier this week that he helped break up the fight and never saw Jordan punch Messina.
Provost said Messina believed the four officers were targeting him and “wanted to see their lives completely ruined.” Messina also said he was going to sue the Department of Corrections and win $1 million, Provost said.
He said he filed an incident report about the conversation with the hope that Messina would “get professional help,” noting that Messina had also been going through a divorce.
Messina said he made those comments because he believed the fight proved his point about having a hostile work environment. “Here I am, complaining to the warden about the working conditions I’m in, and I walk outside - in five minutes, I get assaulted in the parking lot,” he said.
Messina was not suspended after the fight with Jordan. After Jordan was found not guilty by a Concord District Court judge of the simple assault charge, corrections officials amended his suspension to five days without pay.
Messina said he was then suspended for two weeks without pay. Asked by Douglas why he ultimately got a longer punishment if he was the victim, Messina said, “I tend to believe it was because I was a sergeant and should have known better.”
The trial continues today in Merrimack County Superior Court.
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