By Liz Zemba
Tribune-Review
GREENSBURG, Pa. — A newly hired lieutenant at the Fayette County Prison once sought inpatient treatment at a mental health facility, but the Farmington man said that has no bearing on his ability to perform his job duties.
“I have nothing to hide,” said James Brownfield, 49, who acknowledged he sought a court order in April to expunge records related to his 2010 stay at Southwest Regional Medical Center in Waynesburg so he could have his right to carry firearms restored.
“I recently went through a divorce, and I was stressed out,” Brownfield said during an interview on Tuesday with him and his attorney, Michelle Kelley of Uniontown. “It was just an extreme amount of stress, and I was just run down and worn out.”
The prison board on June 25 hired Brownfield, a retired state trooper and the son of Sheriff Gary Brownfield, as a lieutenant at the jail in Uniontown. James Brownfield started the $47,382-per-year job on Monday.
Prison board members who voted in favor of the hire, Commissioners Vincent Zapotosky and Al Ambrosini and Acting Controller Jeanine Wrona, said they were not advised of Brownfield’s weeklong voluntary stay at Southwest prior to the vote.
Dominick Carnicella, human resources director, said Brownfield was under no obligation to disclose it. A background check was performed, he said, but it looked only for criminal records.
“If they are able to perform all of the duties of the job, we can’t ask if they have a specific disability,” Carnicella said. “That could be looked at as a discriminatory question.”
The fact that Brownfield sought help became public in April, when Kelley filed a petition seeking to expunge Brownfield’s medical records related to the commitment and to restore his firearms rights.
Brownfield said he discovered the hospital had erroneously flagged the commitment as involuntary when he went to renew his gun permit. In Pennsylvania, an involuntary commitment for mental health treatment triggers a notice to state police, Kelley said. The person is then barred from possessing firearms.
“This didn’t happen just because of the job,” Brownfield said. “This happened because I wanted to get my permit renewed.”
Joy Eggleston, Southwest Regional spokeswoman, declined to comment on Brownfield’s medical record at the facility, citing privacy concerns.
Brownfield said he worked with another attorney, unsuccessfully, to try to resolve the records’ mix-up through direct contact with the hospital for a year before hiring Kelley. She said she filed the petition because had it been challenged, “it would have come out as a 201 in court.”
Under state law, “201” commonly refers to voluntary consent for mental health treatment, Kelley said. Brownfield’s records were incorrectly marked as a “302” commitment, or involuntary.
In her petition, Kelley said Brownfield sought voluntary treatment from Nov. 30, 2010, to Dec. 7, 2010, after an argument with an ex-wife. The “underlying verbal incident was a single episode isolated in nature,” Kelley wrote, and Brownfield is no longer undergoing treatment.
Kelley said when no one from the state police appeared to challenge the petition in court on April 4, Judge Nancy Vernon signed the expungement order.
Maria Finn, state police spokeswoman, said the agency was aware of the presentment but never received a scheduling order from the county. In addition, she said, it has not yet received the expungement order.
Carnicella said a gun permit is not required to be hired to work at the jail, but employees receive firearms training. The only time officers would carry a firearm is when transporting inmates from one facility to another, he said.
Advised of Brownfield’s hospital stay, Wrona said she would require additional information before she could determine whether it would have changed her vote to hire.
Zapotosky said he remains comfortable with his vote.
“I have to rely on the fact a judge looked at all the evidence presented that allowed for the expungement,” Zapotosky said. “Thus, he’s entitled to all privileges and rights that might have been revoked.”
Ambrosini could not be reached for comment.
Two other prison board members, Commissioner Angela Zimmerlink and District Attorney Jack Heneks, were not present when the board voted to hire Brownfield.
Heneks said he would have voted to hire Brownfield, even though he was unaware of the hospitalization. He noted the fact the records were ordered to be expunged means they would not have been available to the board.
Zimmerlink declined to comment, pending her review of the matter.