By Gloria Campisi
The Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia prison system has been ordered by the state Human Relations Commission to pay a fired former corrections sergeant $81,154 in lost pay, plus interest, in a case of alleged retaliation.
A prisons spokesman said the city Law Department would decide whether to appeal yesterday’s PHRC decision to the courts.
The commission said yesterday that it had found that Renee Johnson had been the victim of retaliation after filing a sex- and race-discrimination charge with the commission on March 10, 2003.
Johnson filed the complaint after she was passed over for promotion to lieutenant.
The commission ordered the prisons to pay Johnson the money owed at the rate of $526 a week while she decides whether to accept or reject her reinstatement.
Johnson, a corrections officer from September 1988 until December 2006, could not immediately be reached for comment.
A prison spokesman did not say why Johnson had been fired.
However, Johnson was convicted of resisting arrest after allegations that she punched a police officer in the face on Sept. 20, 2004.
The PHRC noted that other officers charged with law-breaking received only suspensions. Johnson was acquitted in May 2006 of more serious charges including aggravated assault.
The PHRC said in a report released yesterday that Johnson, 49, of South Philadelphia, had been arrested in a struggle with a police officer who was trying to arrest her daughter.
The PHRC report noted that although Johnson had been fired, other corrections officers who had been arrested for allegations including road rage, presenting a fraudulent prescription for Oxycontin, and DUI while on probation for a previous DUI, all had been suspended.
Prisons commissioner Leon A. King II allowed Johnson to return to work while awaiting trial in the police assault case, after a three-month suspension.
But on June 9, 2006, Johnson amended her race and sex-bias complaint to the PHRC, alleging retaliation for the complaint because she still had not been promoted.
On Dec. 1, 2006, Johnson received a call from the prison system telling her that she was being fired.
Yesterday’s ruling dealt only with Johnson’s retaliation charge.
The race and sex charges still are under investigation, said commission spokeswoman Shannon Powers.
Johnson’s performance evaluations were generally satisfactory but in 1989 she was disciplined twice: a 30-day suspension for sleeping on duty and a 10-day suspension for disobeying a lawful order, the PHRC report said. The PHRC also ordered the prison system to require training for managers to prevent future “illegal retaliation.”
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