By Molly AK Connors
Concord Monitor
MANCHESTER, N.H. — The Manchester man who says he was suspended from his job as a corrections officer because of his outspoken criticism of his employer described for jurors yesterday the financial, emotional and physical strain he was under during his year without pay or benefits.
“It’s hard to explain without starting to cry,” Mark Jordan, 43, testified yesterday in Merrimack County Superior Court.
And then, in a contentious cross-examination that lasted well over an hour, Assistant Attorney General Lynmarie Cusack steadily picked away at the veracity of Jordan’s claims.
“I just don’t understand why you’re being so aggressive towards me,” Jordan said at one point to Cusack, prompting Judge Richard McNamara to direct him to “just try to answer the questions.”
“I know this is an emotional time for you and everyone in the courtroom,” McNamara said.
At another point, Jordan’s own attorney, Chuck Douglas, had to tell Jordan to pay more careful attention.
“Listen to the question,” Douglas said to his client. “Listen to the question. You’re not listening.”
“Just slow down everybody,” McNamara said.
Jordan was suspended in March 2010 after a fight with another corrections employee in the parking lot of the men’s state prison in Concord. Because he was involved in a criminal investigation, Jordan was suspended without pay while the other man in the altercation, Sgt. Tom Messina, was not. Had Jordan, who was found not guilty on a simple assault charge earlier this year, instead been involved in an internal investigation, he would have been suspended with pay, according to court testimony.
The suspension occurred about a year after he had suffered herniated discs while restraining an inmate and shortly after he had been diagnosed with an unrelated congenital neurological condition that leaves his head particularly vulnerable to injury because part of his brain has slipped outside the protection of his skull. Because of those problems, Jordan said the loss of benefits was particularly difficult for him.
The first point of contention between Cusack and Jordan yesterday: At what point did Jordan, who described the financial havoc the suspension wreaked on his life, fall behind on his bills?
On direct examination, Jordan described, “the first time in my entire life I was late on a bill.” He seemed to be referring to March 2010.
Yet, Cusack pointed out, Jordan had already fallen behind on utility payments in January of that year, a few months before the suspension.
Jordan explained he had begun to fall behind after his first back injury, in 2009. He later said that he had forgotten about those payments.
Another point of contention: Were relations between management and labor as tense as Jordan has made them seem?
Both Jordan and Corrections Commissioner William Wrenn said the men had a healthy working relationship until 2009. Jordan testified two days ago that pressures brought on by budget constraints, layoffs and what he said were unsafe working conditions had strained the men’s relationship. Things got worse, Jordan said, when he continued to criticize the Department of Corrections in newspapers and on the radio.
But, Cusack pointed out, Jordan hadn’t worked closely enough with Wrenn to even sit in on the regular labor-management group meetings until July 2009. And the issues that did come up in those meetings - overtime, working conditions - weren’t exactly new just because Jordan had joined the group, she said.
Jordan testified Wednesday that Wrenn had become enraged after the union considered a no-confidence vote against him. But Cusack drew out that several other recent commissioners had faced similar votes, one which Jordan was part of. Wrenn wasn’t unique in that regard, she implied.
“These are all issues that had been recurring, had they not?” she asked.
“They were getting worse,” Jordan replied.
And one of the sharpest points of contention: Couldn’t Jordan have gotten 12 weeks of insurance for himself and his wife and 8- year-old daughter had he simply filled out the paperwork for the Family Medical Leave Act that the department had sent him?
Jordan testified Wednesday that he believed he would have been committing fraud and would have lost his job if he had applied for family leave. Yesterday he said he felt the letters telling him to do so were threatening.
And yet, because Jordan had told doctors he was unable to work because of his newly diagnosed neurological disorder, he could have qualified for FMLA, Wrenn testified Wednesday and Karen Hutchins, state personnel director, said yesterday.
The day’s most tearful testimony came from Pamela Jordan, Mark’s wife of 20 years. She said she was devastated when her husband was diagnosed with a neurological disorder that could require a very serious surgery and was horrified that Messina would have come so close to causing a potentially dangerous injury to Jordan.
“When he got assaulted, I got totally frightened,” she said.
She described how horrible it was to see Mark, who both took pride in and enjoyed his work, lose weight and hope.
“He has an optimism that I don’t have, and that most people don’t have, and I feel (the suspension) just crushed that optimism in him,” she said.
The couple became estranged because of money worries, both said, and Pamela said that as Mark’s physical pain increased, he was unable to play with his daughter, who she called “Daddy’s little girl,” less.
“Because she felt rejected, she would act up, test Daddy, you know,” she said. “There was a lot of tension.”
Testimony is scheduled to continue today.
Copyright 2011 Concord Monitor/Sunday Monitor