By Liz Zemba
Tribune-Review
GREENSBURG, Pa. — Fayette County’s prison warden has been placed on a three-day, unpaid suspension, and a deputy warden was given five days off without pay.
The suspensions are the latest in what one commissioner described as a “witch hunt” involving county employees, with three other department heads recently suspended without pay for several days each.
The suspension of Warden Brian Miller was imposed Tuesday morning and is effective through Thursday, said Sheriff Gary Brownfield, chairman of the prison board.
Brownfield said the suspension was for failure to keep the prison board apprised of incidents at the jail.
“There was a lack of information being forwarded, to make the prison board aware of things that occurred over there,” Brownfield said. “We just want to know what’s happening.”
A deputy warden, Mike Zavada, has been placed on a five-day unpaid suspension, said Commissioner Al Ambrosini.
Ambrosini said he was not in agreement with Miller’s and Zavada’s suspensions.
“I did not sign off on it, nor will I sign off on it,” Ambrosini said, noting they are in addition to recent suspensions of three other department heads whom he declined to identify.
“In my opinion, these suspensions are just a witch hunt,” he said.
Neither Miller nor Zavada could be reached for comment.
Deputy Warden Barry Croftcheck said Miller was unavailable Tuesday and had no information on when the warden will return to work. He deferred comment to the county’s human resources department.
Dominick Carnicella, human resources director, would not confirm the suspension, but he said any actions the board may have taken would be ratified at the prison board’s next meeting on Jan. 28.
Vincent Zapotosky, chairman of the board of commissioners and a prison board member, declined comment because the suspensions are a personnel matter. Angela Zimmerlink, county commissioner, did not respond to an email seeking comment.
The suspensions for Miller and Zavada came less than a week after a special meeting of the prison board, when members directed Carnicella to investigate one or more undisclosed incidents at the jail.