By Brendan J. Lyons
Times Union
ALBANY, NY — Two correction officers have filed a federal lawsuit accusing Rensselaer County jail officials, including Sheriff Jack Mahar, of illegally accessing their medical records after they missed work due to injuries or illness.
A third plaintiff in the lawsuit, Keith Hancock Jr., claims his medical records were improperly accessed before he was fired from his job as a correction officer more than two years ago. Hancock was convicted in March 2011 on federal criminal charges of violating the civil rights of an inmate, Michael Ward, and lying about the incident to an FBI agent. Hancock was sentenced to home confinement.
The federal lawsuit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court by Hancock and jail officers Jason Dessingue and Tamera Thomas. It’s the second lawsuit alleging that Mahar and other jail officials improperly accessed medical records through a computer used to review inmates’ treatment histories. The earlier lawsuit was filed by the parents of a Melrose girl whose medical records were accessed from jail nurse’s computer after she received treatment for a bite from a dog owned by a correction officer, Ron LaFountain, who was her neighbor.
Elmer Robert Keach III, an Amsterdam attorney for the plaintiffs in both lawsuits, said that Hancock, Dessingue and Thomas all were notified that their hospital records had been improperly accessed. The breaches, according to Keach, took place at different times and when the officers were facing scrutiny for attendance issues due to injuries, medical ailments or, in Hancock’s case, suspected sick-time abuse.
“There is no question in my mind that Sheriff Mahar directed that these records be accessed so that he could gain advantage over his employees either when they were sick or they got hurt on the job,” Keach said. “This conduct by Sheriff Mahar and his underlings is completely beyond the pale of what is acceptable conduct of a public official.”
Mahar did not respond to a request for comment late Monday. He previously said it’s “an outright lie” that he ever sanctioned the improper use of the computer that gave the jail’s medical staff access to private hospital records. Mahar said he didn’t know about the computer access until Samaritan Hospital in Troy, where inmates and officers are regularly treated, began an investigation about two years ago.
The lawsuit filed by the officers lists defendants as Mahar; Rensselaer County; James Karam, who was head of the jail’s internal affairs unit; Elaine Young, a former jail nurse; and Anthony Patricelli, a suspended jail sergeant facing unrelated criminal charges alleging he accessed a state database to the check the criminal history of a man acquainted with his ex-girlfriend.
In previous interviews, Mahar said the privacy violations were traced to two nurses, including one who resigned and another facing termination.
“Nobody in authority knew,” Mahar said.
Young, a nurse at the jail for 13 years, abruptly resigned in March. Sheriff’s officials said her computer and password were used dozens of times to access the private medical records of at least 48 people, including jail guards, who underwent treatment at Samaritan Hospital, which is owned by St. Peter’s Health Partners.
Young, through an attorney, has alleged jail officers may have used her password — which was taped to her desk — without her knowledge. Crystal Waters, a registered nurse hired in 2009 who worked with Young, also was suspended several months ago pending the outcome of the sheriff’s investigation.
St. Peter’s officials said hospital officials discovered widespread abuse of the jail’s access to medical records dating back years.