By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – The Department of Corrections is being ordered a second time to put Lt. Thomas Macholl back to work after its questionable investigation and hidden evidence resulted in his firing.
The Personnel Appeals Board unanimously rejected a DOC appeal on Tuesday and ordered that Macholl must get his job back, the second time this year the board ruled against the Department of Corrections over Macholl’s termination.
In Tuesday’s written decision, PAB Chair Jason Majors states that DOC lawyers provided no evidence to support its request to overturn the March ruling to reinstate Macholl and get a hearing on the termination before the board.
“While the Department assures the Board that factual disputes would be presented if a hearing was granted, it provides no specific detail of what those factual disputes would be. Such vague and conclusory statements do not provide a basis to reverse the Board’s decision,” Majors wrote.
DOC representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
Macholl, a veteran officer and a union steward, was fired last year on the grounds he used excessive force on an inmate. However, the PAB found the circumstances surrounding his termination troubling. Macholl was fired before the DOC completed the internal investigation into the incident. Stranger still, a New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office investigation determined that Assistant DOC Commissioner Paul Raymond hid evidence that cleared Macholl of using excessive force.
“(Public Integrity Unit) Investigators find it troubling that, within a day of the incident, Assistant DOC Commissioner Raymond specifically asked Capt. (Scott) Towers to review the video footage and render a professional/expert opinion. Capt. Towers, through his training and experience, is arguably one of the most qualified NH DOC members to render such an opinion in a use of force incident. It was Capt. Towers’ opinion that the video did not support that a chokehold was used, yet when he asked Assistant Commissioner Raymond if he wanted this documented he was told no. As a result, nowhere in the file is there any record of this information, which is, without question, exculpatory in nature,” the Public Integrity Unit report states.
Macholl says he was targeted last year after he reported Eileen Meaney, DOC’s human resources director, for violating department policy. According to Macholl, union members complained to him that Meaney posted a disrespectful selfie she took at a memorial service for a dead officer.
Macholl filed a complaint against DOC Commissioner Helen Hanks with the Executive Branch Ethics Committee, claiming Hanks used the internal investigation process to retaliate against him after he complained about Meaney.
“The catalyst for this investigation was the sending of that email reporting those violations, arguably in violation of the whistleblower statutes. It is highly unethical for the commissioner to initiate this internal affairs investigation against me,” Macholl wrote in his complaint.
Meaney, who is a civilian, posted a photo of herself wearing a Corrections Officer uniform hat in a comical manner in January of 2023. The problem with the selfie is the fact that Meaney violated the rules against civilians wearing uniforms in public, according to Macholl. She also broke the rule against identifying herself as a DOC employee on her personal social media page.
But more problematic, corrections officers told Macholl, was the setting for Meaney’s selfie. It appears the photo was taken at the hotel in Manchester where the memorial service of Officer Lawrence Prather. Prather died alone while on duty in January of last year after suffering an apparent heart attack.
“In my over 30 years of law enforcement I have never seen a more unprofessional act by a high-ranking administrator,” Macholl wrote in his Feb. 9, 2023 email to Hanks and Raymond to report the violation.
Later the same day that he reported Meaney’s violation, Macholl was notified he was under internal investigation for violating computer use rules. That investigation never resulted in any finding. Two months after that investigation started, Macholl was fired for the illegal use of excessive force, which both the PAB and PIU say there is no evidence he committed.