By Tom Eldred and Joe Rogalsky,
Delaware State News
DOVER - Gov. Ruth Ann Minner pledged Monday that the results of an internal investigation into a July 12 abduction and rape of a counselor at the Delaware Correctional Center near Smyrna would be released to the public by the end of the month.
Cassandra Arnold, the 27-year-old prison counselor who was abducted, raped and repeatedly threatened with death by an inmate at the Delaware Correctional Center near Smyrna, met with reporters Friday to give a full and detailed account of her ordeal.
It was the young woman's first public discussion of the ordeal that ended when her abductor, serial rapist Scott A. Miller, was shot and killed by a correctional officer.
Her account of how she was taken hostage varies considerably from the account Corrections Commissioner Stanley W. Taylor gave the media during a tour of DCC 10 days after the incident.
In the candid interview lasting several hours, Ms. Arnold was critical of how administrators handled the situation and said she was speaking out because "a lot of people's lives are in jeopardy'' in the state-operated prison system.
Probe needed?
Some individuals, including candidates challenging Gov. Minner in the Nov. 2 election, say an independent investigation is needed to find out how and why such a terrible series of events could have taken place in Delaware's largest and most modern correctional institution.
They say that is the only way the public will know the full truth.
Mr. Taylor promised the Department of Correction would conduct its own investigation, but would not complete it until probes by the state police and attorney general's office were finished.
Those reviews focused only on the officer's use of deadly force to kill Miller, 45, who was serving 699 years in prison for multiple rapes and assaults.
The attorney general's report, released Aug. 30, said deadly force was justified.
"In a politically charged season, I don't think we'll get an honest report of what occurred that day,'' said Douglas Ingram, a former contract employee to DOC who was suspended from his job at the Sussex Correctional Center after sharing his report criticizing prison security with the Delaware State News.
"Mr. Taylor was commander-in-chief during that incident. I think it's unfair for him to critique himself. I think the counselor, the public and institution staff are entitled to an independent report.''
Gov. Minner said she expects the DOC investigation to be done by the end of September. She vowed it would be made public and bristled at the suggestion that political considerations play any role whatsoever.
"Once the investigation is complete, the results will be made public,'' she said in a prepared statement Monday.
"We currently expect a report by the end of the month.
"The progress and conclusions of the report are being driven by the needs and findings of the investigative team and nothing else.''
The governor has said repeatedly that she will not make a decision about an independent investigation until she receives the DOC report.
DOC spokeswoman Gail Stallings Minor said Mr. Taylor was unavailable for comment Monday. She said he was out of the office. She said she was unsure of where he was and that he was not expected back until Wednesday.
Republican gubernatorial candidate William Swain Lee says an independent investigation is warranted.
In an interview last week, Mr. Lee accused the Minner administration of resorting to political spin when faced with difficult situations such as the DCC hostage incident.
"I hate political spin,'' he said. "I believe this administration is nothing but spin. The truth is buried under layers and layers of spin.''
Frank Infante, endorsed by the Independent and Libertarian parties for governor, owns a business in Smyrna and lives there.
"I know many correctional officers and they're disgusted,'' Mr. Infante said.
"Everybody knew an incident like that was going to happen because they're so understaffed. It was going to happen. It was a recipe for disaster.''
DOC reported on Sept. 8 that 292 officer jobs out of 1,832 established positions were vacant, including 44 on military leave.
Gov. Minner and Mr. Taylor have said that inadequate staffing was not the cause of the hostage-taking incident.
Mr. Infante said the governor is ultimately responsible.
"I believe Gov. Minner is to blame,'' he said. "She has a tremendous ability to ignore the obvious. If she chooses not to see it, it's not there. She has not and will not act to correct this situation because of political reasons.''
Minner responds
Gov. Minner, responding to Mr. Lee's comments last week, dismissed the spin accusation.
"I totally reject that,'' she said. "I have always voted for open government and the people's right to know. When I was in the General Assembly I worked on the first Freedom of Information Act."
She called Mr. Taylor one of the best officials in state government.
"Stan Taylor started at the bottom of the correctional system and worked his way up,'' she said. "He knows the concerns of his officers. He knows what the issues are and he addresses them.''
Gov. Minner said Mr. Lee is vying to become governor and makes projections, such as his pledge to give correctional officers an 8 percent pay raise and new recruits a $2,500 signing bonus, purely for political gain.
"He spouts off that there's a lot of money hanging out there to pay for all these things,'' she said. "I don't set that. DEFAC (Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council) does that.''
Debate topic
Gov. Minner and Mr. Lee continued to address the DOC issue during a debate Monday at the University of Delaware Wilmington Campus.
"I have said many times that correctional officers are the most-abused state employees," Mr. Lee said during the debate.
"We don't even have a schedule that tells us how many officers we need to fully staff our facilities without relying on mandatory overtime."
The verbal jousting turned to money issues.
"We have a $300 million surplus," Mr. Lee said, referring to the state's financial situation prior to passing this year's budget.
"Why don't we use that to solve some problems? Somebody else is going to get hurt in the prisons."
"I'd like to know where that $300 million is," Gov. Minner shot back.
"The bank account I look at says $87 million. It's the money we set aside in case Maryland and Pennsylvania pass slots and we need it to support the budget."
Gov. Minner said she and her administration are working with the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware to address the staffing issue.
Recommendations from the correctional officer task force are being followed, she said, citing the increase in hazard duty pay, the 5 percent pay raise effective Jan. 1 and a new recruitment-incentive program that started Sept. 1.
During the debate, Gov. Minner explained why state officials haven't addressed the July 12 incident in detail.
"We as a state cannot talk about it because it is a personnel issue," she said.
"The victim talked to an attorney, she talked to the press, but she hadn't talked to state investigators."
Ms. Arnold spoke to state police detectives the night of the incident and was interviewed by DOC investigators on Aug. 18, a month before meeting with the media.
The governor clarified her remarks to reporters after the debate.
"We respected (Ms. Arnold) for the trauma she went through and did not force her to speak with us earlier," she said.
"Members of her family and others have met with different people. When we called to talk to them, the calls were never returned."
During and after the debate, Gov. Minner said no one has reported to her that any DOC policies were broken.
"The prison guards and the administrators looking at what happened said they could not find a policy that was broken," she said.
"I am being told no Department of Correction policy was broken. That was before they talked to the young lady."
When asked by a reporter if DOC policy allows secured doors to be propped open, which is how Ms. Arnold said Miller got into the area where she was taken hostage, Gov. Minner said it is not known for certain if the doors were propped open instead of being locked.
"People were saying they weren't (propped open), other people are saying they were," Gov. Minner said.
After the debate, Mr. Lee repeated his call for an independent inquiry.
"If I see a report that says there were no Department of Correction policies broken, that will be all the more reason why we need an independent investigation," Mr. Lee said.
"The prisoner got through two doors that should have been locked and the position of the Department of Correction is that the victim let him in.
"I am not sure we will get a satisfactory resolution to this. I am inclined to believe the victim, and her account is different from the accounts put out by the department."
Mr. Ingram said the public deserves full disclosure of not only the July 12 incident, but the events leading up to what he calls a "major scandal'' in Delaware prison history.
"I think this has opened the eyes of our citizens to the problems in the Department of Correction,'' he said.
"I think our citizens will call for an independent investigation because without it, aspirations for a better prison administration will never be realized.''
Senior writer Tom Eldred can be reached at 741-8212 or at teldred@newszap.com.
Staff writer Joe Rogalsky can be reached at 741-8226 or at jrogalsky@newszap.com.
