Public defender under fire over safety
Some attorneys say they were at risk with lax protocols
Several attorneys who work for the Ninth Circuit Public Defender’s Office say they’ve been treated as “expendable” by the agency during the coronavirus pandemic and put at risk by lax safety protocols and in-person visits with inmates, some not wearing masks.
Five lawyers, who asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation, told the Orlando Sentinel they decided to speak out after Public Defender Bob Wesley in a
June 25 interview blamed infections at his office on employees who “let their guard down” during their personal time and claimed jail visits were being conducted over video, though his office’s video system had been down for weeks.
Together, the attorneys have about 30 years of experience working at the agency. Other employees confirmed some of their colleagues’ claims but declined to be quoted.
Six people in the office of more than 200 people have COVID-19, Wesley said.
The five lawyers said Wesley often goes without a mask at the office, including while interacting with subordinates, which Wesley acknowledged was true. Four also said management encouraged them to lie during COVID-19 screenings in order to be allowed to return to work at the courthouse complex.
”My boss is blaming us and our extracurricular activities for testing positive when the courthouse and jail are not safe,” one of the attorneys told the Sentinel. “It’s clear that our safety is no one’s concern.”
In an interview with the Sentinel, Wesley dismissed the complaints, saying his office is following proper protocols and guidelines provided by Dr. Raul Pino, of the Florida Department of Health
in Orange County, as well as conducting deep cleanings of the office every week.
“I just don’t know why anybody would work in a place they weren’t happy,” Wesley said in response to the accusations. “Maybe we’re paying them too much.”
Felony Chief Barrie Click and Felony Trials Chief Lydia LaBar also defended the agency’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Concerns about jail visits
The agency reopened to the public and more than 200 employees returned to work in full capacity June 1. Days earlier, attorneys had received an email from Click and LaBar that said they would be required to wear masks in public areas of the office and undergo a temperature check and health screening questions daily.
Attorneys were told they could continue to use Polycom, a remote video-conferencing system, to see incarcerated clients without having to go to the jail, but inmates who weren’t in dorms where Polycom was available would have to be seen in-person or at the jail’s video visitation center.
But by June 1, Polycom had crashed.
Meanwhile, the video visitation center, a facility at the jail that’s typically where loved ones go to talk to inmates, came with privacy concerns, one attorney said: Other lawyers were in the same room. The center has been closed to the public since March 25, but not to lawyers visiting clients.
Two assistant public defenders said the lack of other options forced them to meet with inmates oneon-one in small rooms, their clients arriving without masks.
“I had masks with me and gave them to clients when I was talking to them,” one of the two said. “There was no way for anything to be cleaned in between clients. The other said many corrections officers were also not wearing masks initially, or had them draped on one ear.
Orange County Jail spokeswoman Tracy Zampaglione said inmates were not given masks until June 24 and are only required to wear them when they exit their assigned housing area. Correctional officers are mandated to wear masks when they can’t practice social distancing or are faceto-face with another person, Zampaglione added.
Click said the agency’s lawyers were told they could schedule private time with inmates in the video visitation center, which is sanitized between clients. The office made sure attorneys had masks for themselves and inmates, as well as cleaning supplies, Click said.
“We did everything we could to make sure if they were going into the jail to make it as safe as possible while also being able to communicate with out clients and do our actual job,” she said.
The Orange County Jail reported its first inmate with the virus on June 8. By June 25, six inmates and 36 jail staff members tested positive. Zampaglione said Monday 14 inmates had tested positive, as well as 58 staff members.
Click said the Polycom system remained unavailable for three weeks, for which Wesley placed the blame on an operating system change. Employees upset by the interruption, he said, had “unreasonable expectations of how the world is supposed to work.”
“I wonder if their cars never break,” he said.
‘Telling us not to tell the truth’
When the agency reopened its office, employees were asked at the building’s entrance whether they were currently awaiting test results to determine if they had COVID-19, or had close contact with someone diagnosed with the disease or awaiting test results. The questions were provided by the Florida Supreme Court.
The attorneys who spoke to the Sentinel said they were told by LaBar and other managers to answer “no” to the questions if they or someone they knew got tested only for “peace of mind,” as opposed to because they had coronavirus symptoms. Managers could also override their employees’ answers to allow them in the building, they said.
“There’s no doubt they were telling us not to tell the truth,” one attorney said. “One of the people who tested positive got the test for ‘peace of mind.’ … She was asymptomatic and followed the direction of management, so she was in the office while her test was pending.”
LaBar acknowledged telling an employee to answer “no” to the testing questions if they or someone they’d been in contact with got tested for “peace of mind.” But after talking to court administration, they agreed that security and managers would determine whether someone should be denied entry, based on their circumstances.
“They have to be honest when answering the questions,” LaBar said.
“I am offended you said I told people to lie,” Wesley said in response to the claims.
The office’s quarantine guidelines said employees who tested positive could return to work if it had been 10 days since the onset of their symptoms, or if the symptoms had been decreasing and they went 72 hours without medication or a fever. State Attorney Aramis Ayala, whose office is about 250 feet away from Wesley’s building, said she does not allow people who’ve tested positive or those quarantined due to exposure back to work until they can produce a negative result. Ayala’s office has had two positive cases so far.
LaBar said the Public Defender’s office received its guidelines from Pino, whose office did not respond to a request for comment.
“If someone was positive they needed to stay out for 14 days,” she said. “We took his advice and followed it to a tee.”
‘I’m just a cog’
Wesley didn’t wear his mask all the time while at the office, even when he was around others, according to the attorneys who spoke to the Sentinel.
“He was telling others always to take off their mask when they were speaking to him because he doesn’t like them,” one attorney said.
In an interview, Wesley said he wears reading glasses and has recently started wearing hearing aids, which masks cause to fall out. He said he’s tested negative for COVID-19 in the past and his unmasked contact with employees has never lasted longer than 15 minutes.
“I have a very big head, as you may have noticed, and have not been able to find a mask that fits,” he said. “… I work very much in solitude. Virtually no employees come back to visit me.”
Wesley maintains his employees got the virus through “off campus” activities and said he doesn’t believe the attorneys who spoke to the Sentinel represent how the majority of his office feels.
“We have a lot of energy here, a lot of new people that come in excited to join the profession, to serve, learn how to practice law,” he said. “We can’t let it be destroyed by two or three unhappy people. … We get a lot of good results. We sure don’t need people to make the job harder.”
Wesley periodically sends out news articles to his staff. Last week, he sent out a report from the Daily Beast with the headline, “Florida Hospitals Are Flooded With Partying Younger People,” the attorneys who spoke to the Sentinel said.
“He’s harping very much that people are getting it off campus,” one attorney said. “To most of us that doesn’t matter. The point still is that we’re being forced to come into the office with people who may be contagious.”