It appears no one was willing to press charges against her so the investigation concerning allegations that North Oakland Transportation Director and Oxford Twp. Trustee Pat Fitchena physically assaulted employees was closed.
“Due to the fact we have no complainant, this investigation is closed,” wrote Oakland County Sheriff’s Capt. Mark Newman, of the Investigative and Forensic Services Division, in a Jan. 31 letter to the NOTA chairman, which was received and filed following a special closed session meeting last week.
“As far as I’m concerned the case should be closed,” said Fitchena, who’s maintained her innocence all along. “I just don’t think that I’ve done anything any other boss hasn’t done.”
On Jan. 3, the NOTA board voted 8-2 to have the sheriff’s department conduct a third party investigation into allegations against Fitchena ranging from physical/verbal abuse of employees and misuse of NOTA resources to wasteful spending and policy violations.
The allegations stemmed from a July 24, 2007 letter submitted in person by former NOTA Operations Director Danny Poole, who resigned in August 2007, and a group of eight current and former employees who met with the township supervisors of Oxford, Addison and Orion.
Most of sheriff’s letter regarding the Fitchena investigation focused on the alleged physical assaults Poole claimed the director carried out against him and other NOTA employees.
Newman said all the involved parties were interviewed and no one wanted to press charges against Fitchena.
“Mr. Poole . . . stated that he didn’t want to press charges then and still doesn’t want to now. He said that he just wanted the board to be aware of how Fitchena treats her employees, and for them to make a decision on her status as director,” the captain wrote. “None of the individuals who were named by Poole as victims of assault . . . have made a complaint of assault to the police, nor do they want to.”
But Poole and another former NOTA employee Debra Smith, who worked as a dispatcher from October 2005 until she quit in May 2007, said the sheriff’s investigator, Sgt. Greg Glover, basically told them there was no point in pressing any assault charges now.
Poole claimed Glover told him “you’re too late to press charges anyhow. I don’t really see any harm here.”
“He never asked me if I wanted to file now,” Smith said. “He just came right out and said the statute of limitations was up.”
“I may have said the time’s probably run out on this,” said Glover, who’s assigned to the sheriff’s Special Investigations Unit.
“Assault and battery are normally filed when they happen or within a reasonable amount of time ? not almost two years later,” Glover explained. “(Poole) had ample opportunity to go to the police department and never did.”
“(Poole) could have still filed an official police report now. I don’t believe that we ever would have been able to get a warrant on it because of how the other interviews went and from his own statements,” the sergeant noted. “There never would have been a warrant issued on that.”
One of Poole’s main accusations was that Fitchena came up behind him in April 2006 and gave him “two full-fisted, hard kidney shots” while he was watching a buck outside the window. According to Fitchena, he was pulling an imaginary bow and talking about serving the deer on his table.
“I never punched him, no, socked him, no,” Fitchena said. “I had my hands full of papers and a pen, and with the backs of my hands, I tapped him in the back. I did not punch him in the back.”
Smith said she witnessed the incident and Fitchena’s not being truthful in her opinion.
“I stood right there and watched her punch him in the back,” she said. “There was no tapping him, no touching him with papers in her hand. She punched him in the back. I witnessed it.”
“Those weren’t love taps,” Poole said. “That was her going off the deep end, out-of-control punching me.”
But Poole didn’t press assault charges back then and refused to now, according to Glover. The sergeant said when he asked Poole if he wanted to press charges now, the response was “absolutely not. I’m 6-5. I weigh over 350 pounds. I didn’t want to do anything with it then. I still don’t want to now.
“And that is where that story ended,” Glover said. He asked Pool if Fitchena’s alleged punches “hurt” him and his response was “Absolutely not. I’m 6-5. I’m over 350 pounds.”
Right from the beginning, Fitchena denied she assaulted or abused anyone and said any physical contact she had with employees was always done in a joking, friendly manner.
Glover said of the NOTA employees he interviewed a “couple of them actually said they took it as kind of a joke.”
“I think one person may have said, “Hey, you know I don’t appreciate it. Don’t do it again,'” Glover recalled. “And it never happened again.”
Smith admitted she probably really didn’t have a basis to file an assault complaint.
“(Fitchena) just hit me in the head with rolled up papers,” she said. “I didn’t have any bumps or bruises.”
But to Smith that kind of physical contact was still wrong.
“To me, it’s inappropriate, I wouldn’t have considered walking up to her and hitting her with papers,” she said. “I think it’s wrong for any employer to (physically) contact another employee.”
Capt. Newman noted the NOTA board may wish to look into other issues which are beyond the scope of his department. “Other concerns that were raised regarding use of equipment, are operational issues, not criminal matters, and would best be addressed by the NOTA board,” he wrote.
Poole had accused Fitchena of using NOTA resources for her private catering business. “I never used the NOTA van for any of my catering,” she said.
The only time Fitchena said she ever used any NOTA resources was to cater NOTA functions.
Fitchena, who’s served as NOTA director since January 2004, said Poole’s allegations against her were the product of a disgruntled former employee who wanted her job. “He has not liked me since Day One,” she said.
“I didn’t want her job,” Poole said. “I wasn’t out for a raise. I just wanted the people that worked there to get a fair shake. She was making poor decision after poor decision, running us right in the ground.”
Poole said the whole reason he wrote the July 27, 2007 letter and ultimately resigned from NOTA has still never been addressed by anyone.
He claimed Fitchena attempted to coerce him into lying under oath at the August 2007 unemployment hearing for Smith, who ultimately received benefits after initially being denied because she voluntarily left NOTA.
“She was trying to force me into committing perjury,” he said. “I was not about to commit perjury or lie for her.”
Poole claimed Fitchena did a write-up concerning the circumstances surrounding Smith’s departure that contained false information. He said Fitchena wanted him to “go along with it” during the hearing and threatened to kick him in his private area if he did not.
Poole made it clear he did not perjure himself at the hearing.
Fitchena said Poole’s claim is “an absolute lie.”
“He was going to the hearing I assumed as a witness for me,” she explained. “I had no idea that he was summoned there by (Smith’s) advocate.”
“What I said to him was all I want you to do is tell the truth,” Fitchena said. “That’s all I said to him and if he says any different than that, he’s lying.”
Fitchena said she “absolutely” did not create a false write-up for Smith. “I’m willing to take a lie detector test,” she noted.
As a result of Poole’s allegations and the issues surrounding them, a personnel committee to review NOTA’s policies and procedures was formed in January.
“Whatever they want to do is fine with me,” Fitchena said. “When I took this job over, it was just ‘here it is’ ? nobody told me anything.”
“We’ve got a job to do here and I’m trying to do it the best way I know how,” she noted.
A review of Fitchena’s performance as director is expected to be conducted in the near future.