Prison chief out; Geoghan case cited

Six weeks after the state correction commissioner was fired, a second top-ranking official lost his job yesterday, and a Romney administration source said the dismissal resulted from the slaying of defrocked priest John J. Geoghan in a state prison.

Michael Grant was replaced as superintendent of MCI-Concord, the facility where Geoghan's lawyers say the former priest was abused and harassed by a handful of guards, even after the lawyers repeatedly complained directly to Grant and other top prison officials.

Kathleen M. Dennehy, the acting commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Correction, said yesterday through a spokeswoman that the removal of Grant was not related to Geoghan's problems at Concord and subsequent transfer to another prison, where he was killed.

"She wants her own team," Abbe Nelligan, a spokeswoman for Dennehy, said of Grant's removal, which was one of three changes announced yesterday. But a high-ranking Romney administration source said the Geoghan case was the cause.

"The Geoghan murder exposed some cultural and operational issues at Concord state prison and the removal reflects Commissioner Dennehy's desire to put things right," said the source.

A telephone call to Grant's office was not returned.

Nelligan declined to say whether Grant has been assigned to another position at the Department of Correction. Asked if Grant would remain a department employee, Nelligan said she was not authorized to discuss personnel matters.

Scott Harshbarger, a former attorney general who is heading a commission appointed by Governor Mitt Romney to review the prison system, said, "It is important that Commissioner Dennehy take action to move the department forward. And it's been made clear that she has been given the authority to do so."

A three-member panel appointed at Governor Mitt Romeny's request, is investigating Geoghan's slaying, and concluded in its preliminary findings that Grant tolerated a "culture" at the Concord prison that allowed guards to abuse inmates with impunity, the Globe reported last month, citing two state officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Besides tolerating abuse of inmates, Grant failed to adequately investigate Geoghan's assertions that the disciplinary reports filed against the former priest by guards contained false accusations, Geoghan's lawyers said. In nearly 14 months at Concord, guards cited Geoghan in 12 reports for lying, disobeying orders, and other acts of "insolence," according to his prison record.

Geoghan's sister, Catherine Geoghan, complained to Grant that she had seen her brother assaulted by a guard in the Concord visitor's room, but Grant told her that wasn't so, according to one of Catherine Geoghan's representatives, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Grant told her that he was in the visitors' room at the time and saw what happened: that John Geoghan instigated the incident, said one of Catherine Geoghan's representatives.

In her only comment on her brother's death, Catherine Geoghan said Oct. 1 in a prepared statement: "The prison official to whom I complained disputed my report, and then lied to me, fabricating the story that he saw John attack the guard when I know that he did not." Her statement omitted the name of the prison official involved.

Catherine Geoghan could not be reached last night.

Since John Geoghan's death, Grant has also been blamed for the transfer of Geoghan, who was frail and halting, from the Concord facility to Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison intended for the state's most violent and aggressive criminals.

Authorities say that Geoghan, 68, was murdered by another inmate, Joseph L. Druce, a convicted murderer at Souza-Baranowski who was sentenced to life in prison in 1989.

Geoghan's lawyers requested that he be transferred from Concord, where officials consider the inmate population less dangerous, but they did not specify a facility. The facility's classification board recommended that the former priest remain at Concord, but that recommendation was overridden by top managers at Concord.

"My only surprise is that it took this long," Leslie Walker, director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, which represents inmates, said of Grant's departure.

Geoghan was serving a nine- to 10-year prison sentence for molesting a 10-year-old boy.

Dennehy also announced that Peter Pepe, the assistant deputy commissioner in charge of the Bridgewater prison complex, will replace Grant at Concord. Dennehy replaced Peter Allen as superintendent of MCI-Cedar Junction with David Nolan, which Nelligan described as part of Dennehy's reorganization.

Sean P. Murphy can be reached at smurphy@globe.com or at 617-929-7849.