Sheriff denies barring nurse for cooperating with the FBI

Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral testified yesterday in federal court that she barred a nurse practitioner from the house of correction for failing to immediately document an inmate's assertion that he had been assaulted by a correctional officer, not because the nurse had talked to the FBI about the allegation.

In fact, Cabral told jurors, there was a federal trial underway against a group of correctional officers charged with abusing inmates under the prior administration when she took over as sheriff in November 2002, and so, ''I assumed and still assume that the FBI has informants in the department."

Cabral, who testified for 40 minutes yesterday, rebutted Sheila Porter's contention that she was illegally barred from the house of correction in June 2003 for telling the FBI that an inmate who had previously cooperated with them had made new allegations of assault. She is slated to return to the stand Tuesday when the trial resumes in US District Court in Boston.

Porter, who filed a $2 million suit against Cabral and the Sheriff's Department alleging that her civil rights were violated, finished testifying earlier yesterday, and her lawyers rested their case. She had been recruited by the FBI in 1999 to assist in a federal investigation into allegations that correctional officers had raped female inmates, beaten male inmates, covered up assaults, and sold drugs to inmates.

The civil suit centers on how she handled an inmate's report on May 19, 2003, that he had been assaulted by a correctional officer. The inmate knew Porter because she had installed a hidden recorder on his body the previous year at the FBI's request, as part of an effort to gather evidence against allegedly abusive officers.

Porter testified that she immediately reported the allegations to a nursing supervisor, who in turn notified one of Cabral's management staff. She said she reported the allegation to the FBI the following day. Although Porter had been ordered to file a written report the same day as the incident, several Cabral staff members testified that they didn't receive it until nine days later.

Porter, who worked for a private firm contracted to provide health services to inmates, was fired by her company when she was no longer allowed inside the facility where she had worked for nine years.

Cabral testified that she barred Porter because of her failure to document an inmate's allegation of abuse in his medical records; her failure to submit a written report in a timely manner after being ordered to do so by a superior; and her belief that Porter had backdated the file, which was dated May 19, 2003, but received days later.

Cabral had been told by sheriff's investigators shortly after taking over her position, she said, that Porter had fitted the inmate with a wire for the FBI and she wasn't surprised. She said she knew from her years as a state prosecutor that it wasn't uncommon for nurses to assist in placing such devices on inmates, since medical areas are one of the most private in a correctional facility.

But Porter told jurors yesterday that she didn't believe she was required to document the inmate's medical file because she had only spoken with him for a moment through his cell door and made a quick observation of his injuries, and that someone else had performed his medical exam.

She said she wrote a report the same day as the incident, but took it home because her supervisor had left for the day and she felt it was too sensitive to leave on a desk at the office. Porter said she forgot about it, turning it in five days later.

When grilled about why she hadn't given the report directly to the sheriff's investigative division that conducts internal investigations, Porter said she had a ''lack of trust" with that division because of past dealings with people who worked in that unit when problems had arisen before involving the same inmate.

''Because I didn't know the new people, I didn't know who I could trust and who I couldn't," Porter said.

Much of Cabral's testimony focused on her accomplishments as a state prosecutor and her attempt to overhaul the Sheriff's Department, which had been racked by allegations of rampant corruption before she took over. During her 16 years as a prosecutor with the attorney general's office and the Suffolk district attorney's office, Cabral handled civil rights and domestic violence cases.

After she was appointed sheriff by Acting Governor Jane Swift in late 2002, Cabral said her goal was to restore credibility and integrity to the department. She also testified about trying to build relationships with other agencies, including the FBI.

''There had been a breakdown of the relationship specifically between the FBI and my office before I got there, and we made some effort to repair it," she said.