Rev. Stan Moody, Ph.D.

POB 240
Manchester, ME 04351
626-0594

Deposition Shows Borderline Racketeering at Maine State Prison

Stan Moody of Manchester, ME, former Maine State Representative and most recently a
Chaplain at Maine State Prison in Warren, is advocating for transparency and accountability in
Maine’s prison system…A prolific and published writer, Dr. Moody is pastor of the Meeting
House Church in Manchester and has been a speaker on human rights issues at conferences
around the nation…

May 17, 2010

Motion to Intervene:
A Feb. 4 deposition taken of one former security guard in support of a lawsuit filed
against the State of Maine by another former security guard has disclosed a “shadow
government” at Maine State Prison (MSP) that operates independently of Maine Department of
Corrections policies and procedures.
On April 4, 2010, a Motion to Intervene was filed in a hearing before Lincoln County
Superior Court to unseal the deposition of Ira Sherr. Sherr, a 7-year veteran guard with a
bachelor’s degree in Psychology and graduate study in Education and an honorable discharge
from the US Navy, had served as a unit chair, chief steward, president and vice president of
AFSCME, the bargaining union representing prison guards in Maine. He reportedly resigned
under pressure for attempting to bring sexual harassment charges against the son of a Deputy
Warden. Implicated in his testimony are the Director of Personnel at MSP, the aforementioned
Deputy Warden and a number of key staff members and prison administrators, including the
current Commissioner of Corrections.
The Motion to Intervene was opposed by the Maine Attorney General’s Office and the
AFSCME union. The Court ordered release of a redacted version of the deposition on May 17.

The Shadow Government at MSP:

In his sworn testimony, Sherr averred an atmosphere of “fear, intimidation, retaliation
and harassment,”1 a “shadow hierarchy” that failed to follow standard officer protocol.2
Throughout the deposition, Asst. AG Susan Herman hammered away at whether Sherr had
“personal knowledge” or if his information was allegorical. Sherr deflected that effort on the
grounds that, as a union representative, he was not required to have personally witnessed
incidents of harassment but was obligated to report them. Nor could there, he suggested, be
surviving documentation in a system designed to protect select, privileged staff members.
What emerges is the picture of an “old boy network” shielding itself against public
disclosure of wrongdoing while engaging in a common practice of building a paper trail against

1
Pamela J. Sampson v. State of Maine, Superior Court Civil Action Docket No. CV 2668-56, Ira Sherr, Deponent,
Feb. 4, 2010, p. 59.
2
Ibid., p. 78.
any employee who complained. “It they want to get rid of somebody, they build what they refer
to here as a paper trail so that they could have some plausible deniability and justification for
relieving somebody they didn’t want here.”3 “There were endless complaints that never went
forward because (staff) feared for their jobs (and would back off under pressure).”4 Prisoner
complaints that never saw the light of day included being sent down to solitary confinement on a
whim5, recently vehemently denied by the Department of Corrections in its defense against the
solitary confinement bill, LD1611.
Sherr described what was commonly referred to as the “Kid System” in the Department
of Corrections. The “Kid System” appears to be a secret cabal of nepotism and patronage
prevalent at MSP and unrelated to job qualifications or performance. Staff members on the
inside of the “Kid System” would cover each other’s tracks, commonly including “collecting
checks but not coming to work.”6 Being a “kid” somehow confers protection in the same way as
does being the member of a (organized crime) mob.7 “Kids got promoted even if they were
incompetent – about 80% of the promotions.”8 Sherr testified about his experience as a union
representative in filing whistleblower complaints. “I personally complained about violations of
whistleblowers and got absolutely nothing from anybody in the State…Nobody in this place
trusts the system to take care of any of their rights…People feared for their physical safety from
retaliation at this facility.”9

Corroborating Documentation:
The sworn deposition of Officer Sherr follows a series of complaints of systemic cultural
problems within the prison system. On May 22, 2009, Chaplain Stan Moody submitted an
extensive disclosure of management problems within Maine State Prison. In June, 2009, the
legislative watchdog committee, OPEGA, submitted its findings of systemic cultural problems
within MSP. The OPEGA report was tossed back to the Department by the committee of
jurisdiction and considered to be a territorial encroachment on the committee’s responsibility.
Now this sworn deposition appears, reinforcing the previous 2 reports but more extensive and
specific as to the structure of the “shadow government.” The defense that the Department raises
is that Officer Sherr was found sleeping on the job, a charge later found to be without merit and
described by Sherr as a veiled retaliation against him for pressing claims against protected staff
members.

Where do we go from here?

There is now sufficient information on the record to raise a reasonable suspicion of a
shadow government system throughout the Department of Corrections that sanctions inconsistent
discipline, ignores Department policies and protects its own with a shield of silence. It is
doubtful, however, that any agency in State government could conduct an impartial
investigation, as Sherr alleges collusion between prison security and the State Police.10

3
Ibid., p. 40.
4
Ibid., p. 49.
5
Ibid., p. 62.
6
Ibid., pp 64, 65.
7
Ibid., p. 113.
8
Ibid., p. 87.
9
Ibid., pp. 109, 110.
10
Ibid., p. 146.
 An alternative is to request an intervention by the US Justice Department. With 3
suspicious and unexplained deaths within the prison system in the past year, time is overdue for
an independent investigation.