Lt. Col. Michael Finamore, left, lost out to Col. Richard Collins for the State Highway Patrol's top job last year. Soon, he was reassigned, investigated and threatened with firing; he retired under a secret deal.
Lt. Col. Michael Finamore, left, lost out to Col. Richard Collins for the State Highway Patrol's top job last year. Soon, he was reassigned, investigated and threatened with firing; he retired under a secret deal.
Capt. Richard Collins ultimately won the job in April 2007, elevating him above one of his rivals and one-time superior, Lt. Col. Michael Finamore.
Finamore, who became Collins' No. 2 as an assistant superintendent, soon alleged that the new colonel had expressed disappointment that Finamore was not retiring.
The power play at the patrol was on, culminating in an attempt to cloak the whole affair in secrecy.
Finamore was stripped of his duties and, with two other patrol employees, was assigned full time to an energy-savings study in a move that he protested as retaliatory and a needless expense.
The salaries of the three reassigned patrol employees totaled $257,000. Meanwhile, the state government's largest energy users did not find it necessary to assign even one full-time person to the in-house studies.
After Finamore filed an outside appeal seeking a return to normal duties, Collins ordered an investigation into Finamore's use of his state cell phone. Finamore was nailed for making, and lying about, unreimbursed personal calls.
Finamore was about to be fired in an inglorious end to a solid, 29-year career. But the patrol backed off and struck a secret deal in which he retired from his $127,149-a-year job.
With the deal's terms prohibiting discussion of the case, Finamore was placed on paid leave until he retired March 29 under a "confidential settlement agreement."
Citing the confidentiality clause, neither state officials nor Finamore nor his attorney, Jonathan Downes, would discuss the case. This story is based on public records obtained by The Dispatch.
Finamore also agreed to withdraw prior public-records requests and not file another with the Department of Public Safety before Jan. 9, 2015 -- three days before Gov. Ted Strickland would leave office if he serves a second term.
Finamore and his attorney had filed a flurry of records requests. They apparently were attempting to find other patrol and state officials misusing their cell phones and trying to document others not fired for similar conduct.
The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that the confidentiality provisions of agreements entered by public officials are unenforceable because of public-records laws.
Cleveland lawyer David Marburger, a public-records expert, was astonished that a state agency would seek a forfeiture of public-records rights. "If not unlawful, it certainly is an abuse of government power," he said.
A spokeswoman for Strickland said the agreement "was in the best interest of the state."
Finamore was not the only senior patrol official to come under scrutiny.
A Collins e-mail shows that he also asked to review the cell-phone bills of Lt. Col. William Costas, the other assistant superintendent who had applied to be the top state cop.
No problems were found with Costas' bills, said Thomas Hunter, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety. Collins, as "a matter of practice," conducts monthly reviews of phone bills, he said.
Records concerning Costas and other documents requested by The Dispatch on April 23 have not been produced by Public Safety officials. Describing The Dispatch's records request as "voluminous," Hunter said the department's response has been "reasonable."
The requested records also need legal review, he said.
Finamore's route to ouster began May 30, when Collins began reassigning some of his duties. Finamore soon found himself booted out of patrol headquarters and sitting in an office created in a state-owned warehouse in Columbus.
On June 28, Collins assigned Finamore, a staff lieutenant and a secretary to a full-time, yearlong effort to reduce energy use at the Department of Public Safety.
Finamore protested the work as a waste of staff time.
Finamore regularly protested, telling Collins "there clearly was not enough work for one full-time person, let alone three," and that it "in no way warranted 120 hours of personnel time per week."
He argued he could perform his normal duties while handling the energy-efficiency project. Finamore described his assignment as a "deliberate and intentional" effort by Collins to keep him from performing his job.
Staff Lt. Kim Collins also told her superiors that there was not enough energy-efficiency work to keep her and a secretary busy.
The Department of Transportation, state government's biggest burner of vehicle fuel, did not assign a full-time employee to the task. ODOT goes through 10 times as much fuel as the Department of Public Safety.
The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, saddled with state government's biggest utility bills, also did not assign a full-time employee to the project.
The efficiency plans and energy audits were handled by transportation and prison employees amid their day-to-day duties, spokesmen said.
Asked about the varied handling of the energy-savings plans, the Strickland spokeswoman said: "The governor's office defers to Department of Public Safety and its judgment."
Amid Finamore's ongoing protests, Collins asked to review five months of bills from Finamore's state cell phone on Sept. 19. The next day, Finamore met with the colonel and again asked for his old duties back.
On Sept. 21, Finamore filed an appeal with the State Personnel Board of Review seeking reinstatement to his typical duties.
Five days later, Collins ordered an internal investigation of Finamore's cell-phone use, highlighting seven phone numbers that he thought reflected personal calls.
By Jan. 2, investigators reported that Finamore had frequently made personal calls and did not repay the state. He was accused of lying about the calls when first questioned, and of attempting to sway a witness's testimony.
Finamore, whose personnel file reflected glowing job reviews and no reprimands, denied wrongdoing. He emphasized that none of the calls had cost the state a cent because he stayed within his calling plan's minutes limit.
"This whole investigation has been retaliatory at the onset," Finamore said. He accused Collins of "falsification" and denounced the colonel's conduct as "political and retaliatory."
"I've investigated homicides that haven't got this much attention," he said. "Am I in violation of the policy? Yes, I am. Did I cost the state anything? No, I didn't. … This process is so silly."
Finamore and his attorney began filing public-records requests on Dec. 20 seeking documents that included the cell-phone records of Collins, Public Safety Director Henry Guzman and others.
On Feb. 8, Guzman notified Finamore, a former state trooper of the year, that he intended to fire him. On Feb. 21, a hearing officer found "just cause" to fire Finamore.
At some point before Feb. 25, talk of a "compromise" arose. The settlement agreement was signed Feb. 28, placing the 54-year-old Finamore on paid leave until his retirement a month later.