The superintendent of a new maximum-security prison won’t be the only one fired over a bizarre letter-writing scandal – the state Department of Correction said yesterday it’s looking for the employee who first started the poison-pen campaign.
“We haven’t found out yet” who started the trouble, said Linda Foglia, a spokeswoman for Correctional Services Commissioner Glenn Goord. “The investigation is still going on.”
Authorities say the strange drama at Five Points prison in upstate Romulus began when a still-anonymous corrections officer created and distributed a newsletter mocking the top boss, Superintendent Thomas Eisenschmidt.
The profanity-laced letter called him “Two-faced Tom” and said the jail has become the “dumping ground for all the garbage supervisors.”
An incensed Eisenschmidt responded by writing back an equally scathing memo – and taped it to his door for all to see.
The memo included sentences like these:
“You are a poster child for birth-control pills,” and “My anger is directed at your mother for spawning someone like you and at myself for not stepping on her when I had the chance.”
Within two days of brass catching wind of the memo, Eisenschmidt was fired.
Eisenschmidt, who has the option of returning to his civil-service position as a captain, admits he should have simply ignored the newsletter.
“It was a poor error in judgment,” he said.