Opinion ID: 522904
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Price's Story.

Text: 5 Price was reprimanded by letter in November 1981 for having sidestepped the chain of command and directly reported to state police officers a sex-for-drugs exchange between one of the facility's security officers and a patient (the Talarsky incident). Price claims that taking the information directly to the state police was made necessary by his promise to the patient that the information would not be reported within the facility. 2 C. Murray Henderson, chief executive officer of the facility, also gave Price an oral reprimand and told Price, in allegedly angry tones, that he could tolerate stupidity but not disloyalty. 6 Price claims to have been aware of numerous other unlawful activities occurring at the facility, including the sale and distribution of drugs by security officers and patients, beatings of patients by security officers, and borrowing or stealing of money from patients by officers. He stated at trial that he turned this information over to his immediate superiors, i.e., Catherine Goodman, director of the social services program, and Dr. Augusto Abad, a staff psychiatrist and the coordinator of the drug and alcohol abuse program. When these individuals allegedly refused to acknowledge his information or do anything to rectify the problems he had identified, Price contacted a federal district judge, who referred him to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.). Price purportedly then contacted F.B.I. agent Watson concerning drug-pushing at the facility; however, when contacted later by defendant Brittain, Watson reported that he had had no contact with Price. 7 In addition, Price was aware of a Justice Department suit against the facility for alleged violations of patients' civil rights. Price sent his information, including a tape, to Dan Butler of the department, and assisted patients in mailing letters and making phone calls to the department from the facility. Butler later confirmed that he had had communications with Price, though that confirmation came long after Price had been suspended, and then terminated, from his employment. 8 Other information which Price claims to have received from patients was even more sinister in nature. Price heard that a patient who had apparently committed suicide in the facility had in fact been murdered by two other patients, at the behest of or with the knowledge of Henderson. 3 Price also was told that Henderson allowed one of the two patients who allegedly had committed the murder to leave the facility occasionally in the company of an off-duty security officer who was paid to chauffeur the patient to various destinations. 9 Price maintains that at a meeting shortly after, and in connection with, the Talarsky incident, he informed Abad, Goodman, and a senior security officer, Captain Landry, of his communications to various outside officials. Thus, he contends that defendants Henderson and Brittain knew or should have known of his reports to law enforcement agencies, by virtue of the fact that Abad and Goodman, as well as Landry, all normally reported to Henderson and Brittain. In April 1982, Abad and Goodman evaluated Price's job performance as satisfactory. 10