Private Health Records Removed, Erased

An ex-city employee snuck back into her old office, downloaded computer files onto a personal thumb drive, then erased the private records of at least 587 adults and minors with sexually transmitted diseases from a government database while an intern and a union steward watched, according to a court filing.

The former employee, former city health department epidemiologist Tamika Rose Jackson, stated she had good intentions in erasing the files and had planned to return those she had copied. She denied copying any confidential files.

Jackson, who is 36 years old and lives in Middletown, turned herself in to police on March 10. A warrant for her arrest charged her with two misdemeanor computer crimes. She has not yet entered a plea; she has been free on a promise to appear in court. Her next scheduled court appearance is April 20.

Police enlisted the help of the FBI to recover deleted files, which included the ​“full names, address, dates of birth, sex, race, sexual orientation, and disease” of 587 people, including some under the age of 18, listed in a ​“gonorrhea data” file, according to the arrest warrant affidavit on file in Connecticut Superior Court on Elm Street. They were also working to recover names in files related to lead poisoning, STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) and the Zika virus.

Meanwhile, the city has ​“sent notification letters to each of those whose records were illicitly obtained,” said mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer. He said the health department has also ​“added new security measurers to its physical plant and redoubled its data protection protocol to guard against any future breach.” He declined at this point to release more details as officials continue reviewing what happened.

The matter has also figured into another recent controversy: City Chief Administrative Officer Mike Carter moved to discipline a union steward, Alan Bush, who allegedly accompanied Jackson on her mission. That matter was the subject of a March 30 disciplinary hearing at which Carter got into a heated argument with Bush’s union representative, AFSCME Local 3144 Vice-President Harold Brooks. Police were called after Carter thrice told Brooks, ​“Let’s take this outside.” Carter later apologized; the hearing was suspended. (The union has called for Carter’s termination over his remarks to Brooks; Mayor Toni Harp instead wrote him a warning letter.)

Carter said Thursday that he would decline comment on his quest to discipline Bush in this matter because the hearing hasn’t been concluded.

“Close The Door And Talk Quietly”

The computer-records incident occurred July 28, 2016 at the health department’s 54 Meadow St. offices.

Jackson showed up there, she said, to retrieve belongings from her office. The department decided not to keep her on as an employee on July 19, one day short of the completion of her 30-day probationary period as a new hire.

“She was terminated because she did not successfully complete her probationary period. We don’t discuss the reasons why with the public,” said city human resources chief Steve Librandi.

If Jackson had passed that period she would have become a permanent employee represented by AFSCME Local 3144. Her job was to work with statistics the city reports to the federal government about citizens’ sexually transmitted diseases.

It had been a bad stretch for Jackson; in a separate incident Middletown police arrested her on felony risk of injury charges in a domestic incident. (That case is still pending.) She said that she didn’t know why she’d been fired and that she felt the health department was ​“trying to make her look like a criminal for having been arrested 2 weeks earlier,” according to an initial incident report filed by Officer Vincent DeLeo.

The following account is based largely on the report filed by Officer DeLeo, obtained through a Connecticut Freedom of Information Act request; and the recently filed arrest warrant affidavit written by Detective Rob Clark, who conducted the subsequent investigation that led to her March arrest. Statements attributed to individuals came from the police reports unless otherwise noted.

Jackson planned to come pick up personal belongings from her office. She said that city human services chief Martha Okafor had ​“told her it was okay to go to 54 Meadow St. to retrieve her belongings.” Okafor denied ever telling Jackson that. ​“No it is not true. I advised her to contact HR [human resources] to arrange for her to collect her belongings. I also called HR to inform them that she would call them,” Okafor told the Independent Thursday.

Steve Librandi said that he specifically told Jackson she could not enter her office alone, that instead her belongings would be left in boxes for her to retrieve at the front desk. (Librandi told the Independent Thursday that he had told her to come to his office instead and ​“someone would escort her to pick up her personal items.”) Jackson said no one had specifically told her not to go into her office.

Before arriving at 54 Meadow on July 28, Jackson visited the municipal office building at 200 Orange St. She spoke with Alan Bush, her union steward. Bush said that AFSCME Vice-President Harold Brooks asked him to accompany Jackson to the health department on Meadow Street ​“to arrange access to her computer.” He said Brooks asked him to go along because ​“she she was going over there either way with or without anyone.”

Before leaving for 200 Orange, Jackson phoned the intern with whom she had worked. The intern, named Sarah, said Jackson told her to ​“go to their office, close the door and talk quietly.”

Are you alone? Sarah said Jackson asked her. Yes, she was.

“Tamika then explained that she was at city hall speaking with someone from the union that she was likely to come to the office if she could get someone from the union to come with her,” according to the police incident report. ​“Tamika then said, ​‘I think I’ll be by and told Sarah not to tell anyone and not to trust anyone.”

A ​“Snitch” Admonition

Jackson and Bush arrived at 54 Meadow St. around 2 p.m.

The front security desk officer, Victor Osinaike, reported that he was ordered to prevent Jackson from entering the building. Rather, he said, she was supposed to pick up the box with her belongings at the front desk.

Jackson told Osinaike she needed to go to the third floor. Osinaike ​“tried to stop Tamika but she walked by him saying she had to go retrieve a plant.”

A security supervisor and a health department staffer went looking for Jackson, but failed to find her.

Jackson and Bush went to the ninth floor, where she and Sarah worked. Sarah was in the office the two shared. Jackson and Bush walked in. Jackson closed and locked the door to the office. According to Sarah, Jackson told Sarah to get away form the computer. Jackson sat at the computer. Jackson proceeded to ​“look through the computer and drag files from the desktop and put them on a flash drive,” then delete them. Jackson specifically asked Sarah about confidential files involving the health databases they worked on. After an attempt to have that information emailed to“a non-city- email address and server, … Jackson dowloaded it to the thumb drive. The files concerned ​“information about subjects with gonorrhea and high blood levels.” Sarah said Jackson told her she would ​“get with Jose of IT” at a later date to hand it over.

Jackson and Bush and Sarah remained in the locked office for about a half hour. At one point, Sarah said, they heard someone try to open the door to the office.

“Tamika became very quiet and whispered to Sarah not to open the door,” the police reports state. ​“Several moments later someone knocked on the office door. Again Tamika became quiet and whispered to Sarah not to open the door.”

As Jackson allegedly deleted files, then filled boxes and a wastebasket with plants, a mirror, and ​“stacks of documents,” Bush allegedly ​“stood in the room without participating.”

Before leaving, Jackson ​“changed her password on the computer and told Sarah not to be a ​‘snitch’ and not to email people about what took place.”

Jackson and Bush then left with the boxes, which the security guard saw them take outside to a four-door station wagon. Security dock video footage showed the pair carrying the boxes and loading them into the car. She drove off; he walked away.

“Have A Good Day”

The next day, Officer DeLeo went to meet with city health Director Byron Kennedy, Corporation Counsel John Rose, Jr., and IT (information technology) staffers. Kennedy said he had learned from Sarah about Jackson’s visit and removal of files. DeLeo conducted some initial interviews. Then Detective Clark took over the investigation under the direction of Sgt. Elisa Tuozzoli.

In interviews with the police, Jackson said she did not ​“delete anything on the backend” from the computer. (The police report doesn’t elaborate on that claim.) She claimed that she deleted some files and changed her password because she was concerned that Sarah had access to them. ​“Prior to being fired she had a concern that Sarah (intern) had access to confidential information which only Tamika had the authorization to use. … After being fired she believes Sarah continued to use her login to access confidential information on Tamika’s office computer.”

Sarah (who resigned as an intern soon after this incident) said she was supposed to work on Jackson’s computer with Jackson’s username. She said the city didn’t give her her own username. Another office employee said that Sarah was told to work in Jackson’s office so that the private information she handled wouldn’t be worked on in a more ​“open” office space.

Sarah said she was hired to work directly under Jackson’s supervision, assembling raw data from ​“the health care community” about ​“city residents who have sexually transmitted diseases and children who tested at high levels of lead,” including not just medical information but their ​“names, addresses, and dates of birth.” She then entered the data on Jackson’s computer with a Centers for Disease Control-provided web-based software program called Epi Info.

Clark’s affidavit notes that a digital forensic examiner from the FBI named Emanuel Hatzikostas worked with city IT staffers to try to recover the zapped files. They succeeded in recovering one trove with the 587 people’s information. But they failed with attempts at retrieving information from other files, according to the affidavit.

Sgt. Tuozzoli praised Detective Clark’s probe. She called him a ​“diligent” worker who ​“is especially conscious of how the outcome of his investigations will affect” affect both victims and the community.

Bush and AFSCME officials could not be reached for comment on the discipline pending against him.

Reached by phone Thursday evening, Jackson, who is out on bond and has been assigned a public defender, was asked if she stands by her statements in the police reports and how she plans to plead in court.

She declined to comment.

“Thank you so much,” she said. ​“You have a good day.”