Prue or false: The rise and fall of Windham County Sheriff Sheila Prue

By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian

Posted June 30, 2006

BRATTLEBORO — With her resignation last week, former Windham County Sheriff Sheila Prue stepped back from a two-decade career in the male-dominated world of Vermont law enforcement — a world she said she entered to make a difference for the down and out.

A short, soft-spoken woman with cropped hair and pin-neat attire, Prue said she was drawn to a career in law enforcement initially to help children and the elderly.

“But as I continued working, I realized they’re not the only people that need our help. The disabled, the mentally ill, people who can’t stay away from alcohol or do what’s right in society — they need your help. Police officers are the first people that can do that,” Prue told the Vermont Guardian.

“Mental health workers can help you, lawyers can help you, but the first person you’re probably going to interact with is a police officer. That person needs to understand that not everybody in this world is perfect, and be able to deal with the people in a proper way. I do enjoy doing that. … If I could not be involved in law enforcement, I think what would hurt me the most is that I wouldn’t be one of those people who can make a difference for somebody who’s down out there.”

Today, it’s Prue who is down. Out remains to be seen.

Prue submitted her two-sentence resignation to Gov. Jim Douglas on June 23 as part of a plea deal. Moments later, she walked into Vermont District Court in Brattleboro to plead guilty to one felony count of embezzlement and two misdemeanors, petit larceny and dereliction of duty.

The charges stemmed from a critical report by State Auditor Randy Brock, issued in April after a eight-month financial probe. Brock referred what he believed to be criminal conduct to the Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. Attorney in Burlington.

Shortly after her court appearance, Prue’s attorney opened an envelope that contained a $26,000 check from a donor who asked to remain anonymous — the balance Prue owed on the money she took from department funds. The donation means Prue can expunge the felony from her record after completing 80 hours of community service over the next six months. She got going on that immediately, reporting to work at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital just a few days after court appearance.

The same day Prue pleaded guilty, former Brattleboro Police Chief Dick Guthrie was appointed to serve out the remaining seven months of her term, effectively restoring the white-male network that has dominated county law enforcement for decades.

In a statement following her plea, Prue said Windham County voters elected her “because of my integrity as a police officer. By accepting responsibility, I am standing by that integrity, even in the most difficult times.”

Her attorney, Bettina Buehler, said it was that integrity that made her decide to spend months and many unbilled hours to defend Prue pro bono.

“Sheila and I are normally on other sides of the case,” said Buehler, a Brattleboro criminal defense and personal injury lawyer. “I always say an officer who does their job — follows a person’s constitutional rights and process somebody according to the law — makes it much easier for me to do my job.”

Prue was that officer, she said. Buehler recalled how Prue, a 14-year Brattleboro Police sergeant before she became sheriff, differed in her handling of suspects.

“People come in with drunks all the time, and officers are sometimes mean and abusive, but Sheila would look at people and give them respect; she would help them through the difficult times. That takes a rare person.

“She wasn’t in a position to afford to pay for the defense,” Buehler continued. “I thought it would be worth it. Somebody owned her something back for the years and years that she protected this county.”

Behind the badge
Prue left policing in 2001 to run a bakery with her partner, but was drawn back in when Sheriff William Graham retired and Republican Henry Farnum, a 21-year veteran of the department, was appointed to fill out his term.

The 2002 sheriff’s race was boisterous, with a wide field of candidates willing to sling as much mud as it took to secure the Democratic nomination. Prue stayed quietly above the fray in both the primary and general elections, running a grassroots campaign on a shoestring $500 budget. Her platform was built largely on protecting children. She emerged the surprise winner with a narrow 7,528-7,180 victory over Farnum, who was openly livid at his unexpected loss.

She also made history in the election, joining Connie Allen of Grand Isle County as the first women elected sheriffs in Vermont. Prue also was the second openly lesbian sheriff in the country, according to the National Sheriffs’ Association.

Two months later, before she was sworn in, Prue made headlines again, after narrowly averting a tax sale on her Brattleboro home. She told the Rutland Herald the financial problems were pegged to her business, after the state had filed tax liens against Prue and her partner in October and November 2002, for non-payment of close to $6,000 in rooms and meals taxes, as well as withholding taxes, dating back to December 2001.

Prue also had filed for personal bankruptcy almost 10 years before, the paper reported. Her creditors included several banks and five credit card companies, a fuel oil company and the Internal Revenue Service.

She blamed poor legal advice, and pledged her financial problems “would not follow her to the sheriff’s office,” according to the report.

Prue said she knew she was going to be the hot seat when she took the job as sheriff in February 2003. Some employees were openly hostile, and Farnum never called her, either to congratulate her or to help with the transition, she said.

The job of Vermont sheriff is a unique hybrid — “part state employee, part county employee, part entrepreneur,” according to Brock.

Each sheriff is paid a salary from the state — in Prue’s case $55,000 a year — and receives state funds for prisoner transport services. But the bulk of the department’s money comes from private contracts for security services. When she took office, the budget for Prue’s department was $1.5 million, and she had about 55 staff members.

Vermont Sheriffs Association President Roger Marcoux, who runs the Lamoille County department, acknowledged that keeping the books can be tricky and there is no training in place for new sheriffs.

“I am the communications hub for the county,” Marcoux said. “I do all of the 911, so that’s one budget. I am the 24-hour police department for three towns, so that’s another. I have a county budget, a state budget, we have to do the books on our civil process. I have had to hire another bookkeeper because my longtime bookkeeper is so overwhelmed.”

Still, Marcoux said he has no sympathy for sheriffs who abuse the system.

“The sheriffs that are predisposed to be involved in criminal activity, I have every confidence they will be identified and dealt with,” he said.

Something of an introvert, Prue said she was uncomfortable calling other sheriffs in the state for advice, nor did they call her, she said. “It was extremely difficult to even think of picking up the phone and calling one of the other sheriffs and asking them a question about something.”

So she relied on the advice of one close departmental confidant. Advice, she now says, that was bad.

“I believed that I had one ally … that person I believed was giving me information that I needed to know to run the department … and I relied on that,” she said.

Brock said if that’s the case, Prue refused to disclose to him the name of that person.

On her own
Prue was a little more than two years into her first term as sheriff when Brock received what he has alternatively described as an anonymous letter and an anonymous phone call, tipping him off to alleged financial improprieties at the sheriff’s department.

In August 2005, six months after the new Republican auditor had taken office, Brock sent a team of investigators to Newfane, where Prue said she unquestioningly gave them access to boxes and boxes of records on the second floor of her office.

Shortly thereafter, Brock himself paid a visit to Newfane, his arrival preceded by a WCAX-TV news crew that filmed Brock’s team hauling boxes of files out of the department.

Brock said he told the station about his visit when a reporter called him, not vice versa.

Prue said the auditor introduced himself, went upstairs, came back down sometime later and commented to her that there were an awful lot of charges to a building supply company.

“I said yes, we have done a ton of work at the office,” said Prue, who early into the job had made it a priority to try to improve the former jail and warren of offices that house the department.

“Then he leaned forward, looked at me, and said, ‘You also did a lot of work at your house on your garage.’ I said ‘Yeah, I have a home equity loan I took out for that,’ and he leaned forward again and said, ‘We’ll see.’ ”

In his report in April, Brock said, among other things, that Prue had used department funds to buy materials for her home improvement project and failed to pay the deputies who built a room over her garage in their off hours.

Brock ultimately alleged that Prue had mismanaged some $61,000, diverting department funds and vehicles for personal use, failing to pay overtime and to administer federal grants correctly, and managing the books so poorly that it was impossible to conduct an audit of the accounts.

The Vermont Attorney General’s Office could make criminal charges stick only on $36,000 worth of spending, for travel, cell phones, vehicle use and two air conditioners, Cindy Maguire, chief of criminal division, told reporters.

Although Prue illegally billed $8,000 back to the department to reimburse herself for health insurance premiums, Maguire said she didn’t pursue charges because Prue’s predecessors and counterparts elsewhere in Vermont had done the same thing.

“That’s one area in which we will be sitting down with the auditor, the Sheriffs Association and some legislators in the coming months, looking at some kinds of reforms we might need to have in place … that might make things a little more clear,” Maguire said.

Prue said the insurance bill-back was one of many financial practices she was told by her confidant in the department were status quo. Another was taking advances on commissions the sheriff earns from private contracts. What’s more, she said, she found no written department policies and procedures when she took office.

“I was advised by my good buddy that anything you wanted to do personally, as long as you paid them back before the end of your term, there was no problem. That person indicated others had done that,” Prue said.

”We have certainly not seen evidence that that’s the case,” Brock told the Guardian. “Certainly it is contrary to law.”

“She never found anything deemed policy,” said Buehler. ”She relied on oral representations because there were no written instructions when she entered office.”

Farnum did not return phone calls for this story.

Systemic problems
In a 2003 auditor’s report on seven counties, not including Windham, Brock’s predecessor, Democrat Elizabeth Ready, cited “serious issues related to noncompliance with laws and regulations,” as well as “accounting practices that need improvement.”

Ready cited tens of thousands of dollars in overpayment to sheriffs in Washington and Grand Isle counties, and noncompliance with accounting procedures in both those counties as well as Orleans, Caledonia, Lamoille and Essex.

Charges were eventually filed against Washington County Sheriff Donald Edson after he borrowed $25,000 from the Lamoille County Sheriffs Department, then tried to forge documents saying it had been used for business. Edson pled guilty and resigned his post.

Brock said not every impropriety uncovered in an audit is necessarily criminal.

“You have to look at the intent, at how it happened,” he said. “These are things that really are the province of the attorney general. But from an auditor’s perspective, if we find a sheriff has taken out too much money, that appears in an audit report.”

Prue said she put a stop to any questionable practices as soon as Brock flagged them. And unlike other sheriffs, Buehler adds, Prue never got the benefit of a warning.

Prue describes her initial conversations with Brock as casual, conversational.

“The day the auditor was there they took all the original records,” she said. “I’m thinking, ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’ The next thing I know they’re carrying boxes out” as a camera crew filmed.

Prue told Brock that she welcomed the opportunity correct any problems that he identified. Buehler said, “There was no response, only ‘You’ll get our report.’ … Then after the report came out, he made a statement, saying this was clearly a criminal investigation from the onset.”

But Brock said Prue had ample opportunity to respond.

“She was given numerous opportunities to respond, and those responses in some cases came back to us in writing,” he said. His office sent Prue four written requests, starting in August 2005, that were very specific and formal. He also subpoened her records and interviewed her under oath.

“I’m not sure how we could have made it more serious,” Brock said.

But Buehler believes Prue was misled.

“From my perspective, you’re asking questions and she’s talking off the top of her head. We don’t know there is anything significant … and then her comments were used against her.

“Sheila comes in, a Democrat, a woman, there’s the gender issue, and boom, bang, right away she’s not even afforded the opportunity” of a warning, continued Buehler. “It was literally almost like she was left out to hang.”

Prue said she now believes that Brock “was not happy that I was elected and he did what he could in his power to help me fail.”

Brock’s rejects that as “nonsense.”

“I think the evidence, the massive evidence accumulated during the course of the audit and her subsequent plea agreement, belies that,” he said.

Seven months after his investigation began, in a high-profile press release accompanying the report, Brock charged Prue had spent department money on groceries, pet supplies, exercise equipment, even a banjo. His 56-page report includes details such as Prue’s purchase of an “athletic supporter, petite chinos and lace hipster underwear,” which Brock deemed “inconsistent with the gender, size and nature of the sheriff’s uniform requirements.”

In his report, Brock said Prue’s failure to respond “adequately to declining revenues with expense reductions created a rapid drain on the department’s financial reserves.”

The financial status of the department today is murky. Both Brock and Maguire said on June 23 that they were unsure about it.

Cash balances in the general ledger had declined from $384,746 on Feb. 1, 2003, to a negative balance of $36,595 on Nov. 1, 2005, Brock noted. As of Feb. 1, 2006, the department’s cash account in the general ledger showed a positive balance of $9,561. Revenues had dropped from $709,416 in June 2003 to $192,492 in June 2005.

Prue notes that part of the reason was the loss of two major contracts. Citing a decreased terrorism threat, Entergy cancelled its $1.3 million security contract for Vermont Yankee in 2002, before Prue took over, after a deputy accidentally fired his gun while on duty at the plant; and Stratton Mountain opted out of a $380,000 contract the same year.

On Prue’s watch, patrol contracts with Saxtons River, Newfane, Townshend and Grafton were either reduced or not renewed, with town officials citing poor accountability.

But according to Prue, things were looking up by the time she left, thanks in large part to a series of roadwork contracts she had secured.

Prue was relying on her commission from those contracts to repay the department money she used, she said.

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