Less than four months after a court-appointed manager took over key parts of the city’s jail system, the correction officers’ union is already fighting one of his first big hires: Sarena Townsend, a reformer who ran the department\u2019s misconduct investigations until she was forced out four years ago.<\/p>\n
Townsend is returning to an expanded version of her old job, and the union, which celebrated her ouster, is asking the federal judge in charge of the overhaul to “reassess” the move.<\/p>\n
The Correction Officers\u2019 Benevolent Association called Townsend\u2019s return \u201ca regressive decision\u201d in a letter filed this week in the long-running federal case over violence in the city\u2019s jails. The letter signed by COBA President Benny Boscio Jr. said Townsend \u201chas shown herself to be incapable of dealing fairly with the uniformed members of DOC\u201d and accuses her of taking the job \u201cto exact revenge upon COBA and its membership.\u201d<\/p>\n
Townsend has rejoined the Department of Correction as senior deputy commissioner of investigations, intelligence and accountability, a newly created post that will handle staff misconduct investigations, gang intelligence and discipline across the jails, according to a May court filing. Townsend’s return was first reported last month by The City Reporter<\/a>.<\/p>\n This time, she answers not to the correction commissioner, but rather to Nicholas Deml, the system\u2019s court-appointed \u201cremediation manager,\u201d who has sweeping powers to force reforms after Judge Laura Taylor Swain found the city in contempt of more than a dozen provisions of her orders. The appointment of Deml, a former CIA officer and Vermont corrections chief, was announced in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n The union\u2019s protest underscores how quickly Deml’s early moves, and Townsend’s appointment in particular, are unsettling the jails’ status quo.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Glazer, the founder of the policy journal Vital City and a former director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, called the choice of Townsend \u201cvery telling\u201d about how Deml intends to operate.<\/p>\n \u201cIt signals somebody who wants to understand and fix how the department operates, and wants somebody who is a truth teller, who will give it to him straight, whether it’s good or bad,\u201d Glazer said.<\/p>\n Glazer said Deml\u2019s choice of Townsend also shows he wants someone who is \u201ca problem solver \u2026 whose ultimate goal is the well-being of everybody in the facility, both incarcerated people and the officers.\u201d<\/p>\n Townsend did not respond to an email requesting comment. Under the court’s order, Deml and his team are barred from speaking to the media.<\/p>\n As a practical matter, the union may have little recourse. It is not a party to the case, and Boscio\u2019s letter was filed as a friend-of-the-court submission. What\u2019s more, Swain\u2019s earlier judicial order creating the remediation manager position gives Deml wide latitude to \u201crecruit, hire, train, terminate, promote, demote, transfer and evaluate employees\u201d while making him \u201canswerable only to the court.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the union did not return a request for comment.<\/p>\n The union and Townsend have long fought one another. As deputy commissioner for intelligence and investigations, Townsend dug through a backlog of thousands of use-of-force cases, work that earned her the admiration of reformers and made her a target of union criticism. In a report filed just days before former Mayor Eric Adams took office, Steve Martin, a federal monitor who conducts frequent assessments of the city\u2019s jails for Swain, called Townsend \u201chighly competent\u201d and said her leadership was \u201ccritical to the success of this reform effort moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n However, roughly two weeks later, Louis Molina, Adams\u2019 pick to oversee the department, fired Townsend, according to media<\/a> reports at the time<\/a>. The Correction Officers\u2019 Benevolent Association celebrated the decision<\/a> on social media.<\/p>\n \u201cGood riddance!\u201d the organization posted on X, writing that Townsend had a single mission to \u201cserve as the puppet of a remote fed monitor hellbent on destroying the morale of our essential workforce by writing them up on frivolous charges.\u201d<\/p>\n