Porn-viewing Details Revealed
0 Comments | News – Item, The; Shamokin, Pa., Sep 2, 2010 | by justin strawser
SELINSGROVE – More than 3 1/2 hours of testimony provided new details in the pornography-viewing scandal that has rocked the Northumberland County Sheriff Department and led to the firing of three deputy sheriffs earlier this year.
For the first time since the January firings of Michael Boris and Joseph Jones and the May firing of Thomas Drust, the three men revealed what they say is the truth about the scandal.
“I have yet to see any evidence other than what has been vaguely shown to me today,” said Boris Thursday in the CareerLink Building in Selinsgrove, where Boris’ second unemployment compensation hearing was held.
The hearing was presided over by Referee Maurice Pap La Rin. Boris was fired in January for violating the department’s computer policy by failing to secure his log-on passwords and making sure no inappropriate material was retrieved using his password. Earlier this year, both he and Jones, who was fired on the same issue, were granted unemployment compensation and the county appealed it.
Although no decision will be rendered until a later date, both Boris’ attorney Douglas Engelman and the county’s attorney Ben Pratt examined and cross-examined Boris and five other witnesses Thursday afternoon from 1:45 until 5:15 p.m.
At points during the hearing, Pap La Rin reminded the parties of where they were when he felt they were going off track.
“We are not in a fishing expedition. This is a simple administration law hearing. We need to refocus,” he said.
Policy violations
The investigation into the county computers was initiated when the county’s information services department was told there were county employees listening to Internet radio, a violation of county policies, according to Jeff Fetterman, the assistant director of information services.
When the department searched the county computers, explained Fetterman, they discovered two usernames – which belonged to Boris and Jones – in the sheriff department had been used to log into a pornographic website
link building