MA- Sex Offender Registry Board Workers Questioned Over Facebook Use

These workers (article shows plural) should be fired and replaced by folks who are professionals and take their jobs seriously!

5-20-2009 Massachusetts:

Team 5 Investigates Uncovers Bias

BOSTON -- For Tyson Lynch, Facebook is as much about social networking as it is a way to tell friends about his confidential state job deciding who is a threat to you and your children. Lynch is a hearing examiner at the Sex Offender Registry Board in Salem, a job that's considered crucial to public safety.

"They're instrumental," said attorney Terrence Noonan. "Those are the people who are making the final assessment of dangerousness. And if they get it wrong, either way we all suffer."

Lynch has a reputation among some defense attorneys of not being fair.

"He's expressing opinions about how these hearings have been conducted, essentially showing that he's made up his mind before they're finished," said attorney Eric Tennen.

For example, Lynch wrote on his Facebook account how he gets "great satisfaction" out of denying motions and that: "It's always a mistake when people testify because they get destroyed in cross examination." Fellow hearing examiner Mel Maisel used her Facebook account to comment, "But it's so entertaining."

"This is not entertaining," said Tennen. "These are people's lives we're talking about."

Team 5 Investigates counted dozens and dozens of status updates, quizzes and other posts since the day Lynch wrote about his hiring last October.

This raises questions from defense attorneys.

"If he misses something, then it may very be that a high level offender gets a low level classification that the public never knows and maybe vice versa," Tennen said.

On one workday at 3:47 in the afternoon Lynch turned to quizzes like which Supreme Court justice is he? Answer: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Here's something lawyers and witnesses should know: He hates the word "lascivious" and you better not type in Arial font. He won't trust you.

"Have you ever personally drafted something in Arial font?" reporter Sean Kelly asked Tennen. "I haven't so I guess I'm safe when it comes to Tyson Lynch."

Not entirely. Once he bragged about "putting the smack-down on some crazy attorney." Without naming anyone he called others "incompetent." One morning he wrote: "It's always awkward when I see one of my pervs in the parking lot after a hearing."

He encountered Team 5 Investigates there as well. "Can I ask you a few questions about your Facebook use?" Kelly asked Lynch outside the Sex Offender Registry Board offices. "Is there a reason why you're spending so much time on Facebook? Don't you take your job seriously?" asked Kelly but Lynch said nothing.

He finally made his account private months after posting that his agency "has been the subject of too many news exposes" while wondering if he should "seek alternate career plans."

"Every single one of his decisions has to be redone and looked at," Noonan said.

"Every case that he's heard has to be re-examined to determine whether or not he was biased, whether or not he was fair and whether or not he gave the person a legitimate hearing and classification," Tennen said.

The head of the Sex Offender Registry Board refused our request for an interview and refused to tell us what, if any, disciplinary action Lynch and his fellow hearing examiners will face. A Board spokesman also refused to tell us whether or not Lynch's decisions will be reviewed. The agency claims it has taken firm steps to make sure that this will not happen again. ..News Source.. by TheBostonChannel.com