Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • Page B07

THEHARTFORDCOURANT FRIDAY, JULY25, 2008 B7 COVENTRY official at Oak Hill, which operates the Coventry Group Home, said Oak Hill had been monitoring the behavior of a former employee arraigned Wednesday on charges of sexually assaulting a resident of the home. Thomas Goold, 64, of Stanley Street in Vernon, formerly a residential program worker at the home, had a disciplinary record there that included several allegations of inappropriate interactions with female residents, one incident as early as January 2006, according to police. He was arrested in connection withan incident that occurred December 21, 2007. we hear a report or a rumor, it raises suspicion. We try to tighten up observation and supervision and so forth, and what we were doing with Mr.

said Patrick Johnson, president of Oak Hill, also called the Connecticut Institute for the Blind. In the January 2006 incident, a co-worker reported that Goold was inappropriately holding a hand and that he gave her a shower when no other employees were in the home, which is against the policies. Johnson said Oak Hill had investigated reports about Goold before the allegedincident that prompted his arrest, but Johnsonsaid, have eyewitnesses. We were lacking certain factual information to confirm that those things actually Johnson said he did not think incidents alleged in disciplinary record at the home had been reported to police, due to the lack of evidence. But Johnson said involvement with the residents had been increasingly restricted.

Jeanne Coons, program supervisor at Oak Hill, told police thatbefore the December incident, Goold had been restricted from being around certain female patients and had been removed from his van route in September because he was seen stopping in several remote locations with incommunicative clients, police said. Johnson said Oak Hill had discovered stops in remote locations by tracking the time he spent on certain trips. Oak Hill has since installed GPS systems in the vans, Johnson said. The installation was primarily in response to speeding issues, he said, still, in terms of future incidents, it has some great potential to give us more substantive The employee who reported the December incident, Winsome Riley, told Coons, and later told police, that she had entered the living room of the group home and seen Goold with his right hand on the right breast of one of the residents. The resident uses a wheelchair and is unable to communicate, police said.

Riley told police that the resident was in her wheelchair and was wearing pajamas, the top two buttons of which were unbuttoned. Johnson said Oak Hill conducted its own investigation into the December incident, as it does with any report it receives. has been shocking and profoundly disturbing to all of us that one of our staff would do something like this. Frankly, we wanted to have him Johnson said. our perspective, we took appropriate action at every step.

very grateful to how alert our staff was and how responsible they were at every Goold was suspended after the December incident and his employment was terminated on March 7, Coons told police. Contact Sara Polsky at spol- Assault Suspect Was Monitored By SARA POLSKY COURANT STAFF WRITER would destroy wetlands, disturb Eastern box turtles and two plant species of special concern, cause flooding, overwhelm residential streets with traffic when up to 800 citizen soldiers come to train on weekends, and worsen water-pressure problems in the neighborhood west of the site, according to the resolution. like they never read the map. The Army Corps itself approve this project if it was submitted by a private said City Planner William Warner, who crafted the resolution. Diane McCartin, head of the Army project team, said Warner was indulging in speculation.

She said the project would create as much new wetlands on the lower portion of the site as it would remove on the upper portion. She said she is comfortable with plans for the site, but is committed to working with residents to answer concerns. She said a second meeting with residents will be held in August. The property, near Exit 20 off I-91, is owned by Middle Boardman Associates LLC. It has been for sale for years, with no takers.

The Army Corps is negotiating a sale price with the owner. The Army Corps began searching for a Middletown site late last year and initially chose a location off Freeman Road near the Haddam line. But opposition from neighbors led the corps to drop the plan and to pursue the Westfield site. Democrat Gerald Daley and Republican Earle Roberts on Thursday predicted broad, if not unanimous, support on the council for the resolu- tion. fantastic.

It makes it very clear why this is not a suitable site for the reserve Westfield resident Stephen Devoto said of the document. McCartin said a site assessment will be done that will lead to either a finding of no environmental impact or a recommendation that the in- depth study, called an environmental impact statement, be completed. She pledged an honest review and said she prejudging the outcome. have a process and we circumvent she said by phone from the district office in Louisville, Ky. Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, whose family maintains a farm in Westfield, said a historic farm and homestead on the property should be preserved.

She added that the Army Corps should be building on Saybrook Road or River Road, locations near Pratt Whitney that already have been used for commercial or industrial purposes. you have a choice, where you should go, not pristine Bysiewicz said. Contact Josh Kovner at jkovn- Site CONTINUED FROM PAGE B1 he was arraigned on the new charges alleging he burglarized a New Britain home on March 27, taking jewelry, a DVD player that had a Winnie the Pooh DVD in it and a.32-caliber Keltec brand pistol. Court records state that Williams was living in a Hartford homeless shelter after his parole in early March broke a window to get into the Esther Street house, whose residents were out. Inthe warrant, Williams said, was released from prison beginning in March 2008 after serving about 9 years molesting a I then tried to make money legally, but so I started to break into houses.

One of the first houses I broke into I took a black .32 caliber handgun along with some Stop Shop gift The residents of the Esther Street home identified as theirs the DVD player and some of the jewelry recov- ered by police from the stolen car that Williams was driving when he was captured, the record states. The stolen handgun is still missing. Williams is due back in Superior Court in New Britain next month. Contact Bill Leukhardt at bleuk- Invasion CONTINUED FROM PAGE B1 according to Jon Pepe, president of Local 391 of AFSCME Council 4. wait any Pepe said Thursday.

fix the problems The task force will start its work Wednesday in an effort to complete the recommendations by January in time for the next regular session of the General Assembly. Rep. Karen Jarmoc, an Enfield Democrat who will chair the task force, said, level of violence is incredibly One way of potentially reducing assaults would be to lower the ratio of inmates to prison guards, lawmakers said. Another improvement would be providing additional protective gloves for officers, to prevent infection and contamination. Gov.

M. Jodi spokesman, Rich Harris, said the correction department already has two task forces on the issues mentioned at news conference on policies for segregating violent prisoners from the general prison population and the increased use of gloves. number of incidents has been relatively stable over the last 10 years and is at lower levels than Harris said. Rep. Raymond Kalinowski, a Republican from Durham who was appointed to the bipartisan task force, said the guards are performing difficult tasks every day.

situation has reached a tipping Kalinowski said. really an unheralded job, and we need to look after the men and women who protect us by risking their personal safety in these Contact Christopher Keating at Prisons CONTINUED FROM PAGE B1 Because of "high-risk urban areas" Hartford and Bridgeport, Connecticut is getting a serious boost to the homeland security grant dollars to be formally announced by the Department of Homeland Security on Friday. The state will haul in $15 million overall up 42 percent from last year. The grant information, released by U.S. Sen.

Joe Senate homeland security committee, included about $10.6 million for the state, $2.3 million for the Hartford area and $2 million for Bridgeport. funding will help Connecticut homeland security officials prevent disasters by sharing and analyzing law enforcement and terrorism Lieberman said in a statement Thursday. Lieberman said new selection criteria allowed cities to make their own cases for the available cash, and for Hartford and Bridgeport, it The portion $10.6 million a 3.7 percent increase over last year while the homeland security grant program shrank slightly nationwide. State Gets Homeland Funds Boost Staff Report DEERFIELD, N.H. Violent storms on Thursday in a 25-mile- long swath of central New Hampshire destroyed several homes, damaged dozens of others and left at least one person dead, authorities said as police and firefighters went door-to- door searching for more possible victims.

Other people were hurt, including the husband and baby grandson of the woman killed. Gov. John Lynch said at an evening news conference that about a dozen people were injured. There was no word on how serious their injuries were. The National Weather Service was trying to determine whether a tornado was responsible for the damage, which stretched from about 10 miles east of Concord to beyond the eastern end of Lake Winnipesaukee near the Maine border.

Around Northwood Lake in Epsom, about 10 homes in one area were badly damaged or destroyed by the storm, which tossed couches and refrigerators along with downed trees and other debris. Katie belongings were scattered around her two-story home, which was pushed off its foundation. A bed ended up wrapped around a tree. really just in the 22-year-old said. life was in Lynch declared an emergency in five counties and called up the National Guard to help.

About a dozen Guard soldiers were sent to Epsom. Lynch said no further callup was anticipated. He said officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency would be in the area today to assess damage. appears that there are at least 100 homes damaged and probably at least a half-dozen homes which have been completely Lynch said after a helicopter tour. State Fire Marshal William Degnan said Brenda Stevens, 57, was killed in Deerfield, near Epsom, in one of the homes that was destroyed.

Her husband and 3-month-old grandchild were injured, Degnan said without giving their names or other details. The weather service had issued a tornado warning, and some witnesses described seeing at least one funnel cloud. One or two small tornadoes touch down in New Hampshire each year, meteorologist Kirk Apffel said. At home near Northwood Lake, Ron Olson described a home not far away. the lake, a house just completely leveled.

Gone. You even tell what color it he said. Olson said the storm began with pounding rain followed by wicked, wicked loud noise like a train or a jet was landing on the Merrymeeting Lake in New Durham was at the northern end of the path. A cluster of about six summer homes had roofs missing or smashed, some with trees toppled onto them. shaken up, but alive.

I guess all that said Lise Patrick, 64, who lives by the lake. my trees are down. Part of my deck is gone. I can see lawn chairs and furniture floating in the Downed trees and power lines blocked many roads, delaying emergency responders and utility crews. The storm knocked out power to 6,000 homes and businesses and knocked out telephone service.

The storms also delivered torrential rains to western Maine towns. A funnel cloud was reported in Bridgton, where trees were uprooted by high winds. JIM FIREFIGHTERS check for survivors after a severe thunderstorm leveled a house in Deerfield, N.H., Thursday. The National Weather Service was trying to determine whether a tornado was responsible for the damage in the area, which left at least one person dead. N.H.

Storm Kills At Least 1 Tornado Might Have Caused Wide Swath Of Destruction That Hit Lake Area By CLARE TRAPASSO ASSOCIATED PRESS my trees are down. Part of my deck is gone. I can see lawn chairs and furniture floating in the LISE PATRICK NEW DURHAM, N.H..