“In my 12 years on this committee, I don’t think I have had an advice and consent quite like this one,” said Senator Frank S. Lombardi, a Cranston Democrat. “I want to applaud my committee members (for) actually hitting on every point that they needed to hit on so that the public was made aware.”
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And, Lombardi told Salisbury, “I also applaud you because we put you here under the hot seat and asked you all the critical questions.”
The Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers had waged an all-out campaign to scuttle the nomination, noting that Salisbury once faced a felony charge that was later dismissed and filing Ethics Commission complaints accusing Salisbury of nepotism and failing to disclose trips paid for by outside groups.
The union’s president, Richard Ferruccio, told the committee that Rhode Island’s prison system used to be a model for other states.
“That honor and reputation has been squandered under Wayne Salisbury’s interim leadership. Even worse, our prisons have become less safe,” he said. “Under his watch, fights have increased, assaults are on the rise, use of force has increased, drug use and drug trafficking have all increased, gang activity is increasing, and officer morale is as bad as I’ve ever seen it.”
But the committee also heard from supporters of Salisbury.
Brenda Dann-Messier, a senior adviser for the Education Strategy Group and a former Rhode Island post-secondary commissioner, said she has worked throughout her career to expand education and workforce opportunities for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people.
“I know that is a top priority for Interim Director Salisbury as well,” Dann-Messier said. “I respect his leadership and hard work to ensure that individuals who are incarcerated are prepared for successful re-entry back into our communities. And just a reminder, 95 percent of incarcerated individuals do, in fact, come back to our communities.”
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The governor stood by his choice in the face of union news releases and radio ads criticizing Salisbury.
“As acting director with over three decades of experience in corrections, Wayne Salisbury has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to manage challenges in the field of corrections, from assembling a task force dedicated to recidivism reduction, to renewing the department’s focus on staff development and succession planning,” McKee press secretary Oliva DaRocha said.
Prisoner advocacy groups also spoke out in support of Salisbury’s nomination.
“We, the community, feel he is the right person for the job because he’s focusing more on the rehabilitative aspect rather than the punishment aspect,” Brandon Robinson, campaign manager for Stop Torture RI Coalition/Open Doors, said Monday. “The Rhode Island Department of Corrections was stuck in the Stone Ages before Wayne Salisbury took over. If it was up to the union, we’d still be operating like it was 1970.”
Ferruccio wrote to Senate Judiciary Committee members on Monday, and said, “Mr. Salisbury does not have the character, integrity, judgment, or temperament to oversee the state’s correctional department.”
Salisbury worked at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls from 1993 to 2010, serving the last seven years as warden.
The union noted that in 2010, Salisbury was charged with obtaining money under false pretenses for allegedly falsifying the amount of unused vacation time he was owed and collecting more than $16,000 from Wyatt. The union said the fraudulent payments were approved by Tammy Novo, who was then Wyatt’s chief financial officer and who is now married to Salisbury.
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In 2015, the attorney general’s office dismissed the felony charge in “the interest of justice,” and said Salisbury had paid restitution and that additional information that “may impact the ability of the state to sustain its burden” of proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt, the Providence Journal reported at the time.
On Friday, the union filed two complaints with the state Ethics Commission. One accuses Salisbury of nepotism, saying that his stepdaughter, Amanda Novo, now works under his supervision in the Department of Corrections, in probation and parole.
Another complaint accuses Salisbury of failing to disclose multiple out-of-state trips funded by external organizations, including a trip to London sponsored by the British Consulate and three Correctional Leaders Association meetings in Cape Cod, California, and Washington, D.C.
The complaints cite a WPRI-Channel 12 report that said Salisbury made a series of amendments to his 2023 ethics filings after reporters began asking questions. State law requires all directors and elected officials to disclose out-of-state travel whenever third parties pay for costs of more than $250.
Department of Corrections spokesman J.R. Ventura said the London trip included leaders from corrections departments of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia. And he said, “It is in Rhode Island’s best interest for RIDOC’s leadership to maintain the department’s ongoing presence at these conferences and trainings with fellow directors and commissioners from around the country to understand, discuss, and bring best practices to the Rhode Island Department of Corrections.”
Ferruccio urged the Senate to reject Salisbury’s nomination and to launch a national search similar to the one Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey is leading.
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The union noted that in December, McKee’s pick for an Ethics Commission vacancy, Bryant C. Da Cruz, withdrew his name hours after a Boston Globe investigation detailed sexual harassment complaints made against him by six women. At the time, McKee’s office acknowledged “that the vetting process was not adequate and that will be corrected going forward.”
But Ferruccio said, “The simple truth is that the McKee administration did not adequately vet Mr. Salisbury and the burden of that vetting now — unfortunately — falls squarely to the Rhode Island Senate.”
Robinson, meanwhile, said the Stop Torture RI Coalition/Open Doors would like the Senate to confirm Salisbury’s nomination.
He described the union opposition as “a character assassination attempt due to Salisbury’s support of reforming the solitary confinement policies.” And he gave Salisbury credit for placing a 30-day cap on how long an inmate could be held in disciplinary confinement.
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Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.
