Ursini accuses Bristol of unlawful termination and defamation

Senior center director files claim against town administrator and police department

By Scott Pickering
Posted 3/14/19

The director of the Benjamin Church Senior Center has filed a claim against the Town of Bristol alleging unlawful termination, defamation and malicious prosecution.

Through her attorney, Maria …

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Ursini accuses Bristol of unlawful termination and defamation

Senior center director files claim against town administrator and police department

Posted

The director of the Benjamin Church Senior Center has filed a claim against the Town of Bristol alleging unlawful termination, defamation and malicious prosecution.

Through her attorney, Maria Ursini claims that Bristol Town Administrator Steven Contente unlawfully terminated her in retaliation for statements she made to the Bristol Town Council in March of 2017, and she claims the administrator and unnamed members of the Bristol Police Department used the media to “publicly ridicule, embarrass and injure her reputation.”

She filed the claim on Feb. 14, giving the town 30 days to reply and reach a settlement, before officially filing a lawsuit seeking lost wages, lost benefits, lost pension benefits, compensatory damages and an unspecified amount of punitive damages, as well as attorney fees.

The claim, which was directed to Bristol Town Council Chairman Nathan Calouro, was received by the town and passed to its insurer, the Rhode Island Interlocal Trust. Town Administrator Steven Contente chose not to comment on details of the case, but he did say, “It’s my belief that the case has absolutely no merit, and it will be vigorously defended.”

Budget hearing on senior cuts

According to the Feb. 14 letter to the Bristol Town Council, written by Ms. Ursini’s attorney, Lisa Holley, the story began in March of 2017, when Ms. Ursini led a group of seniors to a council public hearing on the town budget. Ms. Ursini and the seniors spoke out against possible cuts that would impact seniors.

According to her claim, Mr. Contente, who had been elected into office a few months earlier after retiring from a 20-year career in the Bristol Police Department, began scrutinizing Ms. Ursini’s work as senior center director, as well as her simultaneous work as coordinator of a substance abuse program funded by a state grant awarded to the town of Bristol. At the time, Ms. Ursini earned a senior center salary of $41,000 a year, while also earning $42,000 a year from a Drug Free Communities grant and $9,800 a year from a substance abuse task force stipend. Mr. Contente said Ms. Ursini was “double-dipping” by drawing two full-time incomes from the same source — the Town of Bristol.

However, Ms. Ursini claimed that Mr. Contente’s predecessor, Antonio “Tony” Teixeira, gave her permission to work under that arrangement, and she was not hiding any of her activities. In response to Mr. Contente’s “double-dipping” accusation, she said, “I absolutely was not (double dipping). I didn’t do work for the grant while I was doing my work for the senior center. The drug free communities grant work is not one I have to sit at a desk 9-5. I’m here to work, to do my job and service my community. But I feel like the finger’s been pointed at me.”

In her recent claim, Ms. Ursini says shortly after the town budget hearing, Mr. Contente called her and requested a job description of her duties at the senior center. She claims he also called a “grant-related colleague” of hers into Town Hall to question that person about Ms. Ursini’s time working for the substance abuse programs.

During that meeting, she alleges that Mr. Contente expressed anger about how she brought seniors to the town council meeting and that the “Town Council was not happy that the seniors were there.”

Ms. Ursini alleges that Mr. Contente called a second meeting with this unnamed “colleague,” during which he announced a plan to cut her salary, allegedly stating “she better take that deal or she’s not going to like what happens to her.”

Asked about Ms. Ursini’s claims Wednesday morning, Mr. Contente talked about his role as town administrator, then and now: “I will continue to inform the public as to how their tax dollars are being spent,” he said.

Salary cut in half

On May 12 of 2017, Ms. Ursini received a letter from the town administrator announcing that her town-funded senior center salary would be cut in half. She claims this action was done without involving the Benjamin Church Senior Center board of directors, who formally employed her.

A month later, she claims, Mr. Contente called her to a meeting and told her she would no longer report to Benjamin Church; she would be reporting to the director of parks and recreation, who at that time was Walter Burke.

While this was happening, Mr. Contente was also working to reorganize town government, by creating a new “Coordinator of Senior Services” position. At the time, he explained this was done to bring more clarity to who works for whom. He said the longstanding arrangement — where the town paid the salary and benefits of senior center employees, but had no direct oversight or management controls over their supposed “employees” — was untenable.

Ms. Ursini believes the new position was another way to undermine her. Her attorney claims that in addition to unilaterally changing her conditions of employment and salary, Mr. Contente was moving to eliminate her job and replace it with a position that demanded educational requirements that would have precluded her from consideration.

Criminal investigation of her time

Ms. Holley claims that Mr. Contente, the recently retired Bristol deputy chief who worked for many years alongside Ms. Ursini’s husband, retired Bristol Police Lt. Greg Ursini, then turned to the Bristol Police Department for help. He asked his former colleagues to investigate Ms. Ursini’s hours working in her multiple roles. Mr. Contente said all he did was send a letter to the police department, adding that he is bound by a “non-interference clause,” where he is prohibited from interfering in police investigations and activities. “I sent them one letter,” Mr. Contente said. “They handled the investigation.”

Bristol Police Lt. Steven St. Pierre ordered Ms. Ursini to provide copies of all her time records, which she willingly complied with. On Aug. 11, 2017, Lt. St. Pierre notified Ms. Ursini she would be charged with two felonies, embezzlement and obtaining money under false pretenses, as well as a misdemeanor charge of filing a false document with a public official. She turned herself in at the Bristol Police Station, where she was photographed, fingerprinted and charged. She also stopped working as senior center director, though months later her office inside the senior center was still fully intact, with her photos still on the desk and walls.

Four months her arrest, on Dec. 12, 2017, the town and Ms. Ursini reached an agreement. The Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office dismissed the two felony charges, and she pled not guilty to the misdemeanor charge of filing a false document. She agreed to pay $698.43 in restitution to the town. The charge was filed by the District Court for one year before it was expunged from her record.

After the case was settled, Ms. Holley had a scathing rebuke of the town’s handling of the case and treatment of her client. “This case was totally devoid of any evidence of wrongdoing,” Ms. Holley said. “She was a hardworking woman who had the best intentions, on all fronts. At the end of the day, Bristol loses out. She is a great woman and was very committed. This isn’t the way that you treat a loyal, hardworking servant.”

Ms. Holley was also extremely critical of a press release sent by Police Chief Josue Canario (who retired last Friday) to this newspaper. She said last January, “A two-and-a-half-page press release is two pages more than we got in discovery. The fact that they released a two-and-a-half-page press release is more evidence that they just wanted to torture this woman … The fact that they even released a statement after this is confounding.”

Media statements did damage

In the recent claim against the town, Ms. Ursini says the public comments by town officials about her and her case constitute defamation and were damaging to her name and reputation. In various interviews, Mr. Contente said Ms. Ursini was guilty of “double dipping” and “ethics violations,” and he expressed concern about her “shiftiness.”

Following are the specific claims she makes against the town:

  • Wrongful Termination/Tortious Interference: The Town of Bristol was never Ms. Ursini’s employer, and Mr. Contente had no right to terminate her employment.
  • Malicious Prosecution: The Bristol Police Department never provided evidence of wrongdoing, and never provided even one document to the defense during the discovery process to substantiate the charges against her. “It is still unknown as of this date, what ‘false document’ Ms. Ursini gave to what ‘official,’ as that has yet to be identified.”
  • Defamation: Town officials gave statements and releases to the news media in an attempt to “defame, embarrass and annoy” Ms. Ursini.
  • Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress: “As a result of the unlawful actions of the Town Administrator and members of the Bristol Police Department, my client’s health and well-being have suffered.”
  • Preservation Notice to the Town: The town has been notified it must preserve all written communication, including emails, involving any town officials, the police or town councilors, relating to Ms. Ursini.

After the resolution of the criminal case in Dec. of 2017, things have slowly fallen back into place for Ms. Ursini. In February of last year, the Town of Bristol and the nonprofit Benjamin Church Senior Center reached an accord. Instead of paying senior center employees directly and administering their benefits, the town cut ties with those employees and shifted funding directly to the senior center board, which now hires and manages the employees, using $146,000 provided annually by the town. Significantly, the town also restored full funding for the director’s position.

A few months later, in July of 2018, Ms. Ursini returned to work, re-hired by Benjamin Church to be director of the senior center.

Finally, a couple of months ago, the Warren Substance Abuse Coalition won a five-year, $625,000 matching grant from the federal government to coordinate substance abuse efforts in Warren and Bristol. Ann Marie Roy of Warren was named the director of program, and Ms. Ursini was hired for a 20-hour-per-week role that pays $40,000 annually.

Asked about her recent past working in the multiple roles, Ms. Ursini said she’s only looking forward. “Our goal is to reduce alcohol, marijuana and prescription” drug abuse, she said.

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.