State Senator Lynne DiSanto (or Lyn or Lyndi or whatever she’s calling herself nowadays) apparently earned herself a ban recently from state correctional facilities after filming an interview with an inmate, despite being directly told she couldn’t by the Deputy Secretary of Corrections without prior approval:
The department approved the visit by DiSanto, who has created a Facebook page and a website — both called Lynne Seeks Truth — where she publicly discusses the Dennard case. But the department’s deputy secretary verbally denied DiSanto’s request to make a recording of her conversation with Dennard’s biological mother. Written departmental policies state that no photograph, audio or video recording may be made during a prison visit without specific prior approval.
and…
After being interviewed recently by the Journal about the situation, DiSanto contacted Leidholt and told him an employee at the prison gave her permission to record. Leidholt said he then conducted an inquiry to determine whether that employee — apparently, a control-room operator — had in fact given DiSanto permission.
“The control-room operator doesn’t agree that happened,” Leidholt said. “But he’s not able to show definitively that it didn’t happen.”
Jesus wept. Coming off of her recent no-trespassing order, I’m not sure there’s any part of this where Senator DiSanto doesn’t look like an awful person.
First off, a state legislator coming in to do an uncleared interview with an inmate seems horribly exploitive to start. People usually end up in prison for doing dumb things, and many are there for not operating with the best judgement. And in pops a state senator asking for an interview that she’s going to record for her website? I’m doubting anything was even waved under the nose of the inmate’s legal representation or other advocate for advice.
And even better, after the Senator was told no by the second highest authority in the Department, she does it anyway, and blames a low level state employee – a control room operator. They say they didn’t giver her permission, but DiSanto claims they did. And unfortunately, the control room operator wasn’t recording the interaction.
Not only did Senator DiSanto in continuing her ridiculous antics with regard to the Serenity Dennard disappearance exploit someone in the Department of Correction’s charge, she put a state employee in a career-affecting situation after being given a definitive opinion at a fairly high-level by the department.
Making sure that entities under government oversight act properly is her job, and showing empathy is admirable. But acting against a family’s wishes, taking it to the level of threatening a person to the point of requiring a no-trespassing order, exploiting an inmate, and rolling a state employee under the bus for it is beyond the pale.
Enough is enough. The adults needs to say something.
It’s far past time for the State Legislature’s Executive Board to take action to do something about Senator DiSanto’s obsession and self-promotion in this matter. They need to review this matter NOW.
Not happening now or ever Pat. The writing is on the wall for who is in charge of chambers and pretty- far right, will always win in the neo-cons mans world.
Risk takers are rewarded and uplifted to positions of power.
DiSanto is on a roll busting up that glass ceiling….
This executive board is a gonadless group of minions who only do what the Council of the Legislature Research wants them to do. They won’t do anything. They cannot. Young Ms. Lyndi is going to rip the place up and will probably be the head Pro Temp person when the legislatures next meet and I wouldn’t be surprised if she is not the head of the executive board before the year is up.
You need to takoe part in a contest for one of the highest quality blogs online.
I most certainly will highly recommend this site!