State Worker Fired for 'Farkling' On Duty

DENVER (CBS4) - A Colorado administrative law judge has ruled that a security supervisor at a Colorado youth prison should not get his job back after the state fired him for sending pornographic texts and videos and playing a computer dice game called "Farkle" during work hours.

"I want to say I went against the tide and because I did, I got pulled under in the undertow," said Curtis Medina, who oversaw inmates and staff members at the Platte Valley Youth Services Center in Greeley.

Platte Valley is a 133-bed, secure state-run facility for youth offenders. Some are awaiting trial; others have been convicted of serious crimes. Medina worked there nine years, rising to a role as a senior supervisor. He disputes some of the accusations about his activities while admitting to others.

According to a decision by an administrative law judge handed down in October, Medina interacted with some subordinates while on duty "by sending sexually-oriented text message videos and photos to the personal phones of staff members or displaying sexually explicit texts to these subordinates."

Medina told CBS4 he did send inappropriate texts and videos to co-workers, but denied doing it during work hours.

"And I did send them but never at work. That's a blatant lie. I never did that," he said.

Joe Thome, who oversees Platte Valley for the State of Colorado, said what Medina did was "completely unacceptable. They were videos and images that had sexual content ... naked women and salacious content, basically," Thome said. "Pretty graphic stuff."

According to state administrators, Medina also spent work time playing a computer dice game called Farkle. Medina does not deny this but says it wasn't as egregious as the state claims and there was a valid reason for computer gaming while on the job. Medina says he would focus so much at work and spend so many hours on the computer doing legitimate work, it caused him to get migraine headaches. He says to relieve the migraines, he would play Farkle on his state computer.

"Maybe 10 minutes every day I worked probably," Medina said. "It would be random times depending on when I got a migraine. I know that sounds strange, but that's what it was."

"Time for something like that was unacceptable no matter how much it was," Thome said.

Medina appealed his dismissal claiming he was targeted for firing after blowing the whistle on other workers' misdeeds like sleeping on the job, misusing state time, and administrators purportedly having sex with each other at the facility.

But in a ruling dated Oct. 12, 2010, ALJ Denise DeForest wrote that Medina did commit the acts that led to his firing and that evidence did not show Medina was the victim of an orchestrated campaign.

The Medina controversy is just the latest for a facility that has repeatedly been accused of various misdeeds by employees, former employees and inmates. The accusations and rumors became so persistent that the state asked the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to conduct an independent inquiry into PVYSC in 2009. That review was completed and released earlier this year.

The CBI investigation compiled a list of 58 alleged criminal events at PVYSC. Six could not be confirmed, 24 did result in corrective, disciplinary actions, including terminations and admonishments of detention facility staff members, according to the CBI. Eleven of the events resulted in additional charges against inmates; 20 incidents were confirmed as being referred to the state for investigation; and 15 incidents were turned over to Greeley police for investigationa one incident given to the Weld County Sheriffs Office.

In a letter dated Feb. 23, 2010, Weld County Assistant District Attorney Michael Rourke wrote that he had reviewed the investigation. He noted that all reports of possible criminal conduct had been properly forwarded to the appropriate authorities. Rourke said the investigation was "comprehensive, complete and thorough," and would not result in any new criminal charges.

Medina says he is looking for work but believes the state has blackballed him in the corrections industry, making it hard to find employment.

- Written by Brian Maass