“No new policies are being implemented at [Corrections]. I am still providing guidance and direction for the department,” said Mafnas in an e-mail to Variety, when asked what policies were being implemented by Seman, the governor’s son-in-law.
“Adult Corrections acting director Seman is a very capable officer. I appointed him as acting director before my appointment as [Department of Public Safety] commissioner by Gov. Ben Fitial,” Mafnas added.
Mafnas earlier said use of illegal drugs at the Department of Corrections had been addressed and he will conduct random drug testing at DPS once the reorganization is finished.
“We are assessing the organizational structure of DPS with the intention of restructuring it to be most suitable to carry out DPS objectives based on our assets or wealth. Those assets are human resources, fiscal resources, and Physical Resources,” Mafnas said.
Last year, Seman was among the Corrections officers who brought masseuse Qingmei Cheng to the governor’s residence so she could massage Fitial in the early morning of Jan. 8.
In Sept. 2009, the Superior Court dismissed the charges against Seman and another Corrections officer as moved by the Attorney General’s Office.
On Aug. 27, 2009, Attorney General Edward T. Buckingham concurred with then-Chief Prosecutor Kevin A. Lynch’s motion to dismiss the charges against the defendants who were charged with assaulting then-inmate Robert Jake Palacios.
Lynch said the AGO would refer Palacios’s complaint to Corrections which had an “effective administrative procedures in place to address action of Corrections personnel that violate the standards of conduct imposed by Corrections rules and regulations.”
The Department of Corrections had yet to release information on what administrative actions were taken against Seman and his co-defendant.
