Providence Housing Scandal Expands With New Allegations
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Yet another employee at the Providence Housing Authority (PHA) has corroborated accusations made in a whistleblower’s massive, 37-page complaint against the agency’s longtime executive director and says he too plans to speak with the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regarding mismanagement of the organization.
In an exclusive interview with GoLocalProv, Frank A. Manfredi, a former North Providence Councilman who has been with the Housing Authority for 37 years, confirmed he has heard executive director Stephen O’Rourke make inappropriate sexual comments to female employees and claimed the agency’s interim executive director is simply “picking up where [O’Rourke] left off.”
In a close vote that came down to chairman Paul Waldman’s decision Tuesday, the PHA’s board of commissioners selected Sorrel Devine, director of the Department of Resident Services, as interim executive director while O’Rourke sits on paid administrative leave as HUD officials investigate accusations of sexual harassment and mismanagement of the agency.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTManfredi believes he should have been selected for the position.
“How in the world can the appointed interim executive director be impartial in moving the investigation forward when in fact she is a dear friend to the executive director, part of the ‘clique,’ and a drinking partner to all the players currently under investigation,” Manfredi asked Tuesday evening following the vote.
“I’m Not Even Close to the Investigation”
Manfredi said that while he respects Devine, he believes the votes were orchestrated for O’Rourke, who he claims is still playing an active role within the agency despite being on leave.
“It was all a set up,” Manfredi said. “The board had the chance to put someone in who is not connected to the investigation. I’m not even close to the investigation. They have disappointed 200 employees at the Providence Housing Authority.”
In February, Elizabeth Herosy filed a complaint with several agencies accusing O’Rourke of sexually harassing female employees as well as making questionable financial decisions with federal funds, including handing out no-bid contracts. Several other current and former employees have come forward with additional complaints about O’Rourke, including two women who say they were sexually harassed.
Manfredi says he began raising the red flag regarding management decisions several months before Herosy filed her complaint, including asking about employees being paid while at home, the cost of out-of-state travel, the selection of employees to travel, the cost of retreats and salary-increases for non-union employees.
Confirms Harassment Claims
O’Rourke has vehemently denied both the claims of financial mismanagement and sexual harassment. In an interview with GoLocalProv last week, he claimed the complaints were simply being made by disgruntled employees.
“I’ve done so much for women in this office,” O’Rourke said. “If I’m this serial harasser, why would so many women still be here? This [complaint] came from out of nowhere.”
But Manfredi painted a different picture of O’Rourke, corroborating the accusations of both Herosy and Julia Iacono, who claims she left the agency after being sexually harassed in a hotel room over two decades ago.
“I was the business agent for the Teamsters and took the complaint from Ms. Iacono,” Manfredi said. “Her accusation was that the executive director put his arms around her and tried to kiss her in the hotel room. The case was taken from the union and ‘handled’ by the board of commissioners,” he said.
Manfredi also confirmed O’Rourke’s pattern of inappropriate sexual comments to female staffers.
“Remarks such as ‘I would love to eat those thighs and what I could do with those lips,’” Manfredi said.
Complaints Add Up
O’Rourke, who was appointed the agency’s executive director in 1987 under former Mayor Joseph Paolino and has largely been credited with turning a nearly insolvent agency into a “high performing” $45 million operation, maintains that he has been blindsided by all of the employee complaints.
He said no employees ever came forward with a single complaint before Herosy went to HUD, Mayor Angel Taveras, the Attorney General and the Department of Labor and Training with her accusations. He said he consistently treated females with respect as director, pointing to the fact that nearly half of his workforce is made up of females and that many women have been placed in leadership positions.
But Manfredi is just the latest employee to make accusations against O’Rourke. Herosy’s claims have also been corroborated by Sean Pope, another PHA employee who says he told federal investigators that O’Rourke once bent his wife (then an employee at the PHA) over a desk, a charge O’Rourke flatly denies.
Herosy also claims O’Rourke’s inappropriate behavior became habitual and that many of his favorite employees were well-aware of his actions. In one instance, she claims, O’Rourke openly questioned how much sex she was having.
“The very next day January 26, 2012, while the executive director was in the lunch room with his clique, I went in to give him a message, and the conversation turned sexual and he said to me that I probably wasn’t getting any sex. I said I wasn’t going to talk about that with him, and left the room in embarrassment and disgust,” her complaint alleges.
Manfredi said the appointment of Devine, an O’Rourke ally, as interim director led him to come forward with what he knows about O’Rourke. He said he believes bringing someone in who was not connected to the previous director would have been a more appropriate move to make.
“I am going public because I have a great deal of love and concern for the employees who see this appointment as a scam,” Manfredi said.
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