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Friday, February 6, 2009

It's What I Do

American Scofflaw
As he tells it, Randall Hinton is paid $93,803 a year to do nothing.

He spends much of his workday at the State Insurance Fund donning headphones, listening to rock 'n' roll, blues or classical tunes and his superiors are cool with that.

His work agenda involves placing his feet up on his desk, staring out his office window and counting cars on the New York State Thruway. He arrives at 7:30 a.m., leaves at 3:30 p.m., sees no one and talks to no one.

He never does any work. It's been this way for Hinton for most of this decade.

"I just sit here," said Hinton, 55, of Niskayuna, a 27-year state employee who has held several high-level posts at various agencies.

At 6 feet 4 inches and 265 pounds he is an imposing figure who will begin to tear up when he discusses his situation. A member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe in Maine, he said he is being discriminated against because of his national origin and retaliated against for having sued the state.

Since February 2002, Hinton has been director of investigations for the Insurance Fund, but he said he has never been allowed to investigate anything. Instead, he builds up pension credits, year after year, but is unproductive at work because his superiors are blackballing him, he and his former boss say.

Hinton contends he is without portfolio as retaliation for suing Gov. George Pataki's administration 10 years ago, alleging discrimination then, too. That was after getting stuck in a storeroom for two years for refusing to leave his post at the Department of Environmental Conservation heading investigations to make room for a Republican appointee, he said.

In a January 2002 settlement in his suit against then-DEC Commissioner John Cahill (who later became Pataki's top deputy) and then-Assistant DEC Commissioner James W. Tuffey (now Albany's police chief) he was guaranteed state employment as a director of investigations.

"We didn't offer to settle, they did," said Tuffey. "They said just transfer him." Tuffey said the friction between Hinton and DEC officials developed because he wanted to go to the police academy to become a sworn DEC officer, but had not taken the civil service tests required.

Court papers show the stipulation promised Hinton his post at the Insurance Fund, controlled by Pataki's appointees under multi-year terms that continue years into the future. They gave him a job and an office but told his boss not to let Hinton handle anything of substance, according to Hinton and his former manager.

On Monday, Hinton filed a complaint with the Division of Human Rights claiming discrimination stemming from the retaliation of his original claim against the DEC.

Hinton said he's treated as a second-class employee with fewer resources than even the lowliest Insurance Fund worker. "I have no Internet access, no printer, no laptop, no car. Every day it's a struggle for me to bring in something I haven't read or listened to. I can tell you how many white cars pass on the Thruway . . . I can't take it anymore."

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