Board fires jail worker
After a relatively short closed session called to discuss a personnel matter Wednesday, members of Washington County Prison Board unanimously agreed a jail counselor who was arrested in late September should no longer work at the correctional facility.
All members of the board were present.
Jay S. Green, 43, of South Strabane Township, was, for less than a day, a jail inmate incarcerated on domestic violence charges before he was released on $20,000 bond.
South Strabane police charged Green with making terroristic threats, simple assault, reckless endangerment, harassment and endangering the welfare of a child Sept. 29.
Green, who reportedly had been drinking alcohol at his home, allegedly retrieved a rifle from a gun safe and threatened to shoot his wife, Barbara Wertz, and their dog.
She was able to escape to a vehicle and call police, but Green allegedly was beating on the car window and ordering her to return to their North Main Street home.
Police arrived, removed weapons and placed Green under arrest. Wertz, in a protection-from-abuse petition filed with Washington County Court, alleged Green had previously threatened her with a drill. President Judge Katherine B. Emery granted Wertz’s petition and evicted Green from the home the couple shared.
According to online court documents, Green entered a guilty plea before District Judge Jay Weller on Feb. 15, 2012, to a summary charge of harassment by subjecting another person to physical contact. He paid $289 in fines and costs. The date of the offense was listed as Feb. 1 of that year.
Green had been a county employee since 1997. His preliminary hearing on the most recent set of charges has been scheduled for Nov. 3 after a postponement Tuesday.
The board made no mention during its public meeting of Gregory J. Michaux Jr., 38, a former Clarksville resident who is believed to have committed suicide at the jail Sept. 26 by hanging.
An indiegogo.com crowdfunding campaign over 15 days has raised $446 for Michaux’s funeral expenses, a private autopsy and a planned wrongful-death lawsuit, according to his mother, Freda Little Michaux of Columbus, Ohio.
As of Sept. 30, the jail housed 355 inmates, 296 men and 59 women.