Members of NYC jails watchdog board rebuke chair’s attempts to circumvent rules

In a stunning rebuke to the Adams administration, five members of the Board of Correction held an emergency meeting Monday and overruled an effort by the current chair to unilaterally appoint his own executive director.

Board chair Dwayne Sampson, an Adams appointee, had tried to upend long-established rules and replace the acting executive director Jasmine Georges-Yilla with his own pick, Chai Park Messina.

But the quintet — Rachel Bedard, Bobby Cohen, Felipe Franco, DeAnna Hoskins and Jackie Sherman — objected because he didn’t seek board approval before announcing the decision in a letter to staff.

So in a remarkable 15-minute meeting, they ignored Sampson’s letter and reaffirmed Jasmine Georges-Yilla as the interim executive director.

In a second direct rebuke of Sampson, the quintet voted to require board votes to change the composition of special committees named to look into specific issues.

That move was made because last month, Sampson, again unilaterally, removed Cohen, a physician who once ran the jails’ health system, and Jackie Sherman, a lawyer, from the subcommittee that investigates deaths in the jails.

Sampson, sources said, tried to replace them with Joseph Ramos and Jacqueline Pitts, both former correction employees loyal to DOC.

Neither Sampson, nor Ramos and Pitts, showed for the meeting. Sampson could not be reached for comment.

Board spokeswoman Denise Upshaw did not immediately reply to questions from the Daily News.

Earlier Monday, Sampson announced his decision to select Messina in a letter to staff that cc’d Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks, a move that raised some eyebrows as the BOC is supposed to be an independent entity.

“I took actions to pull the agency back from the brink of dysfunction and toward bold initiative,” Sampson declared in his letter.

But people familiar with events under his tenure said Sampson has instead been the divisive force, who has attempted to undermine the agency’s core mission and has treated staffers like his personal employees rather than those of the board.

The city charter in fact confers the agency’s powers on the board, and none specifically on the chair.

The frustration came to a head Monday with Sampson’s letter which led to the decision to hold the immediate special meeting hours later about 4:15 p.m.

It was initially supposed to start at 3 p.m., but there were some of the same technical issues that have dogged BOC meetings earlier this year.

The well-regarded Georges-Yilla had been serving in the interim executive director slot following the resignation in February of Amanda Masters.

Masters resigned after Correction Commissioner Louis Molina blocked the board from access to remote security video in January.

The five members who attended also unanimously approved Hoskins, the head of Just Leadership USA, to act as vice chair, and ordered an executive search for the next executive director.