Law and labor experts said Derby Middle School principal’s Sally Bonina’s search of an employee’s computer bag was legal — but warned the criminal case against a middle school dean isn’t necessarily open and shut.
“There are issues that can be brought up on both sides as to the admissibility of the drugs that were seized,” said George R. Dekle, a legal skills professor at the University of Florida.
Bonina’s Sept. 8 search of dean William LaRovera’s computer bag in the middle school allegedly uncovered 66 Roxicodone (generic oxycodone) pills in two plastic bags.
Derby police obtained an arrest warrant from a Superior Court judge and charged LaRovera Sept. 15 with narcotics possession, possession of narcotics near a school, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of drug paraphernalia near a school and failing to store narcotics in the original container.
LaRovera is scheduled to be arraigned in Superior Court in Derby today (Wednesday, Sept. 28).
The arrest warrant follows. The article continues below.
‘Reasonable Suspicion’
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizures by the government. It requires warrants to be obtained upon the establishment of probable cause.
However, Bonina didn’t need probable cause or a warrant to search the bag because she’s neither a police officer nor was she working with law enforcement, said Mark Sommaruga, an attorney in Hartford with Sullivan, Schoen, Campane and Connon.
Sommaruga has represented several school districts in the state.
All Bonina needed was “reasonable suspicion” that a school rule was being violated.
According to the arrest warrant used to charge LaRovera, Bonina told police she “had suspicions that William LaRovera was abusing either drugs or tobacco products while at school and working.”
She allegedly told police that LaRovera often had a runny nose and had nose bleeds, and that his eyes were bloodshot. Furthermore, he had been caught three times using tobacco products on school grounds, according to the warrant.
The morning she searched his bag without his permission, Bonina had watched LaRovera enter a locker room area with his computer bag, then leave the locker room without the bag. Bonina went into a locked office within the locker room and searched his computer bag for tobacco products.
Instead, she found the painkillers, according to the warrant.
“It sounds like a picture perfect situation,” attorney Sommaruga said of Bonina’s search.
Can Educators Be Searched Without Consent?
Michael Imber, a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Kansas, is the author of “A Teacher’s Guide to Education Law,” now in its fourth edition.
The Derby case is similar in some ways to O’Connor v. Ortega, a U.S. Supreme Court decision in which a doctor at a public hospital claimed his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when his employer searched his office.
The case is mentioned in Imber’s book.
In the Ortega case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that while public employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy, a search is justified when there are “reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the employee is guilty of work-related misconduct …”
Based on the allegations in the Derby arrest warrant, it sounds like Bonina was justified in her search LaRovera’s bag, Imber said.
However, he warned cases where Constitutional rights are debated are almost never black and white. It depends on precisely what happened and the facts are revealed as the case moves forward, Imber said.
Dekle, the law professor from the University of Florida, said an argument could be made that Bonina was acting as an arm of the government and therefore needed a warrant to search the bag.
“Some people or some jurisdictions might say that since this person works for the state, search and seizure restrictions apply to her because she is working for the state,” he said. “If I was a defense lawyer, I would certainly make that argument.”
Motive Questioned
LaRovera is being represented by attorney Robert Serafinowicz of Waterbury.
Serafinowicz is the aggressive attorney who took the so-called Ansonia “garden hose cop” case to trial and earned a not guilty verdict for his client, Mustafa Salahuddin, a police officer who was accused of stealing a hose from the Ansonia Police Department. Salahuddin has since retired from the department.
During the Salahuddin trial, Serafinowicz went after police department brass, accusing them of targeting his client because he had a history of complaining about work conditions within the department.
Serafinowicz has already attacked the integrity of the Derby investigation, questioning how police were able to conduct an investigation and obtain an arrest warrant so quickly. Click here for the police chief’s response.
He has also accused Bonina of talking about the incident with other school employees — and said that Bonina simply didn’t like LaRovera.
“She should have went through the proper procedure. You don’t grab the bag, run away, say I’m searching for tobacco then start rifling through it,” Serafinowicz told the Valley Indy after LaRovera’s arrest.
Since the Sept. 8 incident, LaRovera has sought treatment at a detox facility, Serafinowicz told the Valley Indy earlier this month.
“This is a medical issue. This isn’t a guy who causes trouble. There is no allegation that anyone was in any danger or there was any interaction with students,” Serafinowicz said. “This guy had a medical issue that this woman wanted to make more of than it should have been in order to make a point to him.”
Chain Of Custody?
After Bonina discovered the painkillers, she took three of the pills to the school nurse to see if they could be identified. The nurse “looked the pills up on the computer and they were Oxycontons,” according to the warrant.
Bonina then called Superintendent Stephen Tracy, who called Derby police, according to the warrant.
After a confrontation with LaRovera in her office, the warrant states Bonia began “to inventory the contents of the bag in accordance with Board of Education procedure.”
In a press release, Serafinowicz questions how long LaRovera’s bag was in the possession of school officials before it was given to police.
Attorney Terrence P. Dwyer, an assistant professor of legal studies at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury and a retired investigator with New York State Police, said Serafinowicz is doing his job.
“He has to try and show there was something nefarious done, or something that shows his client isn’t going to get the full realm of his due process rights because there is some interference by the administrator,” Dwyer said.
Dwyer said it is not unusual for police to obtain evidence in the way Derby police did at the middle school.
“Just because it was seized by someone who is not in law enforcement does not necessarily mean it wouldn’t be admissible at trial,” he said.
Even if Bonina had some past clashes with LaRovera, it’s not necessarily the detective’s job to question her motive.
“That’s what the courts are for,” Dwyer said. “We don’t have street adjudication. The police officer’s job is to respond to the scene and make their initial determinations.”
To maintain the integrity of the initial investigation, Dwyer said he would have Bonina give a sworn statement.
“It’s a form and it has a notice at the bottom — any false statements are punishable,” Dwyer said. “The administrator is pretty much swearing that the things she is saying are true.”
Bonina, according to the Derby arrest warrant, gave police a written, notarized statement.
Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t
Eugene O’Donnell is a former New York City prosecutor and N.Y.P.D. police officer who now teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
He also said the LaRovera case isn’t cut and dry.
“It’s a fact-specific case. It really turns on the minute details of time, place and the situation,” he said.
O’Donnell questioned the Derby school district’s employee discipline program and wondered if there might have been a different way for Bonina to act on her suspicions.
“What do you do when you expect an employee of drug abuse? Does the district have a policy? Did she try to follow those procedures? I’m quite sure the preferred method is not to turn the principal into a private eye,” O’Donnell said. “I would be interested if she shared her concerns about this employee with anyone else. Did her boss give her any instructions? It’s easy enough to refer people to drug treatment for evaluation.”
On the other hand, O’Donnell said Bonina may have been in a situation where she felled compelled to search his bag.
“Principals know they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t,” he said. “You’re all but certain this guy has brought something in, but you act slowly and cautiously — and then something bad happens. The principal would be hung out to dry.”
O’Donnell said the case underscores how different the role of school administrator is today compared to 20 or 30 years ago.
“To be honest this typifies what I think school administrators do today — a lot of times it is action first and you deal with the consequences later. In the post-Columbine, post‑9/11 world, nobody wants to get caught sleeping.”
