JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Republican Gov.-elect Eric Greitens made his first Cabinet appointment on Wednesday, choosing a North Carolina corrections official to lead Missouri’s highly scrutinized Department of Corrections.
If confirmed by the state Senate, North Carolina Community Corrections Director Anne Precythe will inherit an agency described by Greitens in a statement as “broken.”
The current director, George Lombardi, was asked to resign after a report from the Kansas City alternative weekly paper The Pitch showed the state spent more than $7.5 million on settlements and judgments between 2012 and 2016 related to allegations of harassment and retaliation. State House Speaker Todd Richardson also called for an investigation.
“Our corrections officers struggle in a culture of harassment and neglect, in a department with low morale and shockingly high turnover,” Greitens said. “These men and women do important work. They need our help.”
He also said he’s honored to appoint Precythe.
“We pledged in the campaign to ’do different,’ and with Anne at the helm of the Department of Corrections, that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.
Precythe is Greitens’ first announced Cabinet appointment since his election Nov. 8. Senior Adviser Austin Chambers told The Associated Press on Tuesday that more Cabinet appointments will be announced at a later time, likely in a group.
When AP requested an interview with Precythe, her assistant said she is not making any media comments and directed inquiries to Greitens’ staff. Public records list her husband as a managing member of a sweet potato business. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has reported that those serving on the governor-elect’s transition team must sign a gag order.
Lombardi was appointed by outgoing Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon and had applied to stay on when Greitens takes office Jan. 9. But he later withdrew his application, citing in an email to Greitens’ general counsel of the loss of “complete support from both sides of the aisle.”
Nixon, who is term-limited, told the AP on Tuesday that he has “basically no knowledge” of issues with the agency, which he said were at a level that did not involve him.
Lombardi declined an interview request by the AP, but a department spokesman has said employees receive mandatory training that covers sexual harassment every year and supervisors must take training on preventing harassment every three years.
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