Old Saybrook Police Hold Exit Interview Citing Chief Spera’s ‘Personal Privacy’

OLD SAYBROOK — The state Freedom of Information Commission last week ordered the city’s police department to release the interview of former Old Saybrook patrol officer Justin Hanna, but so far the department has refused to release the document.

Hanna, who left the Old Saybrook Police Department in May 2021, requested the release of his exit interview that June, according to the final decision on the freedom of information request. After several follow-up emails, the department denied Hanna’s request on the grounds that its release would “represent an invasion of … Police Chief Michael Spera’s privacy.”

According to the decision, city attorney Patrick McHale argued during a hearing that the exit interview should not be released because the interview contained “negative opinions” and “defamatory statements” that were intended to “discredit” Spera.

“We believe that the exit interview attacks the reputation of the police chief and that of the Old Saybrook Police Department, and therefore the police chief has a legitimate expectation of privacy and rightly believes that disclosure would be highly offensive to him,” McHale told the committee of meeting on July 13.

The decision noted that Hanna admitted during the hearing that the exit interview included “negative comments and opinions about Chief Spera and relayed negative experiences that the appellant claimed to have had with the chief during his employment with the responding police department management’.

McHale added during the Commission’s July 13 meeting that the interview constituted a “personnel file” about Spera that would be exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

But in the July 13 decision, the commission found that the documents were not exempt from disclosure and did not constitute an invasion of privacy.

“There is a legitimate public interest in these records and once in the camera inspection, there was nothing there that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person,” hearing officer Thomas Hyde said during the July 13 meeting.

In a July 15 email to Hanna, Spera told Hanna that McHale would contact him “once the city receives official notification from the Freedom of Information Commission.”

Reached by phone, Police Commission Chairman Alfred “Chub” Wilcox told the CT Examiner he was unaware of the exit interview discussion.

“The exit interview will either be published or the town will appeal within the appropriate time frame,” Old Saybrook First Selectman Carl Fortuna said in an email to the CT Examiner.

McHale did not respond to requests for comment from the CT Examiner.