Suffolk official who sent nude photos defends firing decision

SUFFOLK

An Electoral Board member who admits sending nude photos to the city's former voter registrar said he regrets the error but insists it was poor job performance, and not her disclosure of the incident, that led to her dismissal.

David Sylvia, who has served on the three-member board for 15 years, said the panel concluded unanimously in late July that Sharon Thornhill was not meeting job-performance standards and should be replaced. She had been the registrar since 2007.

He said it was only after the board informed Thornhill of the negative evaluation on July 22 that she revealed she had received the salacious e-mail from Sylvia at her computer at work a few months earlier.

"To imply that she was dismissed or fired because she confronted me with the e-mail is totally false," Sylvia said Friday. "It had nothing to do with anything but her job performance."

Thornhill, who worked in the registrar's office for 27 years, submitted a resignation letter to the Electoral Board and to the city's Human Resources Department on Aug. 6. There was no public announcement of her departure. Sylvia said later that Thornhill had resigned "for personal reasons."

On Thursday, however, Thornhill insisted that she was fired after confronting Sylvia about the nude photos and after giving him an ultimatum demanding a good evaluation.

"I did everything I was supposed to do in that office," Thornhill has said. "They say this because they are trying to cover their backs."

A few days earlier, Thornhill sent a copy of the e-mail to City Manager Selena Cuffee-Glenn, along with a note indicating that she had been fired.

Cuffee-Glenn passed the word along to City Council members and to the State Board of Elections, saying the e-mail contained "inappropriate and graphic photographs of a nude individual," and suggesting that if Sylvia had been a city employee, he would have been disciplined or dismissed.

Sylvia said Thornhill's job performance had been documented in at least three previous evaluations signed by various board members. He said the July 22 meeting was called to request documents from Thornhill regarding whether she had remedied performance deficiencies that had been previously identified.

The meeting ended, Sylvia said, after Thornhill brought up the e-mail and issued her ultimatum. Sylvia said he then immediately informed the Human Resources Department, the city attorney's office, the Suffolk Circuit Court, and the State Board of Elections of the entire incident, including the e-mail, and apologized.

"The reaction I received from everyone was that it was an inadvertent e-mail, an accident," he said, "and that it could not in any way be looked at as any type of harassment or intentional - whatever word you want to use."

Members of the Electoral Board are appointed by the Suffolk Circuit Court to three-year terms. Only the court can remove a board member for cause, and only after a hearing based on a complaint filed with the court, said Circuit Court Clerk W. R. Carter Jr. No complaints had been filed, he said Friday.

"I was totally embarrassed that I had done this," Sylvia said. "I sent the e-mail to four individuals who I thought would appreciate it. Later, I found a copy had gone to my mother. No way did I intend for that to happen."

Although Sylvia admits he sent the e-mail from his personal account, he does not know how it went to the unintended recipients.

"Whether it was a computer virus, or I hit a wrong key, I don't know how it happened. But I can promise you I did not intend to send that to my mother or to anyone other than those four."

Sylvia said that, although he regrets having sent the photos, he doesn't believe they are all that shocking.

The e-mail, with a subject line reading, "FW: Putting on a bikini," contained a series of 14 pictures of a man body-painting a bikini on a nude woman.

"The way I look at it," Sylvia said, "it was a very unusual canvas, but it was art. And the end result, it just blew my mind. I could not believe that paint would have that effect."

Though uncertain where the e-mail originated, he thinks the photos may have been taken at an annual body-painting festival held in Key West, Fla.

"It's a big deal down there, and it's been going on for years," Sylvia said. "And these women walk down the street wearing nothing but paint, and nobody knows it."

Jeff Sheler, (757) 222-5563, jeff.sheler@pilotonline.com