An Essex Superior Court judge denied ousted Andover Youth Services Director William Fahey’s motion to vacate a nondisclosure agreement in his lawsuit against Andover Town Manager Andrew Flanagan and the Town.
In his complaint, Fahey said Flanagan “targeted” him for termination for more than five years before firing him on May 10, 2021. The firing came after the town-commissioned, independent investigation found Flanagan had “sufficient evidence” to fire Fahey. Andover denied most of the allegations in Fahey’s lawsuit in its response to the complaint. Fahey has repeatedly denied the allegations and disputes the independent investigator’s report. His firing led to the resignation of AYS’s entire full-time staff in September 2021.
Fahey’s lawyers argued the NDA was the “basis for the termination” in a May 30 hearing. The NDA was filed for an Investigative Report of Discrimination and Harassment Solutions. Judge Kristen Buxton denied the motion.
In January, the court ruled Fahey would not be allowed to be a present when the witness at the center of his lawsuit gave her deposition. Lawyers for Flanagan requested the protective order earlier this month, saying her “mental health will be harmed if she is forced to be in the same room with Mr. Fahey.” The woman, identified only as MJ in court documents, provided information that Fahey “engaged in improper conduct with a minor,” leading to a Town investigation and, ultimately, his termination.
In court documents, Judge Elizabeth Dunigan said allowing Fahey to be present at the deposition in California raised “the risk of annoyance, embarrassment, mental anguish to the witness.”
According to documents released in November from Fahey’s appeal in Lawrence District Court of the Town’s denial of his unemployment claim, the investigator found he overstepped boundaries, including counseling MJ, a former AYS client who worked in the pornography business, in a series of “very personal” text messages, according to previously undisclosed portions of the report.
Fahey “often crossed boundaries by hugging program participants and telling them that he loved them,” the ruling said. The ruling also said Fahey went to the home of MJ’s mother in 2016 after learning she had moved to California and was working in pornography.