Andover Town Manager Andrew Flanagan had “overwhelming evidence” to justify firing former Andover Youth Services Director William Fahey and “no reasonable finder of fact could decide otherwise,” according to court documents filed earlier this month in Essex County Superior Court.
The argument was included in Flanagan’s request for summary judgement in Fahey’s wrongful termination lawsuit against him and included more than 200 pages of exhibits, including depositions, Facebook posts, and text messages Fahey exchanged with a former AYS client identified in court documents as MJ.
The parties are scheduled to be in court for a pre-trial conference on Flanagan’s motion on Aug. 1. The Andover Select Board is scheduled to discuss the case in a closed-door executive session when it meets Wednesday.
In his original 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.
The allegations in Flanagan’s filing include a claim that Fahey brought a pornographic video to MJ’s mother’s house after learning she was working in the adult film industry and told her mother “MJ had made a move on him.” The girl’s mother claimed her daughter told her Fahey had kissed her.
In his response to Flanagan’s motion, Fahey characterized his interactions with MJ as “helping a family in need” and said he met with the girl after receiving a series of concerning text messages in 2016, three years after she graduated from Andover High School. The filing also reasserts Fahey’s denials of inappropriate behavior and notes the Essex County District attorney’s office determined no criminal conduct had occurred when it reviewed the case.
“It is unclear how the Town determined the information was ‘credible’,” the filing said, noting MJ had not provided credible support for her allegations and made several inconsistent statements when she spoke with the investigator.
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 in a series of “very personal” text messages that were included as exhibits in Flanagan’s filing on July 1.
In January, a judge ruled Fahey would not be allowed to be present when MJ gave her deposition. MJ’s deposition was not included in the exhibits in the July 1 filing.
Fahey “often crossed boundaries by hugging program participants and telling them that he loved them,” the November district court 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.
“She denied the rumors about her daughter, whereupon Plaintiff provided her with her daughter’s stage name, and he helped her search and discover the pornographic material,” a summary of the investigator’s report in the unemployment claim ruling said.
Fahey’s “downloading pornographic material involving this vulnerable young woman and watching it with her mother was outrageous and way over the line of his professional duties…and could easily be construed as predatory,” Flanagan’s request for summary judgement said. For Fahey “to conclude that it was part of his job to sit with MJ’s mother and watch a video of her daughter performing in a pornographic movie was, frankly, sick.”
Fahey denied the allegation in his response.
“Flanagan stated that Fahey downloaded pornography on a town-owned device. This finding is not credible,” the document said. “Fahey did not have a Town owned laptop at the time and denies downloading pornographic materials to show to MJ’s mother.”