Williams v. Stoddard

• Decision Date: 11 February 2015
• Docket Number: C.A. No. PC 12-3664
• Court: Rhode Island Superior Court
• Parties: DANIEL WILLIAMS, Plaintiff, v. LEAH STODDARD f/k/a LEAH WILLIAMS, PAUL M. MARTELLINI, in his capacity as Acting Chief of Police of the North Providence Police Department, NORTH PROVIDENCE POLICE DEPARTMENT, and THOMAS MASSARO, in his capacity as the Finance Director of the Town of North Providence, Defendants.

DANIEL WILLIAMS, Plaintiff, v. LEAH STODDARD f/k/a LEAH WILLIAMS, PAUL M. MARTELLINI, in his capacity asActing Chief of Police of the North Providence Police Department, NORTH PROVIDENCEPOLICE DEPARTMENT, and THOMAS MASSARO, in his capacity as the FinanceDirector of the Town of North Providence, Defendants.

C.A. No. PC 12-3664

STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS PROVIDENCE, SC. SUPERIOR COURT

February 11, 2015

DECISION

GIBNEY, P.J. This matter came before the Court for a jury-waived trial on June 2 through June 6, 2014. The Plaintiff, Daniel Williams (Williams), filed suit against Defendants Leah Stoddard (Stoddard), his ex-wife, and the North Providence Police Department (the NPPD), his employer, for invasion of privacy and violations of the Federal Wiretap Act (FWA), the Rhode Island Wiretap Act (RIWA), the Stored Communications Act (SCA) and Rhode Island's computer crime and trespass laws. Williams also named as Defendants Acting Chief of the NPPD Paul Martellini (Martellini) and North Providence Finance Director Thomas Massaro (Massaro) (collectively, with Stoddard, the Defendants). At the close of all evidence, Defendants moved pursuant to Super. R. Civ. P. 52(c) (Rule 52(c)) for judgment against Williams, who objected to the motion. Jurisdiction is pursuant to G.L. 1956 § 8-2-13.

IStandard of Review

A non-jury trial is governed by Super. R. Civ. P. 52(a), which provides that "[i]n all actions tried upon the facts without a jury . . . the court shall find the facts specially and state separately its conclusions of law thereon." In a bench trial, therefore, "[t]he trial justice sits as a trier of fact as well as of law." Hood v. Hawkins, 478 A.2d 181, 184 (R.I. 1984). "The task of determining the credibility of witnesses is peculiarly the function of the trial justice when sitting without a jury." Walton v. Baird, 433 A.2d 963, 964 (R.I. 1981).

Although the trial justice is required to make specific findings of fact and conclusions of law, "brief findings will suffice as long as they address and resolve the controlling factual and legal issues." White v. LeClerc, 468 A.2d 289, 290 (R.I. 1983); see also Super. R. Civ. P. 52(a). As such, a trial justice sitting as a finder of fact "need not 'categorically accept or reject each piece of evidence'" or "resolve every disputed factual contention that may arise during a trial." Notarantonio v. Notarantonio, 941 A.2d 138, 147 (R.I. 2008) (quoting Narragansett Elec. Co. v. Carbone, 898 A.2d 87, 102 (R.I. 2006)). The trial justice's findings, however, must be supported by "competent evidence." Tim Hennigan Co. v. Anthony A. Nunes, Inc., 437 A.2d 1355, 1357 (R.I. 1981).

IIFindings of Fact

Having reviewed the evidence presented by all parties, the Court makes the following findings of fact. Williams is employed as a police officer by the NPPD. On June 6, 2009, Williams married Stoddard. Within the first year of their marriage, Stoddard began to suspect Williams of infidelity. In order to confirm her suspicions, Stoddard purchased a surveillancesoftware program in March 2010 and installed it on the laptop computer that both she and Williams used at home. The surveillance software included a "keylogger" function that recorded all keystrokes entered into the computer's keyboard, a screenshot function that captured images of what the computer screen was displaying every five minutes, and a function that logged every website visited on the computer's web browser. The surveillance software stored this data on the computer's hard drive in a file to which Stoddard had access.

For approximately one month, Stoddard recorded Williams' computer activities without his knowledge. During that time, Stoddard, using the keylogger data from the surveillance software, obtained Williams' log-in credentials for his email account, various social media accounts—including his Facebook and MySpace webpages—and various online dating services—including his Ashley Madison¹ and Cougar Life² profiles. Prior to using the keylogger program, Stoddard was not privy to Williams' log-in credentials because Williams never shared them with her. Stoddard used these log-in credentials to access Williams' accounts and then read, printed out, or emailed to herself various emails and instant message conversations that Williams had exchanged with various other women. Among the email correspondence that Stoddard discovered was a message containing a photograph of Williams' genitalia, which Williams had sent to a person he met online, and messages containing partially nude photos of a woman. Stoddard also captured screenshots of Williams' online activity, which depicted, among other activity, pornography and an instant message conversation between Williams and another woman. Williams discovered the surveillance software on the couple's computer on April 12, 2010, at which time he deactivated it and confronted Stoddard. The couple then separated, andStoddard soon filed for divorce.³

On April 16, 2010, several days after Williams discovered the surveillance software on the laptop, Stoddard contacted Lieutenant Kristian Calise (Calise) of the NPPD's Internal Affairs Department (Internal Affairs) and told him that she had information that Williams had engaged in improper activities while on duty. Stoddard told Calise that she could support her accusation with data that she had collected from the computer on which she had installed the surveillance software. Calise and Stoddard met in person later that evening while he was on duty at a Shaw's Supermarket in North Providence. When Stoddard expressed some hesitancy about turning over the surveillance data, Calise informed her that although she was under no obligation to give him the data, he might not be able to take disciplinary action against Williams without it. Calise and Stoddard then arranged to meet again at Panera Bread in Seekonk, Massachusetts on April 20, 2010. Stoddard's mother and Captain Brendon Furtado (Furtado) of the NPPD were also present at this meeting at which Stoddard gave Calise and Furtado a folder containing printed copies of several emails that Williams had sent to other women. Stoddard also brought her laptop to the April 20, 2010 meeting and allowed Calise or Furtado to copy all of the data that she had captured with the surveillance software, including records of online activity and communications in which Williams engaged while he was using the computer at home.

After receiving the surveillance data from Stoddard, Calise decided to investigate whether Williams was again engaging in behavior for which he had previously been disciplined. In March of 2007, Williams had been suspended from duty for fifty days after a woman whom he had encountered while on duty complained to the NPPD that Williams had contacted her via Facebook to make sexual advances. Williams had learned this woman's name by running herlicense plate number through the Rhode Island Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (RILETS), the database that the NPPD officers use to look up information on motorists by their license plate numbers. Thus, when Stoddard approached Calise with her concerns that some of Williams' online activities might have occurred while he was on duty, Calise promptly commenced an investigation to determine whether Williams had again been using RILETS to find out the names of women he encountered while on duty and to later contact them via Facebook.⁴ In furtherance of his investigation, Calise accessed the publically-available version of Williams' Facebook webpage, for which Calise did not need Williams' log-in credentials to access, and obtained a list of Williams' Facebook "friends."⁵ On April 21, 2010, Calise requested from Captain Paul Ricci of the NPPD information on license plate numbers that Williams had run through RILETS. Calise then cross-referenced Williams' list of Facebook friends with women whose license plate numbers Williams had looked up in RILETS while on duty. Finding that Williams had contacted on Facebook several women whose names he had obtained by running their license plate numbers through RILETS, as well as a domestic violence victim whom Williams met when responding to her call for help after her boyfriend physically attacked her, Calise contacted and interviewed the women. These women corroborated thatWilliams had first met them while he was carrying out his duties as a police officer and had then contacted them via Facebook or other social media websites. At least one woman believed that Williams contacted her for the purpose of initiating a sexual relationship.

After amassing evidence that he believed was sufficient to terminate Williams' job with the NPPD, Calise initiated disciplinary proceedings and formally examined Williams at the NPPD Professional Standards Unit on November 1, 2010. During this examination, Williams acknowledged contacting, via Facebook or over the telephone, several people whose names he learned through his position as a police officer. Williams further admitted that he contacted these people, mostly women, for "social" reasons and not for law enforcement purposes. In addition, Williams admitted to taking a photograph of his genitalia while on duty in his police cruiser and emailing it to a person he had met online. Williams also admitted to opening emails that contained photographs of a partially nude woman while he was on duty.

On March 28, 2012, Internal Affairs filed a complaint against Williams pursuant to the Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights (LEOBOR), G.L. 1956 §§ 42-28.6-1 through 42-28.617. The complaint alleged that Williams had engaged in conduct unbecoming a police officer and had conducted personal business while on duty. The complaint also included charges of incompetence, violation of the NPPD rules of behavior, and insubordination. In accordance with § 42-28.6-4(a), Internal Affairs notified Williams that he was entitled to a "LEOBOR hearing" at which he would be...