Hearing officer upholds firing of Parole Board employee

A state hearing officer has upheld the decision to fire a Parole Board employee who changed the parole conditions imposed on an inmate who was her brother.

As a staff member, Aletta Pebenito typed official parole board orders setting conditions for inmates being released from prison.

During the hearing process for her brother, who was incarcerated on drug charges, she specifically requested a condition be added which would prohibit her brother from having any contact with his former wife.

When the board voted to release Reno Tolentino, members decided not to impose that condition because there was no evidence she was part of the cause of his drug abuse.

But Pebenito added the condition when she typed the official order.

The agency terminated her and she appealed, arguing she had presented the change to one of the commissioners and he had approved it.

Hearing officer Angela Cartwright disagreed, saying the evidence contradicts Pebenito. She found that Pebenito accessed confidential records relating to Tolentino and used the information to try influence the parole board, that she used her position to try influence employees at the Division of Parole and Probation, and tried to discredit the Department of Public Safety by claiming falsely that the board and the Division of Investigation had threatened the safety of herself and her brother.

The opinion points out that any change to parole conditions must be approved by the majority of the board, not one commissioner. It says Pebenito admitted destroying the original order by shredding it and preparing a new one with the additional "no contact" condition added to Tolentino's official "order granting parole."

"In the hearing officer's opinion, the alteration of an official document involving the parole of an offender is sufficient in and of itself to warrant dismissal in this case," Cartwright wrote in her opinion.

Contact Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.