By A.C. Thompson

ARBITRATOR ROBIN MATT on Jan. 18 handed Gary Thompson his job back and ruled that he should receive a fat check for lost wages, overtime, and interest. Thompson is the dude we profiled in our Jan. 12 cover story, "The Fall Guy," a man who put in 13 years as a counselor for San Francisco's Juvenile Probation Department before being fired in August 2003.

"I'm innocent. This thing was fabricated," Thompson told us, before thanking the arbitrator for "giving me a chance to put my life back together" after the "complete destruction of my career."

"The arbitrator's fundamental finding was there was 'no credible evidence' to discharge Mr. Thompson," said his attorney, W. Daniel Boone, who was retained by Thompson's union, Service Employees International Union Local 790.

Thompson was booted from his position at the Log Cabin Ranch School, a correctional institution for teenage felons, for allegedly doing a remarkably dumb thing: according to his bosses, he brought a loaded handgun to the facility and allowed a group of boys to check out and even handle the firearm. Thompson also purportedly let inmates play with a second weapon, an extendable metal police baton. Unlike guards at the city jail, staffers at Log Cabin are barred from bringing any weapon to work.

The charges against Thompson were supported by a detective from the City Attorney's Office who conducted a yearlong probe.

But late last year the two prisoners whose statements had led to Thompson's dismissal recanted their stories. In sworn testimony, the adolescents, both key witnesses, claimed they'd been pawns in a scheme to oust Thompson, a plot masterminded by Log Cabin head Don Sanders.

"This was all a story made up," one said, according to an interview transcript entered into evidence during the arbitration proceedings. "And I hate to be a part of it, but I was."

Sanders, they said, had pressured them to spin a yarn that would get Thompson fired; in exchange they got preferential treatment. If that's true, the pact mimicked the sort of unholy alliances sometimes struck between grown-up cons and guards in the state prison system, arrangements that have led to several criminal indictments in recent years.

Reached by phone, Sanders declined to comment.

The arbitrator's 26-page ruling is scathing, portraying the investigation of Thompson as more of a witch hunt than a serious effort to discern whether he was guilty. According to Matt, the statements used to terminate Thompson bore "many of the hallmarks of wholly or partially fabricated stories," were strikingly "inconsistent," and were full of "factual conflicts."

Matt goes on to suggest Thompson was the target of a selective prosecution, with department staffers and city investigators failing to (or choosing not to) follow up on incendiary charges leveled at other Log Cabin employees. One inmate, Matt writes, "made allegations of drug abuse and sexual misconduct against a number of LCR staff members ... which, as far as the record reveals, were not investigated."

While the arbitrator stops short of saying Thompson was framed by Sanders or anyone else, he does say that "it cannot be concluded that a fair or adequate investigation" was conducted by the city.

The Juvenile Probation Department is currently lacking a permanent director. Former chief probation officer Gwendolyn Tucker suddenly departed in August after her name appeared in the daily newspapers in connection to a probe of her office. She was replaced on a temporary basis by department insider William Johnston.

Johnston wouldn't comment on what the case says about the department or whether anyone was looking into the deals Sanders purportedly cut with inmate, referring questions on the matter to the City Attorney's Office.

Matt Dorsey, a spokesperson for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, said, "These were extremely serious allegations, and the city would've been derelict if we didn't treat them as seriously as we did." He described the probe as "thorough and impartial" and noted that the arbitrator didn't find any "animus or bad faith on the part of the city."

Though the Thompson saga seems to be winding down, there's still plenty of fear and loathing in the juvenile justice system. On Dec. 16 an employee at the Youth Guidance Center, another city-run juvenile jail, sent a letter to several city officials asking them to "protect my person while working at my job site" because "I fear for my life."

The cause of all this terror? Not an exceptionally unruly teen prisoner, but, the employee alleged, a boss brandishing a nail-studded two-by-four. "It's like a sadistic soap opera, all day every day," said the employee, whom we interviewed in a quiet restaurant not far from the juvenile jail. The manager "shouldn't be working with kids. He shouldn't be working anywhere, probably."

Another employee backed up the allegations. According to the source, this particular boss has a propensity for using terms like "motherfucker," "bitch," "that lying sack of shit," and "that lying little faggot" when referring to colleagues and underlings, and "has a long track record of verbally abusing" staffers.

Asked about the new charges, Johnston responded, "Generally, I happen to think employees are treated very well here.... We do not put up with any manager mistreating any employee."

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