Why did Judge Linda Teodosio fire a model detention officer?

But Teodosio didn't seem to appreciate publicity when she wasn't front and center. A month later, she issued a memo warning employees that "it has come to my attention that some employees are having contact with children involved with the Court outside the scope of their assigned duties. While I certainly have no difficulty with words of encouragement and support during the course of chance meetings in public places, it is contrary to long-standing Court policy for any of you to engage in meetings with youth outside your assigned duties."

To Asbury, the memo was vague at best. She knew there was a downside to entanglements with inmates. After all, she once ratted out an officer after discovering that he was dating a 14-year-old inmate. She also complained about an officer who bragged of her pot use on her MySpace page, which Asbury was worried the kids could find.

But letters? Encouraging words?

So Asbury went to Robert Scalise, the court's policy writer. "He couldn't find a thing amongst the policies that said the girls couldn't contact us from outside the court," she says.

Moreover, Teodosio had her own relationships with inmates. Among her favorites was Jaclyn Billings. Teodosio attended Billings' soccer games and allowed her to do homework in the judge's chambers. She was also aware that Billings corresponded with Asbury and Hankton, sending them e-mails and updates about her life outside Dan Street. "I've been so busy with school, soccer, homework, Crossroads, AA meetings, and my life," Billings wrote Asbury. "Everything's been going real good . . . I'm so proud of myself for once."

But things weren't really as good as advertised. In 2006, Billings hanged herself in her mother's basement, just two months after Teodosio gave her an early release from detention. "She wasn't ready," Asbury says. "She couldn't take the outside world yet. When she died, I actually cried with the judge. She consoled me. Everyone in detention was allowed to go to the calling hours."

But Teodosio's condolences seemed to end with Billings.

In February 2007, a former inmate found Asbury through MySpace. When the girl began sending messages, Asbury was careful to notify the girl's probation officer. In four e-mails, Asbury simply asked her to stay out of trouble and keep her grades up. But her superiors were unimpressed.

Two weeks later, Asbury received a "last-chance letter."

"The court is concerned that you are unable to exercise appropriate boundaries with the youth you supervise," reads the reprimand. "If you continue to engage in any behavior inappropriate to your conduct as a Detention Officer, your employment will be terminated."

Asbury wasn't pleased. She highlighted the hypocrisy by pointing out all the letters and calls that other officers, teachers, judges, and magistrates received from former inmates. She also complained that after receiving the notice, her bosses continued to place letters from other girls in her mailbox. She said she was willing to make the changes they wanted, but was confused about the boundaries.

"I didn't feel that [the girl] contacting me through MySpace was out of the realm of the public space, where I was offering words of encouragement," Asbury says. "I was up front with these people about it. And I think that's why I got fired."

For the next several months, Asbury believed her superiors were looking for any way to fire her. In March 2007, Assistant Court Administrator Steven Stahl, a Teodosio appointee who was also her neighbor and the former police chief of Munroe Falls, thought he'd found a reason.

A Dan Street frequent flyer named Jasmine Hooks had recently returned. She and Asbury had never gotten along. "She was always saying how she was gonna work on getting Miss A fired," says Whitney Yates, a former inmate who served time with Hooks. "She was just angry. Always saying racial things to us. She called me a blue-eyed devil. And seriously, I think that's why she had trouble with Miss A."

On March 13, Hooks had a hearing in front of Teodosio. Asbury sat with her as she waited to go to court. "She started running her mouth, informing me that she was going to get me fired when she went to talk to the judge," Asbury says. "I just ignored her."

But as Asbury got ready to leave work that day, she was called into a meeting with Stahl.

During her hearing, Hooks told the judge that Asbury had been telling the other girls that she had genital warts and that they shouldn't sit next to her. Asbury, busy in detention, wasn't there to defend herself.