Boston Water and Sewer says it fired embattled HR director amid civil fraud complaint

The Boston Water and Sewer Commission now says that it fired its former human resources director Marie Theodat, after previously saying only that her employment had ended.

Theodat, who is embroiled in several civil lawsuits that include fraud allegations and was the subject of three internal investigations commissioned by her ex-employer, was fired on April 18, the Water and Sewer Commission told the Herald in response to a public records request.

“The Commission confirms that Ms. Theodat was placed on paid administrative leave on Dec. 2, 2024 and that her employment was terminated on April 18, 2025,” Dolores Randolph, a Commission spokesperson, wrote in last week’s records response.

The Commission had previously stated that Theodat was on paid leave, but until this week, had not shared what date her prior suspension became effective. A reason was not given for her termination. She was paid a $202,873 annual salary.

Randolph said the Commission was withholding the related notices provided to Theodat, generally pertaining to “core categories of information such as ‘disciplinary documentation,’ and ‘promotion, demotion or termination information,” due to a “personnel” or “privacy” exemption under public records law.

“The Commission does not possess any documents that set forth a reason for Ms. Theodat’s termination,” Randolph wrote. “The Commission notes that Ms. Theodat was an at-will employee, which means the employer or the employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time, with or without notice, and for any lawful reason or no reason at all.”

Theodat did not respond to a request for comment.

Unlike the Commission’s ex-counsel general Michael Flaherty, who was fired this past January due to what the Commission called a “breakdown” in his “working relationship” with the agency’s Executive Director Henry Vitale, there was no separation agreement that went along with Theodat’s termination, Randolph said.

The Commission entered into a settlement agreement with Flaherty under which it paid its ex-general counsel $253,670, or a little more than his annual salary, on conditions that he won’t sue or disparage the agency. Flaherty was a Boston city councilor for about two decades before joining the Commission in early 2024.

No such agreement exists for Theodat, according to the Commission.

“Ms. Theodat has not entered into a severance or separation agreement with the Commission,” Randolph wrote.

Randolph did not respond to a Herald inquiry about whether Theodat’s termination came with a buyout, for pay that includes unused vacation, personal and sick time.

The Commission is a quasi-public agency and its payroll data is not publicly posted online like City of Boston and state employee payroll records.

Theodat was promoted just last September by the Commission and given a raise earlier in 2024, as part of a 61% pay hike she had received since 2019.

Her promotion, from human resources director to chief human resource officer, came after she was named as a defendant in a Suffolk Superior Court lawsuit that alleges she worked with relatives to swindle her elderly and dementia-ridden uncle out of his $1.1 million Dorchester home.

The lawsuit, filed in August 2024 and first reported by the Herald last September, alleges Theodat “fraudulently induced” her uncle, the plaintiff Rodolphe St. Cloud, to sign over the deed to his longtime home under the “guise” that he was signing documents related to his medical care.

At the time, another Superior Court lawsuit had been pending against Theodat, alleging that she stiffed a woman on a $75,000 mortgage loan. A jury last fall ruled in favor of the woman who filed suit in 2020 against Theodat, after a nearly weeklong trial, and ordered her to pay $72,000 to the plaintiff.

After both lawsuits came to light, a trio of unions representing Water and Sewer Commission employees began pressuring the Commission to investigate and suspend Theodat while the “severe” allegations leveled against her in civil lawsuits played out in court.

The unions, SEIU Local 888, IAM Local 100 and OPEIU Local 6, sent a letter to Vitale, the executive director, raising concerns about Theodat’s “personal access to sensitive information such as banking numbers, routing information” and social security numbers.

About a week before Theodat’s termination, the Commission released public records to the Herald, in response to a records request and appeal, that revealed the Commission had paid for three separate investigations into its ex-HR director.

The investigations included “allegations of misconduct,” the Commission said in a records response last month.

Nearly $30,000 was billed to the Commission in August and December 2024 for two investigations of an undisclosed nature, conducted by two separate law firms. One internal investigation into Theodat was also conducted by the Commission, at a cost that was not disclosed by the quasi-public agency, records show.

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The first commissioned investigation took place between July 16 and July 30 of last year, according to an Aug. 5 invoice from ADR Research that was sent to Flaherty, the Commission’s general counsel at the time.

Two other invoices for commissioned investigation work into Theodat, conducted by Serino Law, were sent last December to Nixon Peabody, an outside law firm that now appears to be handling the bulk of the Commission’s legal responsibilities.

Per Commission records, Nixon Peabody was hired on a contractual basis in late October of last year for $350,000, and was retained again this past January for a $500,000 contract that extends throughout the end of this year.

A third investigation was conducted by members of the Commission’s salaried staff, Randolph wrote last month, so no additional fees or expenses were incurred in connection with that review.

Headquarters of the Boston Water and Sewer Commission. (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald)

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